The Mark of Chance••√•• Pure Love

chapitre : 20

The last months of the pregnancy had been a battle every single moment. A constant vigilance, a body growing heavy and painful, and a mind constantly on alert, strung tight as a bow. Marina had held firm, anchored in her decision not to flee anymore, sustained by cold anger and Paul's unwavering presence. But stress, that insidious toxin distilled by Léna from afar anonymous calls, threatening letters intercepted by their lawyer, a suspicious car caught on camera wore down even the strongest defenses.

Her water broke on a night with a howling wind, when she was only 28 weeks along. A sensation of warmth and absolute panic. Paul, who barely slept, was by her side in less than thirty seconds. His face, lit by the bedside lamp, first showed worry, then, understanding, terror.

The ambulance, blue lights tearing through the black night, the smell of antiseptic at the hospital it all became a waking nightmare. The doctors, serious faces under green caps, spoke of an extremely high risk of premature birth, possible infection, fetal distress. The words "emergency C-section" fell like sentences.

"The baby isn't ready," a compassionate nurse whispered to Paul as they prepped Marina. "He's going to have to fight."

Marina, under the effect of medication and fear, felt her world shrink to the harsh light of the operating room ceiling. She groped for Paul's hand; he was beside her in sterile scrubs, his gaze locked on hers.

"Stay with me," she breathed.

"I'm not moving,"he promised, his voice rough with contained emotion.

The procedure was quick, surgical, impersonal. Then there was a tense, interminable silence before a weak, tiny, almost plaintive cry pierced the sterile air. It wasn't the vigorous cry of a full-term newborn, but the fragile chirp of a nestling fallen too soon.

Marina strained to see. The medical team bustled around a small, bluish form, so small, covered in vernix, with spindly limbs. They showed him to her for a handful of seconds, time for a fleeting kiss on a minuscule forehead, before he was whisked away, surrounded by tubes and expert hands, towards the blue-tinted lights of the NICU.

"Lucas," she whispered before sinking, exhausted, into a sleep troubled by ghosts.

Paul remained standing. He watched Marina, pale and vulnerable on the gurney, then turned his gaze to the closed door behind which his son for in his heart, this child was his was fighting for his life. A dull, ugly anger rose in him. An anger no longer contained, no longer rational. It burned his gut, tightened his throat. This anger had a name: Léna Durand. And another: Chris, whose legal interventions and belated remorse had only added unbearable pressure.

The days that followed were an exhausting ballet between Marina's room she was still weak and the neonatal unit. Lucas was in an incubator, a wrinkled, courageous little being dotted with sensors, breathing with the help of a machine. Seeing him like that, so fragile, so miraculously alive and so terribly endangered, was the final straw for Paul.

Marina lived in a daze. Between the pain of her incision, the useless rising of milk since she couldn't breastfeed yet, and the constant anxiety for Lucas, she no longer had the strength to think about Léna, Chris, or the ongoing legal case. She merely survived, placing her hand on the incubator for precious, frightening "skin-to-skin" sessions, counting the grams Lucas gained or lost.

One morning, a week after the birth, as Marina tried to rest, Paul entered her room. His face was closed, his features drawn from sleepless nights, but his eyes shone with a determined, almost hard light.

"How is he?" Marina asked, as she always did.

"He gained ten grams.It's a good sign." Paul sat on the edge of her bed. He took her hand, but his gesture was different, charged with a new tension. "Marina, I need to tell you something."

She looked at him, a new worry adding to all the others.

"I filed a complaint.Against Léna. And against Chris for complicity and aggravated harassment."

The silence that followed was absolute. Marina held her breath, thinking she'd misheard.

"You did...what?"

"I filed a complaint with the police.With everything we have: screenshots of the messages, recordings from the house cameras, the letters, the lawyer's testimony about their intrusion, and now... now the medical certificates linking the sustained stress to Lucas's prematurity. It's endangering the life of another, Marina. It's serious."

Anger rose in her, sharp, surprising.

"Without asking me?Without my consent? Paul, how could you? This is my story, my son, my decision!"

Her voice trembled with fatigue and fury. She felt betrayed. After all he had done for her, he was crossing a line, taking control of her life, her fight.

"Your decision?" Paul repeated, and his own long-suppressed anger finally erupted, low and intense. "Your decision was to stay and fight. I'm fighting, Marina! I'm fighting with the weapons I have! And I won't wait patiently for her to find a way to hurt you or Lucas even more because you're too exhausted to make a decision! Look at him! Look at our son in that incubator! He's fighting for every breath because of her! Every gram he struggles to gain is because of the poison she injected into your life!"

Tears sprang from Marina's eyes, tears of helpless rage and pain.

"I know!I see it every day! But it's for me to decide how we respond! By filing a complaint... you're going to make her even angrier! She'll go completely mad! Do you think that will protect us?"

"It will make her back down," Paul growled. "It will force her to answer to the law instead of ruining our lives with impunity. Chris too. He's playing the repentant father with his lawyers? Let him face the consequences of his wife's actions. Let him explain to a judge how he let this situation fester to the point of endangering a newborn!"

He stood up, pacing the small room.

"I don't regret anything,Marina. Nothing. I love you. I love that little boy over there. And I will do everything to protect you. Even if it makes you angry with me. Even if it makes you doubt me. My job now is to ensure you are safe. Not to worry about what's politically correct or what preserves your sense of control. You lost your control the day you gave birth at seven months. Let me take over. Let me fight for you."

The words fell like hammers. I love you. He had said it before, but never with this wild intensity, this mix of tenderness and protective fury. Marina was overwhelmed. She was crushed by her own weakness, by fear for Lucas, by anger towards Paul, and in the midst of it all, this love he offered her, so total, so absolute, it was frightening.

"You had no right...", she murmured, but the conviction was gone. She was too weary.

"Maybe not,"he admitted, more calmly. "But I did it. And it's done. Now, we'll have to face the consequences. Together."

The consequences arrived sooner than expected. The next afternoon, while Paul had gone back to the house to fetch some things, Marina's phone rang. An unknown number, French. Heart pounding, she answered.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end was barely recognizable,ravaged by tears and contained fury.

"Congratulations on your bastard,Marina."

It was Léna. But a Léna on the verge of collapse.

"The police...they came. They questioned me. Me! At my home! Because of YOU! You filed a complaint? Really? After everything you took from me?"

Marina froze, unable to respond, her hand on her bruised belly.

"You want war?You'll get it. But this time, it's the last one. Do you hear me? Chris... Chris wants to leave me. He said I've become a monster. That it's my fault the baby..." Her voice broke into a raw sob. "He wants to see you. He wants to see his son. He said he'd come to Canada if he had to. You did it, you b***h. You ruined everything. But I won't let you win. I won't let you have my family."

The call ended. Marina remained sitting, trembling, the phone slipping from her hand. The consequences. Paul's complaint had just thrown fuel on an already uncontrollable fire. Léna, cornered, was more dangerous than ever. And Chris, pushed to the brink, was preparing to arrive, claiming his rights.

Paul had wanted to protect them. He may have, unintentionally, triggered the final assault. The fight for their peace had just entered its most critical phase, and the first round was being fought in the neonatal unit, around the crib of a two-kilo baby whose fragile life was the prize in a merciless family war.