Chapter 43

The Thornton family, hiding in the shadows, trembled in fear, their limbs frozen with terror.

Meanwhile, inside the emergency room, Ethan Blackwood stood beside the doctor, his gaze fixed on Sophia Montgomery. She lay unconscious, her delicate features twisted in discomfort. Her thick lashes, usually so striking, were now damp with tears, clinging lifelessly to her fever-flushed cheeks. Her face, no larger than his palm, burned with an unnatural heat.

Before Ethan had arrived, Sophia had been murmuring deliriously.

"Baby… don’t leave me… please… I have no one else… I’m so alone… I need you…"

Her voice was so broken, so desperate, that even the hardened doctor beside her had to blink back tears.

Ethan’s expression remained icy.

"Aside from the antipyretics, you’re using physical cooling?"

"Yes," the doctor confirmed.

"Then do it." His command was sharp, and the medical team sprang into action.

Modern physical cooling was far more advanced than the old methods, but it was still an ordeal. The doctors guided Sophia into a chilled chamber, and all male staff exited—except for Ethan.

A female nurse hesitated. "Sir, you should—"

"I’m her man," he cut in, his tone brooking no argument.

Before she could protest, he had already begun unbuttoning Sophia’s clothes himself. With damp towels and cooling pads, he worked methodically, wiping down every heat point—her neck, her wrists, the backs of her knees.

An hour later, her fever finally broke.

The doctors administered herbal remedies safe for the pregnancy, and by noon, Sophia’s temperature had stabilized. She was moved to a general ward, where Ethan remained, unmoving, at her bedside.

His assistant, Nathan Carter, arrived briefly to deliver urgent updates, but Ethan dismissed him just as quickly.

Then the calls started.

"Handle it."

"No negotiations. If they resist, buy them out."

"They beg for mercy now? Too late. Ship them to the mines in the Congo. Ten years. No exceptions."

"Don’t bother me with this again."

The harshness of his tone roused Sophia from her sleep. She kept her eyes closed, her face ashen.

She knew her baby was still there.

Even in her fevered haze, she had heard them—her child had saved her. They couldn’t risk strong medications, so they had cooled her body instead. And through it all, she had felt large, firm hands moving over her, relentless in their mission to bring her temperature down.

She didn’t need to wonder why Ethan had saved her.

She was still useful to his mother.

The thought of his hands on her skin sent a wave of humiliation through her.

In this city, she was nothing—a drifting leaf caught in the storm of powerful men.

Ethan Blackwood controlled everything. He could save her life just as easily as he could end it.

And Liam Sterling?

The charming aristocrat who had shown her kindness?

She knew better now.

Men like him only played games.