His Unwanted Bride, Another Man's Queen

Ella Farmer POV

I spent three days in the hospital. Arthur never came.

Not once.

The only person who kept vigil by my bedside was my grandmother, Hertha. She was seventy years old, a woman of soft hands and iron will, who hated the Mafia but loved me enough to tolerate the darkness that came with it.

She held my hand for hours, humming old lullabies, fiercely shielding me from the reality that my life had imploded.

On the day of my discharge, I noticed something wrong. The Mckay security detail that usually guarded her was missing.

Arthur had pulled them.

He had reassigned the men to guard Diana while she went shopping for shoes.

I was signing the final discharge papers when my phone rang. It was the police.

"Miss Farmer, there's been an accident."

My heart stopped beating.

"Your grandmother was struck by a vehicle crossing 5th Avenue. It was a hit and run."

Panic seized me. I ran to the Emergency Room, my hospital gown flapping around my legs, ignoring the nurses shouting after me to slow down.

The ER was absolute chaos.

I found a nurse behind the desk, frantically typing.

"Hertha Mills," I gasped, gripping the counter. "Where is she?"

"She's in trauma bay four," the nurse said, looking frazzled. "We're waiting for a vascular surgeon. She's bleeding internally."

"Where is the surgeon?" I screamed.

"He was called away to the VIP suite," she said, avoiding my eyes. "Mr. Mckay summoned the entire surgical team."

No.

No, this couldn't be happening.

I sprinted to the VIP elevators, slamming my hand against the button until the doors slid open.

When the doors opened on the top floor, the scene before me made my blood run cold.

Arthur was standing outside a suite, looking visibly annoyed. Diana was sitting in a wheelchair, holding a cloth to her nose.

"Arthur!" I screamed, running toward him.

He looked up, his eyes narrowing in distaste.

"Stop making a scene, Ella."

"My grandmother is dying in the ER!" I yelled, grabbing his lapels and shaking him. "You have the surgeons here! Send them down!"

He pushed my hands away, smoothing his suit jacket.

"Diana fainted," he said calmly. "She hit her nose. It might be broken."

"A broken nose?" I stared at him, horror washing over me. "Hertha is bleeding out! She needs a vascular surgeon now!"

"Family resources are for family," Arthur said, his voice ice. "Diana is family now. Your grandmother is a civilian."

He turned to the chief of surgery standing next to him, dismissing me entirely.

"Check her nose again. I want to make sure there's no deviation."

"Please," I begged, falling to my knees at his feet. "Arthur, please. I'm pregnant. She's the great-grandmother of your child."

He didn't hear me.

Or perhaps he simply chose not to believe me.

To him, it was just another lie, another desperate attempt to get attention.

"Security, remove Miss Farmer," he ordered.

Two guards dragged me backward toward the elevators.

I watched helplessly as the surgeon examined Diana's perfectly straight nose.

I screamed until my throat bled.

By the time I got back to the ER, the room had fallen into a terrible silence.

The monitor above trauma bay four was black.

A young intern walked out, pulling off bloody gloves with a defeated expression.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "We couldn't stop the bleeding in time."

I slid down the wall, the cold tile pressing against my cheek.

Hertha was dead.

Arthur had killed her just as surely as if he had been the one driving the car.

He came to the funeral two days later.

He wore black, looking somber, with Diana clinging to his arm like a parasite.

She whispered a fake apology to me, her eyes completely dry.

"It was an accident," she said. "Maybe if you hadn't distracted the guards with your drama, they would have been there to protect her."

Arthur nodded in agreement.

He pulled a check out of his jacket pocket and tried to hand it to me.

"For the expenses," he said.

I looked at the check.

It was for ten thousand dollars.

The price of my grandmother's life.

The price of my soul.

I didn't take it.

I looked at Arthur Mckay, the man I had planned to marry, the father of the baby growing inside me.

And I realized the man I loved was truly dead.

Only a monster remained.