Chapter 3: What the Camera Saw
Marcus was still looking at me.
That doubt in his eyes hadn't left.
It had settled in, quiet and heavy, like it planned to stay.
"Khloe." His voice was lower now.
Careful.
"What is she talking about?"
"Nothing," I said.
"She's trying to confuse you.
That's what she does."
Isabella's eyes snapped away from her phone screen.
Whatever the message had said, she had buried it fast.
The composure was back — not the fake-tears version, something colder.
"Is it nothing?" She set the phone face-down on the table.
"Or is it something you don't want your husband to know?"
"Isabella." Marcus turned to her.
"You are going to stop talking."
"I'm trying to help you, Marcus." She pressed one hand flat against her collarbone.
"I know that's hard to believe right now.
But I am."
"Help me." He repeated it like the words didn't fit his mouth.
"You had your heel on my pregnant wife's body."
"She fell.
I was trying to—"
"Don't." The word came out quiet.
Final.
"Don't say that again."
A nurse appeared in the doorway.
She took one look at the three of us — me still on the floor, Marcus standing between us like a wall, Isabella with the red mark blooming across her cheek — and stepped fully inside.
"I need everyone to lower their voices.
This is a medical ward." She moved toward me, crouching down.
"Ma'am, can you stand?
I need to check you and the baby right now."
"The baby." Marcus's face changed.
He was beside me in two steps, his hand on my arm.
"Khloe, can you stand?"
"Yes." I let him help me up.
My legs held.
Barely.
The nurse guided me toward the bed, her hand firm and steady at my back.
She didn't look at Isabella.
She didn't need to.
"I'm calling the attending physician," she said.
"Everyone who is not the patient needs to step outside."
"I'm her husband."
"You can stay." She glanced at Isabella.
"You cannot."
Isabella didn't move immediately.
She stood there for three full seconds, long enough to make it clear she was choosing to leave, not being removed.
Then she picked up her phone, tucked it into her bag, and walked to the door.
She paused with her hand on the frame.
"The camera footage is hospital property, Marcus." She didn't turn around.
"You'll need a formal request to access it.
That takes time." A beat.
"A lot can happen in that time."
She left.
The door swung shut behind her.
Marcus stood at the foot of my bed, watching the closed door.
His jaw was tight.
His hands were at his sides.
"What did she mean by that?" he said.
"She's stalling." I pressed my hand against my belly.
The baby moved — one slow roll, then stillness.
I exhaled.
"She knows what's on that recording.
She's trying to get to it before we do."
"Then we move faster than she does." He pulled out his phone.
"I'm calling the hospital administrator right now."
"Marcus—"
"No." He was already dialing.
"She put her foot on you.
On our child.
There is no version of this where I wait."
I watched him pace to the window, phone to his ear.
His reflection moved across the glass, sharp and certain.
But Isabella's words were still sitting in my chest like something swallowed wrong.
*Ask her who she called.
Ask her what she said.*
There was a reason she'd said that specifically.
May you like
There was something on that recording she thought she could use.
And I needed to remember — exactly — what I had said in this room before Marcus walked through that door.
