The Hour He Never Gave Chapter 09
Dylan sounded panicked too. “Don’t panic. I’m still looking into it.”
But Pierce couldn’t wait another second.
He didn’t even grab a coat before tearing to the airport and booking the first flight back home to Floravia.
The second he got to the hospital, he stormed into Ellie’s attending physician’s office and yanked the man up by the collar.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay there that day? Why the hell was my daughter left alone on the operating table?”
The doctor shook so hard he could barely talk. “M-Ms. Roach said the patient was having a severe allergic reaction. She said every doctor had to go over there immediately. She also said she’d take full responsibility. And if we delayed her son’s treatment… none of us would walk away from it.”
A vein pulsed at Pierce’s temple. “So you just left my daughter there to die?”
He didn’t waste time arguing about who was responsible. He shoved the doctor aside, grabbed Dylan, and started searching for them himself.
The image of Lucia in that video wouldn’t leave his head. Begging Daphne. Desperate. Broken.
And he’d thought she was just jealous. Just acting dramatic.
‘This is all my fault. Please… don’t let anything happen to Ellie. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to them.’
Pierce stumbled through the hospital in a panic, silently praying.
Then he remembered Lucia clutching that surgical knife in the footage, trying to keep the reporters back like some cornered animal. His chest tightened so hard he could barely breathe.
Weirdly enough, though, not a single media outlet reported what happened. Almost like somebody had buried the whole thing.
After Lucia left the hospital, every piece of surveillance footage of her and Ellie vanished.
No nearby hospital had any record of Ellie’s surgery either.
Pierce completely lost it.
He pulled out his phone and searched for Lucia’s number, but it was gone no matter where he looked.
Until he finally found it sitting in his blocked list.
Under it were over a hundred intercepted calls.
That was when it hit him. Before they remarried, he’d blocked Lucia himself so she wouldn’t interrupt his perfect little time with Daphne and Jared.
And the genius had only remembered now.
Cold panic slammed into him.
Dylan spoke carefully. “Mr. Emery, maybe we should check the apartment first. Mrs. Emery could’ve found another doctor to finish the surgery and taken Ellie home to rest.”
Pierce latched onto that instantly. “Right. Home. Go.”
He hadn’t been back in almost two months.
Pierce blew through red lights the entire way. When he got there, he barely parked before sprinting upstairs.
The second he shoved the door open, he froze. For a second, he honestly thought he’d walked into Daphne’s apartment by mistake.
The family photo in the entryway was gone, replaced with a vacation picture of him, Daphne, and Jared.
The warm yellow walls Lucia loved had been repainted pink. The curtains she’d embroidered herself were gone too. So were all the dolls Ellie used to leave everywhere.
Now the place was overflowing with Jared’s toy cars and Transformers.
Pierce almost snapped-then remembered he’d approved every single change himself.
Hell, he’d even helped move Daphne and Jared’s stuff in, box by box, into the home he used to share with Lucia.
He couldn’t even bring himself to imagine what Lucia and Ellie must’ve felt living in this stranger’s apartment.
Before the guilt could swallow him whole, a noise suddenly came from the storage room.
“Lucia? Ellie? Is that you?” He rushed toward it. “Ellie, Daddy’s home. Daddy’s staying with you now.”
He didn’t even bother taking off his shoes before heading straight for the sound.
***
Lucia’s POV
Pierce shoved the door open. The second he saw me, he blurted, “Lucia! How’s Ellie?”
His eyes darted around the room, searching for her.
I looked up and calmly handed him the two documents in my hand. “Ellie’s gone.”
