The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 348

Chapter 348 How bad is it really?

Kyle’s POV

I sat in the chair by the window, not because I wanted to look out at the city but because the bed felt too much like surrender.

The door opened. Thomas Wallace stepped inside, his coat still damp from the December drizzle. He stopped short when he saw me in the chair rather than the bed, his eyes taking in the IV line snaking from my arm, the oxygen cannula beneath my nose, the pale gray cast that had settled over my skin like ash.

Such a way of humiliation.

“Kyle.”

“Thomas.” I didn’t stand. The effort wasn’t worth the potential embarrassment of my legs giving

out.

Thomas closed the door behind him. He looked like he’d been running.

“I came to talk about Victoria Whitmore.” He moved to the chair across from me, but remained standing. “Her lawyers filed for emergency bail this morning.”

I knew it’s just the final death throes.

“Compassionate release pending appeal. They’re claiming the conditions of her detention are exacerbating a pre–existing heart condition.” Thomas kept going. “Her group’s hired the best legal team money can buy.”

I closed my eyes, “Don’t worry. She only got few days left.”

Funny. That sayings applied to me also.

“How long do we have?” I asked.

“Hearing’s set for Friday morning.”

“I know.”

He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a manila envelope, setting it on the small table between us. “Custody papers,” he explained. “For Madison. I filed them this morning.”

I studied his face. “Why?”

“Someone needs to protect that little girl.” Thomas’s jaw tightened.

“What exactly are you asking me to do?”

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“You have your connections. Your resources. You can protect that little girl if you want. Don’t kill them all.” Thomas leaned forward. “I know you have people. I know you’ve been pulling strings for years. But life imprisonment is enough for Victoria. Madsion is too young to lose both mom and dad.”

The IV bag beside me dripped its steady rhythm, each drop marking time I didn’t have. Outside the window, I could see the edge of Central Park, the bare trees standing like sentinels against the gray

sky.

“Kyle.” Thomas’s voice drew my attention back to the room. “I know things between us are complicated. I know you probably hate me for taking your place with Mia and the boys. But this isn’t about us. This is about three children who deserve better than the adults who’ve failed them.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said. “I envy you. There’s a difference.”

Thomas blinked.

“You got to tuck them in at night,” I continued, my voice steady despite the fire spreading through my chest. “You got to kiss their scraped knees. You got to be there for their first steps and their first words and all the small moments that make up a childhood. You got to be their father while I played dead in hospital rooms and foreign cities.”

The mechanical sounds of my medical equipment.

“You gave them up,” he said finally. “You made that choice.”

“Yes.” I agreed. “You are right.”

I shifted in the chair, feeling the familiar spike of pain through my ribs. The medication was wearing off, leaving me with the raw ache that lived in my bones now, the constant reminder.

Thomas studied my face.

“Mia cried herself to sleep for months after you left,” he said quietly. “She tried to hide it, but I could tell. She’d put the boys to bed and then sit in her kitchen with a cup of tea that went cold while she stared at her phone, waiting for a call that never came.”

The image hurt. Mia alone in the darkness, grieving.

The conversation was interrupted by a soft knock on the door. Dr. Patel entered.

“Mr. Branson, you missed your afternoon treatment.” His accent made the words sound more melodious than they were. “The nursing staff has been looking for you.”

“I’m here now,” I said.

Dr. Patel’s attention moved to Thomas, taking in his expensive suit and the manila envelope on the table between us. “I’m sorry, but visiting hours-”

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“Mr. Wallace was just leaving,” I said.

Thomas stood, gathering the custody papers. Looked at me and said nothing.

“Your white cell count is elevated again,” he said without looking up. “And your kidney function has declined since yesterday.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means the progression is accelerating.” Dr. Patel finally met my eyes, his expression compassionate but honest. “The experimental treatment isn’t working, Kyle. Your immune system is attacking healthy tissue faster than we can suppress it.”

I nodded, unsurprised. “How long?” I asked.

“Weeks, possibly. Maybe less if we can’t get the cascade under control.”

“I want to discharge myself,” I said.

Dr. Patel paused in his note–taking. “Kyle, I don’t recommend that. Your condition requires constant monitoring. If your oxygen levels drop, if your kidneys fail, if your immune system triggers another cascade event-”

“How long would I have at home?”

“Days, maybe a week. ” He shook his head. “It would be very risky.”

Dr. Patel made more notes, then gathered his equipment. “I’ll be back this evening for your next assessment. Try to rest. Whatever you decide, we’ll make sure you’re as comfortable as possible.”

After he left, I sat alone with the machines and the weight of everything I hadn’t said. The afternoon light shifted gradually toward evening, painting shadows across the white walls that grew longer and darker as the hours passed.

My phone buzzed against the bedside table. Text message from Morton: “Sophie Field’s team wants to meet tomorrow. Final debriefing on the Taylor situation.”

I deleted the message without responding. Taylor’s schemes had been dismantled. The Sophie Field case was closed.

The door opened again around five o’clock. Thomas returned. Thomas returned, looking even more disheveled than before.

“The bail hearing’s been moved up,” he said without preamble, setting one of the coffee cups on my bedside table. “Tomorrow morning instead of Friday. You did this?”

“I just make sure it’s gonna be over real quick.”

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I tested the coffee. It was terrible, the kind of institutional brew that tasted like burnt water and desperation.

“This could destroy her case completely,” he said.

“That’s the idea.”

“But Kyle, there are many ways to revenge. Madsion is innocent.”

“People pay.” I laughed. “Thomas, Victoria Whitmore has spent five years systematically torturing a child. She’s killed at least one person, possibly more. She’s threatened my ex–wife and my children multiple times. Madsion will be happy to lose her in the long run.”

Thomas set the tablet aside, his attention shifting to the medical equipment surrounding me. “Kyle, how bad is it really?”

The question hung between us like smoke from a snuffed candle. I could feel my body’s betrayal in real time—the way my heart had to work harder to pump blood through damaged vessels, the way my lungs struggled to extract oxygen from air that felt too thin, the constant ache in my bones as my immune system attacked healthy tissue along with the damaged.

“Bad enough,” I said.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only answer I have.” I reached for my coffee again, noting how much more effort the simple movement required than it had an hour ago. “Dr. Patel thinks I have weeks. Maybe less.”

Thomas went pale. “Weeks?”

“Maybe days if I leave the hospital. Maybe hours if I’m unlucky.”

“Then why the hell are you talking about leaving?”

Before I could answer, something shifted in my chest. A sharp, stabbing pain that radiated outward from my lungs, followed immediately by a wet, rattling cough that seemed to come from deep in my throat. I pressed my hand to my mouth, trying to suppress it, but the coughing intensified.

The taste of copper flooded my mouth.

When I pulled my hand away, it was bright red with blood. Not just traces–actual blood, thick and arterial, splattered across my palm and dripping between my fingers.

“Kyle!” Thomas’s voice seemed to come from very far away.

Another coughing fit seized me, more violent than the first. Blood sprayed across the white hospital gown, across the pristine sheets, across the bedside table where my coffee cup sat forgotten. I

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doubled over with the force of it, my body convulsing as my lungs tried to expel something that wasn’t supposed to be there.

The world tilted sideways. The chair I’d been sitting in felt unsteady, like it might collapse under my weight. I could hear Thomas moving, his footsteps rapid against the linoleum floor, the sound of him pressing the nurse call button with desperate urgency.

“Don’t,” I managed to gasp between coughs, but my voice was lost in the sound of my own destruction.