Chapter 5 - COLD VENGEANCE
Three hours passed—hours that felt like an eternity in hell.
At 6:45 a.m., the surgical doors swung open. Dr. Thorne stepped out, pulling off his surgical mask. He looked exhausted, his scrub top stained with blood.
Ethan sprang to his feet, trembling. "Doctor? Please... tell me."
Dr. Thorne took a deep breath, and for the first time that night, a weary smile touched his face. "It was extremely close, Mr. Cole. Another ten minutes, and we would have lost them both. But your wife is a fighter. The baby suffered oxygen deprivation, so we have placed her in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) on a ventilator, but her vital signs are stabilizing. Nora is out of surgery and resting in Recovery."
Ethan’s knees gave out. He slid against the wall, covering his face with his hands as heavy, shuddering gasps of relief racked his body. "They're alive... thank God... thank God..."
"You can see your daughter first in NICU," the doctor said softly. "She needs to hear her father's voice."
Ten minutes later, dressed in a yellow sterile gown, Ethan walked into the quiet warmth of the NICU. Inside a small glass incubator lay a tiny, fragile human being. Tubes and wires were attached to her tiny chest, but her fingers were curled into small fists.
Ethan approached the incubator, his eyes overflowing with tears. He reached through the side port and gently touched her tiny, warm hand with his finger. Her little hand instinctively wrapped around his thumb, gripping it tightly.
"Hi, my little miracle," Ethan choked out, his voice thick with emotion. "I'm your daddy. I’m so sorry... I almost lost you. But I swear to you, no one will ever hurt you or your mommy again. I will spend the rest of my life making this right."
As he stood by his daughter's incubator, the rage that had been buried under fear returned, cold, lethal, and absolute.
Ethan pulled out his phone. He dialed his head of private security, Marcus Vance, a former intelligence operative who reported directly to Ethan.
"Marcus," Ethan said, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp tone. "Where is Vanessa Reed?"
"She packed a bag and left her Manhattan penthouse forty minutes ago, Mr. Cole," Marcus replied instantly. "She booked a private jet out of Teterboro Airport bound for Switzerland under an alias. Her flight leaves at 8:00 a.m."
Ethan checked his watch. 7:15 a.m.
"She’s not leaving the country," Ethan said. "Contact the District Attorney, the SEC task force, and federal authorities. I am turning over all Cole Development servers, my personal records, and the burner phone containing her text messages instructing her hitman to murder my pregnant wife. Freeze every account linked to her shell companies."
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"And the hitman at the mill?" Marcus asked.
"He’s tied up at the Greylock police station. I beat him within an inch of his life. Make sure he talks." Ethan’s eyes darkened. "I’m heading to Teterboro myself."
