The Officer's Runaway Wife & Secret Son novel Chapter 559

Over the next few days, Rhys underwent aggressive rehabilitation therapy at the hospital.

Miraculously, he hadn't sustained any catastrophic physical trauma. His collapse was purely the result of acute oxygen deprivation and extreme cardiopulmonary overload, triggered by pushing his body to the absolute limit.

However, the devastating strain inevitably accelerated the aggressive spread of his pulmonary fibrosis.

Dr. Black pulled Clara into his office for a private consultation.

They were rapidly running out of conservative treatment options. Pumping him full of drugs and relying on oxygen machines was no longer sustainable; he urgently needed a viable lung transplant.

And if they didn't find one in time?

Clara was too terrified to ask the question.

Voicing it out loud meant acknowledging the horrific reality of the answer.

It would be fine. They just had to wait.

There were thousands of hospitals and massive national databases. A match was bound to turn up. He was already on the priority list. They just had to hold on.

She repeated the mantra over and over in her head until her lips violently trembled. Finally, fighting back a suffocating wave of despair, she staggered out of the office.

She never breathed a word of the doctor's grim prognosis to Rhys.

She kept her agonizing silence, and he never pressed her for the truth.

He diligently swallowed his pills and endured every excruciating scan without complaint.

She brought Felix back home. Every morning, after dropping him off at kindergarten, she rushed straight to the hospital to stand vigil, only leaving to pick him up right as the final bell rang.

Felix had asked twice about why his dad hadn't come home yet.

The first time was over dinner. He tilted his head, staring at the empty seat across from him. "Is Dad's secret mission really hard?"

"It's a little tough, but he's incredible. He'll be finished before you know it."

The second time was right before bed. Tucked under his covers, he asked, "Will he tell me all about it when he gets back?"

"He absolutely will."

Mother and son maintained their daily routine. They ate, read bedtime stories, brushed their teeth, and went to sleep.

From dawn to dusk, bleeding into the dead of night.

During the day, she was the impossibly organized, flawless Clara. She managed every crisis, handled every detail, and never allowed a single crack to show in her armor.

But the nights were a completely different story.

All the suffocating terror she violently suppressed during the day would claw its way to the surface the moment the house fell silent.

Her insomnia became increasingly unbearable.

But she couldn't say a word.

This was Huntington family business; it was Mia's burden to bear.

Mia had chosen to personally deliver the fatal blow, and she had deliberately kept the circle of knowledge impossibly tight. What Clara had overheard in that stairwell was a desperate attempt by an elder to honor a dead man's final wish and protect his only heir.

Clara had absolutely no right to steal that truth from them.

She shook her head. "Why are you looking at me? If he doesn't know, how could I?"

Daniel smoothly retracted his gaze, neither confirming nor denying her obvious lie, and simply relayed what he had uncovered.

"I ran into the Huntington family's lead counsel on my way here. We exchanged pleasantries, and he casually dropped the bombshell."

Massive scandals like this never stayed buried for long in their elite circles. Daniel's tone was completely detached. "Apparently, Mia personally filed the charges. She handed over every single original ledger, bank receipt, and offshore wire transfer proving Veronica systematically bled the family's international projects dry right before her second marriage."

Rhys listened in deadly silence.

Right before her second marriage.

That meant even before his father had died in the line of duty, Veronica was already plotting to drain their accounts.

Ever since middle school, his grandfather had been impossibly strict with him. While the old man spared absolutely no expense on his education, he was always terrifyingly frugal when it came to distributing family dividends and corporate resources.