Chapter 44: BUT I AM HIS MOTHER!
Chapter 45
Lumi
"Lumi? Are you there?"
"I’ll call you back," I choked out, my voice sounding like it belonged to a completely different person.
Without waiting for her reply, I slammed my finger onto the end-call button. Panic, raw and terrifying, exploded through my veins.
I didn’t wait to think or make a plan. With a sharp screech of my tires, I violently whipped the steering wheel to the side, turning the car around right in the middle of the road. I pulled over onto the curb, throwing the gear into park with a harsh clatter.
My hands were shaking so violently I could barely grip my phone. My vision blurred with sudden, hot tears as I frantically opened my travel app, my thumbs slamming against the screen to book the absolute fastest flight out of here.
I didn’t care about anything. I just needed to get to my son.
The moment the ticket confirmation flashed on the screen, I threw the car back into drive and hit the gas, speeding directly toward the airport.
While navigating the fast traffic with one hand, I used the other to speed-dial Neve. The phone didn’t even finish its first full ring before she picked up.
"Lumi? Hey, I was just..."
"Neve," I gasped out. I tried to explain what was happening, tried to tell her about the phone call, but the terror gripping my throat made it impossible to form a single proper word. My chest was heaving, a ragged sob catching in my throat. "Neve... I... I can’t..."
"Lumi! Take a breath, oh my god, what is wrong? Are you having a panic attack? Where are you?" Neve’s voice boomed through the speakers.
I forced a deep, painful breath into my lungs, managing to squeeze the words past my trembling lips.
"Theo. It’s Theo, Neve. He’s sick. He’s really, really sick and the doctors don’t know why. I’m driving to the airport right now. I just booked a flight."
"What?!" Neve gasped, the background noise on her end completely cutting out. "Wait, right now? Lumi, slow down!"
"I can’t slow down!" I screamed, the tears finally spilling over my cheeks, blurring the highway lines in front of me.
"I need you to do me a huge favor. Please. I’m going to leave my car at the airport parking lot. Can you... can you please help me pick it up from there later?"
"Lumi, listen to me," Neve insisted, her tone turning incredibly serious and urgent. "Pull over or just wait at the airport terminal. Don’t board yet. I’m coming with you. Just wait for me so we can go together, okay? You shouldn’t be alone right now."
"No! I can’t wait!" I cried out, my voice cracking with desperate agony as I pressed my foot harder on the accelerator. The airport exit sign was finally coming into view.
"Neve, you don’t understand. Another minute of waiting... just one more minute might make me lose the opportunity to see my son alive again. I am going. Right now." I said ending the call.
Then the realization hit me before I even reached the airport gates, that I had no idea which hospital Theo was in.
Mary had mentioned Callum and Sienna running all over the city, but in my blind panic, I hadn’t even thought to ask for a specific name.
My hands shook so violently against the steering wheel that I nearly veered off the airport approach road. I pulled into the terminal parking lot, killed the engine, and immediately redialed Neve.
"Lumi? Are you okay?" Neve answered instantly, her voice tight with panic.
"Neve, I don’t know where he is," I gasped out, the tears finally breaking through, thick and hot down my face.
"I don’t know what hospital he’s in. Callum won’t tell me, and I can’t call him. Please, Neve. The only thing I need from you right now is to use your connections. Use whatever resources you have and find out where my child is."
There was a brief pause on the line, the heavy weight of the request hanging between us.
"Lumi, checking hospital databases from across the ocean is going to be incredibly hard on short notice," Neve said honestly, her voice strained. "But we will try. I promise you, we will try. Just get on that plane."
I hung up, rushing through security with nothing but my purse and the clothes on my back.
When I boarded the flight, my phone was still agonizingly silent. No message had come through. But I had to move forward. I trusted Neve with everything I had left.
By the time the wheels touched down on the tarmac at Heathrow Airport, the local UK time was already 4:30 AM.
The moment the plane taxied to a halt, I flipped my phone out of airplane mode. My heart did a violent thud against my ribs. A text message from Neve was waiting for me.
*St. Mary’s Hospital, London. Pediatric Ward. We found him, Lumi.*
Relief, sharp and overwhelming, washed over me, but it didn’t slow the panic. I sprinted through the terminal, bypassed baggage claim completely, and threw myself into the back of a waiting black cab.
The driver warned me that the hospital was located an hour and a half away from the airport, especially with the early morning traffic starting to build across London.
Every single mile of that ride was pure agony. It was nearly 6:00 AM by the time the cab navigated the city streets, the pale morning light reflecting off the damp pavements.
I kept my eyes clamped shut in the back seat, my fingers knotted together so tightly they turned white, praying continuously that my child was fine, that he was holding on, and that I wasn’t too late.
The moment the cab pulled up to the grand, sterile entrance of the hospital, I threw some notes at the driver and bolted through the sliding glass doors.
"I need to see my son, Theo," I gasped out, leaning heavily against the high reception desk of the pediatric unit, my voice cracking from exhaustion. "His name is Theo Reed. I’m his mother."
The receptionist tapped away at her keyboard, her expression shifting from professional indifference to a cold, guarded mask. She looked up at me with an apologetic but firm look.
"I’m sorry, ma’am. Your name is not included on the family list authorized to visit this patient. The father left strict instructions."
"What? No, there’s been a mistake. I’m his mother!" I cried, the room starting to spin.
"I cannot let you in without the primary guardian’s consent," she replied flatly.
I scrambled to pull my phone out, dialing Callum’s number. It rang out completely the first two times. On the third attempt, the line clicked open.
"Callum! Please, I’m at the hospital," I begged, not caring how pathetic I sounded. "Let me see Theo. Please, Callum, he’s my son too..."
"I told you before, you don’t get to just disappear and then show up when it suits you," Callum’s voice came through, cold, arrogant, and entirely detached.
"You have no business here, Lumi. Go back to wherever you were coming from." Before I could scream at him, the line went completely dead.
I tried calling him again, over and over, but he rejected every single call, sending me straight to voicemail.
Frustrated and desperate, I turned back to the nurse on duty, trying to explain the history, trying to show her my ID, but she wouldn’t even allow me to speak.
She simply held up a hand and pointedly ignored me, focusing back on her monitor.
My chest rose and fell in short, suffocating gasps as I paced the polished floorboards of the hallway, feeling the walls closing in on me. I couldn’t just sit here. I couldn’t let Callum win this.
When a man in medical scrubs stepped out of the secure double doors, a chart clutched in his hand, I didn’t care about protocol. I threw myself directly into his path, my hands reaching out to grab the sleeve of his white coat.
"Please, you have to help me," I begged, my voice breaking completely as hot tears streamed down my face. "Are you the doctor handling Theo’s case? Please tell me you are."
The doctor stopped, startled, looking down at my trembling hands on his sleeve before offering a tight, professional grimace.
"Ma’am, please calm down. I am Dr. Evans, yes. But I cannot discuss any patient’s status in the hallway."
"He’s my son!" I cried, my grip tightening on his coat as I choked on a sob.
"Theo is my son. I just flew across the Atlantic Ocean. I haven’t slept, I haven’t breathed, I’ve just been praying he’s okay.
They won’t let me back there. Callum locked me out of the system. Please, doctor, just tell me what’s wrong with him. Is he breathing? Is he in pain? Just give me something, I am begging you!"
Dr. Evans pulled back gently, his face shifting into a heavy, deeply uncomfortable expression. He sighed, looking around the corridor before looking back down at me.
"Ms. Lumi, I understand you are hurting, but legally, my hands are completely tied. Your husband signed a strict legal directive when he admitted the boy.
It explicitly states that no one outside of his immediate designated party is allowed near the patient or given medical updates."
"But I am his mother!" I screamed, the sound echoing harshly against the sterile walls, drawing stares from the reception desk.
I fell to my knees right there, my hands dropping from his coat to clasp together in front of my chest.
I didn’t care about my pride. I didn’t care how pathetic I looked.
"Look at me, please! I am his mother. Do you know what it feels like to know your child is suffering behind those doors and you can’t even hold his hand?
Please, just let me catch a glimpse of him. I won’t make a sound. I’ll hide in the corner. Just let me see my baby."
"I am truly sorry," Dr. Evans whispered, stepping around me, his eyes filled with a mixture of pity and discomfort.
"If the primary guardian says no one visits, there is absolutely nothing the medical staff can do. It’s out of our hands."
He walked away, the heavy double doors swinging shut behind him, leaving me on my knees in the middle of the corridor.
I felt completely hollowed out. Frustrated, exhausted, and emotionally destroyed, I pushed myself up to my feet.
My legs felt like lead as I staggered back toward the main lobby, my mind entirely blank, spinning with a dark, terrifying helplessness.
I had crossed an ocean, but Callum’s malice had still managed to build an impassable wall between me and my son.
I wiped the blurred tears from my eyes roughly as I stepped back into the wide lobby, looking up just as the automatic sliding doors whirred open.
My breath caught completely in my throat.
Three people were walking into the hospital lobby, their heavy, urgent strides echoing with absolute authority against the tiled floor.
Neve. Her boyfriend. And walking right beside them, his broad shoulders squared and his jaw set in a terrifyingly rigid line, was Ren.
I stared at them in absolute shock, my brain completely stalling.
What are they doing here? How could they possibly be here right now?
