Chapter 41 - THE CALL IN THE NIGHT
At two seventeen in the morning, Emma's phone rang.
She opened her eyes and saw Noah's name on the screen.
Her heart immediately tightened.
“Noah?”
His voice was calm, but she could hear the exhaustion beneath it.
“Emma, I need you to sit down.”
Lorenzo woke beside her.
“What happened?”
Emma pressed the phone closer.
“Noah?”
“There was an accident at the hospital.”
Her blood ran cold.
“Are you hurt?”
“No. I'm okay.”
She exhaled.
“Then who?”
“A young woman. Twenty-three. Her name is Mara. She was brought in after a car accident. She has no family here.”
Emma sat upright.
“Where is she now?”
“Stable, but she needs surgery. There's another problem.”
“What?”
“She has a little daughter. Six years old. She's downstairs alone.”
Emma and Lorenzo exchanged a look.
Within twenty minutes, they were dressed and driving through the sleeping streets of Chicago.
When Emma reached the hospital, she found a little girl curled up on a plastic chair, clutching a pink backpack.
Emma crouched beside her.
“Hi.”
The girl looked up cautiously.
“Are you Mara's daughter?”
She nodded.
“Where's Mommy?”
Emma's throat tightened.
“She has some doctors helping her.”
“Is she going to die?”
Emma reached for the girl's hand.
“I don't know what will happen yet.”
The child began to cry.
Emma pulled her gently into her arms.
“But you don't have to be alone.”
Across the hallway, Lorenzo watched silently.
He knew that look on Emma's face.
The same look she had carried the night she met Elena.
May you like
The look of someone who had already decided.
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