Page 151 of Sweet Deception

I took a step forward. “And my baby?”

Silence.

Then one of the nurses stepped forward, a small bundle in her arms. I reached for my daughter, my heart hammering, but something was wrong.

She wasn’t moving.

She wasn’t crying.

I felt it before I even looked down. Her tiny body was too still.

My breath caught in my throat. No.

“The umbilical cord was compromised,” the doctor said, voice carefully neutral. “We are so sorry, Mr. Romanov.”

Sorry?

“Try again,” I snapped. “Revive her.”

“Mr. Romanov...”

“Do it!” I roared, gripping my gun. But the doctor only looked away, as if she already knew it was useless. The room was too quiet. Too final.

I stared at my daughter’s lifeless form. A scream built in my chest, but I swallowed it down. My body locked up, refusing to break.

I turned to Anna. She was barely conscious, lost in drugged sleep. If I was already breaking, how the hell would she survive this?

They failed her.

They failed me.

The last time we had come here, they had told us the baby was perfectly healthy. And now? Now they handed me a corpse.

I couldn’t accept it.

My hand trembled as I placed my daughter beside Anna, pressing a soft kiss to my wife’s forehead. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I whispered. “I failed you. I failed her.”

But I wasn’t done failing yet.

I turned back to the nurses. My fingers curled around my gun, my voice ice-cold. “Who do you work for?”

Their eyes widened.

I pressed my gun against the doctor’s temple.

“Her lips trembled. “I... I swear, the baby...”

“Was alive.”

She flinched.

I tilted my head. “Which means you’re either incompetent or a liar. Pick one.”

I clicked off the safety. “Did you kill my daughter?”

“Sir, we followed standard protocol. You can check the CCTV footage. We did everything we could...”

“Lies.” My voice was dead, devoid of anything but fury. “You let my child die.”