Dante You Prick

"Dante..." Nora's hoarse voice echoed down the hallway. Her fingers clawed at the cold tiles, trying to drag herself forward. "It hurts bad. Please."

Under normal circumstances, she would never beg him for anything. But the tearing sensation in her abdomen felt like shattered glass slicing through her veins. It was too much to endure.

Standing by the door with his coat draped over one arm, Dante paused. He brushed off her agony with a click of his tongue, irritation lacing his tone. "It is just a stomachache. Get up and drink some hot water." He checked his watch, his jaw set in cold impatience. "A celebrity from my company got into a car crash. I need to go handle it. Be good."

He delivered those two words—*be good*—like a command, before turning on his heel. The front door clicked shut. He walked away without a single backward glance.

A fresh wave of agony ripped through Nora's core. The edges of her vision blurred into dark spots. As the cold floor pressed against her cheek, a bitter thought surfaced in her fading consciousness. Did her years of quiet, obedient sensibility make it this easy for him to abandon her?

Then, everything went black.

At Oakhaven Hospital, the atmosphere stood in stark contrast.

The emergency room doors slid open shortly after midnight. Chloe emerged, sitting comfortably in a wheelchair. Delicate tears stained her pretty face, making her look like a fragile porcelain doll.

The moment she spotted Dante striding down the corridor, a sob tore from her throat. "Dante! I thought I would never see you again!" She lunged forward, clinging to his torso, burying her face against his chest.

Dante caught her, his brow furrowing as he looked up. "What happened?" he demanded, shooting a sharp glare at her agent, Simon Rowley.

Simon wiped sweat from his forehead. "The driver got distracted and scraped the guardrail. It is nothing major, Mr. Carlisle. She sustained a minor leg injury. The doctors already patched it up, and they guaranteed it will not leave a scar."

The tension drained from Dante's shoulders, instantly replaced by a surge of disproportionate anger. "Fire the driver. Now."

"Yes, sir. Mr. Carlisle, please stay with Chloe a bit longer. She is still shaken." Simon quickly gestured for the assistant to follow him, leaving the two of them alone in the corridor.

Sensing the golden opportunity, Chloe tightened her grip on his waist, playing the terrified victim. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, a persistent buzzing shattered the quiet.

Dante's phone vibrated relentlessly in his pocket. He pulled it out. The caller ID flashed Nora's name.

His frown deepened. Annoyance flared in his chest. Nora never called him like this. In his mind, she had always been the perfect, obedient wife—unclingy, quiet, undemanding. That was exactly why he married her. This sudden barrage of calls was thoughtless and out of character.

Feigning innocence, Chloe peeked at the screen and blinked her tear-soaked lashes. "Your phone keeps ringing. You should answer it. Maybe she needs you."

"It is nothing urgent," Dante muttered. He thumbed the power button, shutting the device off, and shoved it back into his pocket. He gripped the handles of her wheelchair. "I will take you home."

"I am so scared," Chloe pleaded, her voice trembling. "Can you stay by my side tonight? Just for a little while?"

Dante hesitated. He looked down at her expressive, tear-streaked face. For a fleeting second, he compared this delicate fragility to Nora's usual wooden demeanor. If someone handed Nora a knife and she cut her own hand, she would probably just stare at the blood with emotionless indifference. Women like Nora were too rigid. They felt like wooden puppets. Chloe, on the other hand, triggered every protective instinct a man possessed.

"Do you remember back in the orphanage?" Chloe murmured softly, her fingers tracing the fabric of his sleeve. "When you used to cry at night, I was the one who stayed awake and accompanied you."

The weight of that shared childhood memory settled over him. He could not refuse her. "Alright. I will stay with you."

Minutes later, Dante's luxurious black sedan pulled away from the hospital entrance, heading toward Chloe's private apartment. The blaring siren of an ambulance drowned out the engine's purr as it rushed aggressively past him in the opposite direction. He did not spare the flashing red lights a single glance, ignorant of the dying wife bleeding out in the back of that very rig.

Inside the chaotic emergency wing, the scene was a nightmare.

"Nor! Nor!" Maya wept uncontrollably, pacing the sterile hallway. Her thumbs moved in a blur as she redialed Dante's number.

*The subscriber you dialed is powered off.*

"Pick up the damn phone!" Maya screamed at the screen, tears blurring her vision. If Nora had not managed to speed-dial her with her last ounce of strength, she would have died alone on that hallway floor.

The operating room doors burst open. The head doctor rushed out, his face grim with urgency. His scrubs were stained with fresh crimson.

"Are you the patient's family?" he asked rapidly. "She is going into severe shock from massive blood loss. The initial diagnosis is an ectopic pregnancy."

Maya froze, the blood draining from her face.

"She has massive abdominal bleeding," the doctor continued, his tone clipped and serious. "We need to perform immediate surgery to remove one of her oviducts to stop the hemorrhage. Is she married? Where is her husband?"

Stunned and trembling, Maya collapsed against the wall, horrified by the diagnosis. Nora always took birth control because Dante refused to have a child. How did this happen?

"She is married," Maya sobbed, her legs giving out as she slid down to the floor. She looked up, begging the medical staff. "But her husband is unreachable. Please, you have to save her life! Do whatever it takes!"

"We are prepping her now. Her life would have been forfeit if she arrived a second later." The doctor spun around and vanished back into the operating room.

Left alone, Maya clutched the phone to her chest, dialing Dante's dead number over and over, drowning in helpless despair.

By early the next morning, the sterile hospital corridors buzzed with life.

Right outside Nora's ward, two nurses huddled together, gossiping loudly over their morning coffees.

"Did you see the entertainment headlines?" one whispered, though her voice carried easily through the crack in the door. "Chloe Sutton basically confirmed her romance with the CEO of Carlisle Corporation. They spent the entire night together at her private apartment."

"Wow, reaching the top right after debut. Must be nice having a billionaire backer."

Inside the room, Maya sat in a plastic chair, her eyes bloodshot. She swiped furiously through her phone, glaring at the paparazzi photos of Dante's car parked outside Chloe's building. She aggressively cursed his name under her breath, a string of vile insults meant for a man who abandoned his wife on her deathbed.

Oblivious to Maya's quiet rage, Nora lay on the pristine hospital bed. Her pale eyelids fluttered. The heavy smell of antiseptic filled her lungs.

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

Staring up at the blank, sterile ceiling, Nora felt a profound, hollow detachment settling into her bones. The agonizing pain from the night before was gone, replaced by a chilling numbness. It felt as though she had just woken up from a long, exhausting dream.