Beg On Your Knees: Erasing My CEO Husband Chapter 15

Beg On Your Knees: Erasing My CEO Husband Chapter 15: A Silent Phone in the ER

The shrill marimba of my ringtone shattered the absolute quiet of my bedroom. I blinked at the ceiling. The digital clock on my nightstand read 2:14 AM. The phone vibrated violently against the wood. I turned my head slowly and squinted at the glowing screen.

*Eleanor Vance.*

I let it ring three times. The obnoxious sound gnawed at the edges of the dark room. Finally, I swiped the green icon and brought the speaker to my ear. I didn’t say a word.

“Clara! Where are you?”

Eleanor’s voice was a frantic, wet shriek. Background noise flooded the line—the squeak of rubber wheels, a chaotic blur of medical jargon, a woman crying hysterically.

“I am in bed, Eleanor,” I answered, my tone perfectly flat.

“Get up! Get in a cab right now!” She sobbed, a harsh, ragged sound. “We are at Cedars-Sinai. He is in the resuscitation bay.”

I kept my eyes fixed impassively on the shadows cast by the streetlamp outside my window. “Who is?”

“Julian, you foolish girl! My son!”

“Then you should be talking to his doctors.”

“He is dying!” she screamed, the pitch of her voice threatening to crack my phone’s speaker. “He drank two entire bottles of scotch. His blood toxicity is off the charts. They are pumping his stomach, Clara!”

I shifted my weight on the mattress. The sheets rustled softly.
“Alcohol poisoning is a medical issue. I am a violinist.”

“He is asking for you!”

“Tell him I am unavailable.”

“Clara, please.” The insufferable arrogance usually present in Eleanor’s tone vanished entirely, replaced by a pathetic whine. “He won’t let the nurses put the IV in. He keeps fighting them, asking for his wife. He wants to see you one last time before he goes under.”

“I am not his wife anymore.”

“Just come! If you stand by his bed, he will calm down. You can save him.”

I pulled the phone slowly away from my ear. I didn’t press the red button. I simply turned the device over and set it face down on the nightstand.

I left the call connected. Through the muffled speaker, Eleanor’s panic rapidly morphed into pure, unhinged rage.

“Are you listening to me? Clara! Answer me!”

I adjusted my pillows, stacking them against the headboard, and leaned back comfortably. The wood felt solid against my spine.

“You have no heart!” Eleanor bellowed. Her voice vibrated against the glass of water next to my lamp. “My son gave you a life of luxury! He elevated you from absolutely nothing, and you abandon him when he is on his deathbed?”

I watched a moth flutter against my windowpane. It bumped the glass, over and over, desperate to reach the lamp inside.

“You are a cold-blooded monster!” The accusation echoed faintly in the small bedroom. “If Julian’s heart stops tonight, I will make sure the whole world knows you killed him! I will ruin you!”

The hollow threat hung in the air. A year ago, those exact words would have sent me sprinting frantically to my closet. I would have grabbed my coat, hailed a taxi in the rain, and held Julian’s hand while he purged his own pathetic mistakes.

Tonight, my pulse didn’t even quicken.

“Go to hell, Clara!”

A sharp beep signaled the end of the call. The room plunged back into blissful silence, but only for a second. A new notification lit up the edges of the phone, casting a blue halo on the wood.

I picked it up. A text message from Elias Sterling.

*Elias: My security team at the Vance building just reported an ambulance taking Julian away. Eleanor is blowing up the phones of half the board.*

I typed a quick response.

*Clara: She just called me.*

*Elias: Do you need my guys to come over? I can have two armed guards at your apartment lobby in ten minutes. They will block any Vance family member who tries to drag you out.*

I stared at the glowing letters. Elias was always three steps ahead, ready to build a fortress around me.

*Clara: Not necessary. The front door is securely locked.*

*Elias: Are you sure? Eleanor is hysterical. She might send Marcus or a driver to fetch you.*

*Clara: Let them come. They can’t force me into a car.*

*Elias: You really aren’t going to the hospital?*

*Clara: I have rehearsal at nine.*

Three gray dots appeared, dancing on the screen for a long moment before his final message arrived.

*Elias: Sleep well, Clara.*

I locked the screen. The blue light vanished entirely.

I opened the top drawer of my nightstand. My fingers brushed past a stack of sheet music until they found a small plastic case. I popped the lid open and pinched two foam earplugs. I rolled the soft material between my thumb and index finger, compressing them into tight cylinders.

I slipped the first one into my left ear. The distant hum of city traffic instantly muted. I placed the second one in my right ear. The world went entirely, beautifully dead.

I slid down the mattress and pulled the heavy duvet up to my chin. The fabric was warm, smelling comfortably of lavender detergent and clean cotton.

No guilt tightened my chest. No phantom fear gripped my throat.

The Vance family had spent seven years using my empathy as a weapon against me. They had trained me like a dog to jump at every crisis, to soothe every tantrum, to absorb Julian’s toxic behavior under the guise of wifely duty.

That training was permanently broken. I closed my eyes. Within minutes, my breathing leveled out into a deep, steady rhythm.

—

Across the city, the fluorescent lights of the Cedars-Sinai emergency room burned with a sterile, unforgiving glare.

“Hold him down! He’s pulling the line!” A nurse shouted over the chaotic din of Trauma Bay 1.

Julian Vance thrashed violently against the crisp hospital sheets. His skin was a ghastly shade of gray, heavily coated in a cold, sticky sweat. His dress shirt hung open, ruined by vomit and iodine.

“Clara,” he choked out. A violent tremor racked his frame, making the metal bed rails rattle.

“Sir, you need to lie still!” A doctor pressed a firm hand against Julian’s chest. “Push two milligrams of Ativan. We need his heart rate down now.”

Julian ignored the doctor completely. His bloodshot eyes darted wildly around the room, searching the faces of strangers in blue scrubs. His right hand hung off the edge of the mattress. His knuckles were white, gripping his phone so tightly the plastic casing cracked.

“Where is she?” he rasped, his throat raw and bleeding.

Eleanor stood in the corner, pressing a tissue to her mouth. “She isn’t coming, Julian. She hung up on me.”

“No.” Julian’s chest heaved. “She’ll come. She always comes.”

He stared intensely at the sliding glass doors of the bay. He waited for the familiar sight of her dark coat. He waited for the soft, concerned furrow of her brow. He waited for her cool hands to touch his burning forehead.

The doors remained resolutely shut.

The monitor next to his head let out a rapid, shrill warning.

*Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.*

“V-tach!” the nurse yelled. “He’s going into an arrhythmia!”

“Charge the pads!”

Julian’s vision blurred rapidly. The edges of the room turned black. The phone slipped from his trembling fingers, hitting the linoleum floor with a hollow smack. The screen lit up one last time, displaying an entirely empty inbox.

A crushing weight settled over his chest. It wasn’t just the alcohol shutting down his organs. It was the absolute, terrifying realization that he was entirely alone.