He nodded and walked out of the room.

The silence returned, broken only by the rhythmic beep of the monitor.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but my mind was spinning.

I thought about my daughter, lying in an incubator down the hall.

She was so small, so innocent.

And already, she was the center of a corporate war.

I had to protect her.

I had to make sure the Callahan empire was clean before she was old enough to understand.

***

The next morning, the sun was bright, shining through the metal blinds.

A nurse came in to help me stand.

“Slowly,” she said, supporting my arm.

The pain in my abdomen was a dull, burning ache now.

“I want to see my baby,” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

“We can wheel you down to the NICU.”

She helped me into a wheelchair and pushed me down the long, quiet corridor.

The NICU was a large, dimmed room filled with the hum of machines.

We stopped in front of an incubator near the window.