Unloved: Gabriella’s Quiet Revenge

The Aftermath

POV: Gabriella Hill

"Gabriella? Stay with me. Open your eyes," a soft, urgent voice pleaded through the haze.

I gasped, my lungs burning as if I had just surfaced from deep, icy water. The steady, rhythmic beep... beep... beep of a heart monitor filled the quiet room, replacing the terrifying scream of the flatline alarm that had echoed in my ears before the darkness took me.

"Easy, don't try to sit up just yet," Peter said gently, his warm hand resting on my shoulder to keep me in the right position.

My vision slowly adjusted to the bright, sterile white of the private recovery room. Peter was leaning over the edge of the bed, his face pale with exhaustion, dark circles bruising the skin under his amber eyes.

His lab coat was crumpled, his hair messy.

"Peter..." My voice was a cracked, dry rasp. My hand shot instantly to my lower abdomen, trembling violently over the thin hospital blanket.

"My babies... tell me... did I lose them?"

Tears pooled in my eyes, a sickening wave of dread threatening to drown me before he could even answer.

Peter’s tired expression softened into a faint, comforting smile. He reached out and gently closed his fingers over my trembling hand.

"They are safe, Gabriella," Peter whispered, his voice thick with relief. "Both of them. We had to perform an emergency procedure to stop the internal hemorrhage, and your heart stopped for twenty-two terrifying seconds... but the medication stabilized your womb in time. The fetal heartbeats are strong."

A choked sob broke from my throat, not of pain, but of pure, overwhelming gratitude. I buried my face in my hands, hot tears soaking into my palms.

"They're alive..." I breathed against my fingers. "My babies are alive..."

"They are fighters, just like their mother," Peter said softly, handing me a small cup of water with a straw. "Drink a little. Your body lost a critical amount of blood, Gabriella. You need total bed rest for at least forty-eight hours."

I took a small sip, the cool liquid soothing my raw throat, but my relief was quickly replaced by a sharp, cold dread as the memories of the night flooded back into my mind.

Sandra's mocking smirk on the landing.

Michael stepping right over my outstretched hand to cradle her in his arms.

His cruel, disgusted voice ordering the guards to lock me inside while I bled out on the floor.

"Did Michael... did he come here?" I asked, my voice trembling with a mixture of fear and bitter disgust.

Peter’s jaw tightened into a hard, angry line. "He doesn't know you're here. He thinks you're locked in your room at the estate. But an hour ago, his assistant called the city hospital network trying to track my whereabouts."

​"He will look for me," I said, my knuckles turning white against the bedsheet. "Not because he cares, but because I am his legal wife and his property in the eyes of the public. If he finds out I'm pregnant, he will try to take these children to protect the Khan name.”

"I won't let him touch you, Gabriella," Peter said firmly, pulling a leather folder from the bedside drawer and setting it on the tray table. "Which is why we have to make a choice right now. While you were under anesthesia, I prepared two documents."

He opened the folder.

On the left side was an official, signed divorce petition, granting Michael total release, on the right side was a set of forged emergency medical transfer records.

"What is this, Peter?" I asked, looking up at him.

"A clean break," Peter said, leaning closer so his voice barely carried across the room. "I have a chartered private medical flight leaving for a private clinic in the United Kingdom in a short while. It was originally booked to transport lab equipment and blood samples under my clinic's name."

He tapped the medical records on the right.

"I registered your name as the sole emergency patient on that manifest," Peter continued, his eyes dead serious.

"Once that plane reaches international airspace over the Atlantic, the pilot will issue a distress call and drop the transponder signal over the ocean trenches.

The world, and Michael Khan will believe the emergency transport crashed into the sea with no survivors."

My breath hitched. The room fell into absolute silence except for the steady hum of the monitor.

"You want me to die," I whispered.

"I want Gabriella Khan to die," Peter corrected gently, looking straight into my eyes. "The calm wife who gave up her brilliant tech career to be an ignored shadow in an empty mansion.

​"That woman has to vanish so the real Gabriella can arise."

​He placed a black pen in my hand.

"If you sign this divorce paper, you walk away from him, and save yourself. If you stay, you will spend the rest of your life watching him put Sandra first while fighting him for custody in a corrupt court he owns."

I stared at the pen resting in my cold fingers.

Four years flashed before my eyes. Four years of waking up early to take care of his clothing, cooking meals that went cold on the counter, sitting quietly in the corners of meetings while he treated me like a pest.

And the one night I needed him to save my life and the lives of his unborn children, he chose Sandra without a care in the world for me.

The soft, compliant Gabriella who loved Michael Khan was truly dying. He had triggered this new side of her the moment he chose Sandra over her right on that staircase.

"Give me the ultrasound," I said, my voice turning remarkably steady and cold.

Peter blinked, surprised. "What?"

"The blood-stained sonogram from my dress pocket," I said, looking up at him with clear, dry eyes. "Give it to me."

Peter reached into his pocket and handed over the small, crumpled scan. The dried dark stain ran right across the bottom margin.

I took the pen and signed the divorce petition with a firm, unwavering stroke. Then, I turned the sonogram over, took the pen, and wrote two short sentences across the back in neat, clear script:

You protected your past, but you murdered your future. Goodbye, Michael.

I taped the sonogram to the front of the signed divorce folder, pulled off the simple platinum wedding band from my left ring finger, and laid it right on top of the paper.

​"Please have your driver send this back to him," I said.

Peter looked at the ring, a rare, fierce respect gleaming in his eyes. "Consider it done. The ambulance is waiting at the back bay to take you to the private airstrip for your real flight to Europe."

Three hours later, the private medical jet soared smoothly through the dark, starless sky at thirty-five thousand feet.

I sat near the window, a thick wool blanket wrapped around my shoulders, watching the faint, glittering lights of the North American coastline fade into the vast blackness of the Atlantic Ocean below.

My cracked phone lay on the small tray table in front of me, connected to the plane’s satellite network.

​Suddenly, a loud notification pinged across my Samsung screen.

​It was an international breaking news banner; one I didn't expect to go out so soon.