The Breaking Point

**Sofia's POV:**

The pain didn't announce itself. It detonated. One heartbeat I was watching Ice lose at solitaire, his cards spread across the coffee table in a losing hand. The next, an invisible fist closed around my abdomen and *twisted*—vicious, merciless, stealing every molecule of oxygen from my lungs.

The water glass tumbled from my fingers. Crystal exploded against hardwood, shards catching the afternoon light like diamonds. Like broken promises. This wasn't practice. This was war.

"Sofia?" Ice's voice cut through the roaring in my ears.

I couldn't answer. Couldn't breathe. My hand flew to my belly as a second contraction slammed through me—a tidal wave crashing over the first before it had even receded. Too fast. Too close. *Too wrong.*

"Oh God." The words scraped out of my throat.

Ice cleared the distance between us before the glass finished scattering. His cards forgotten. His usual swagger evaporated.

"What's happening? Is it—"

"Real." I grabbed his forearm, fingernails digging into muscle. "It's real this time."

His face drained to bone white. "Real labor? Like—fuck. Okay. Don't panic."

"I'm not—" Another contraction ripped the words away. This time I couldn't stop the scream. It tore from somewhere primal, somewhere I didn't know existed.

Ice's eyes went wide as dinner plates. "That's not Braxton Hicks."

"No shit," I gasped.

His hands shook as he yanked out his phone. "Hospital bag. Where's your—no, fuck the bag. I need to call Ace." He was already dialing, phone pressed to his ear. "Come on, come on, pick up—"

Voicemail.

"Fuck!" Ice dialed again. And again. Each time, that same robotic greeting. "He's underground. The interrogation room has no signal. Shit, shit, shit—"

"Dante." I forced the name through gritted teeth. "Call Dante."

Ice's fingers flew across the screen. "Pick up. Pick up. Pick the fuck up—" His entire body sagged. "Dante! Jesus Christ. Where's Ace? I don't care if he's elbow-deep in someone's intestines—get him out. Sofia's in labor."

He listened, his face cycling through a dozen expressions in as many seconds.

"Five minutes between contractions. Maybe less. They're—" He looked at me, and I saw real fear in his eyes. "They're too close together, man. Way too close."

Another pause as Dante responded.

"Yeah, Dr. Morrison's clinic. I'm taking her now. Just—get Ace there. Fast."

Ice dropped the phone on the couch and turned to me. "Can you walk? Should I carry you? What do you need?"

"I can walk." I pushed myself upright using the couch for leverage. My legs felt like someone had replaced the bones with water. "Just help me—"

Warmth flooded down my thighs. Not warmth—heat. A gush so sudden, so forceful, it stole my remaining balance. We both stared at the pool spreading across the floor.

"Did you just—"

"My water broke." My voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. Distant. Disconnected. Like this was happening to someone else.

"Okay." Ice's voice cracked. "That's normal. That happens. Women's waters break all the time, right? That's—"

The next contraction didn't just hurt. It *destroyed*. My body arched, every muscle locking, a scream clawing its way out of my chest that didn't sound human.

Ice caught me before I hit the floor. "Fuck normal." He scooped me into his arms, somehow grabbing my pre-packed bag with his free hand. "Hold on. Just hold on to me."

The front door. The stairs. The SUV. Everything blurred together in a kaleidoscope of pain and terror.

---

The ride became its own circle of hell. Every pothole was a sledgehammer to my spine. Every sharp turn sent fresh waves of agony radiating through my core. The contractions weren't contractions anymore—they were one continuous vise, tightening and tightening until I was sure something inside me would rupture.

Ice drove like the devil himself was chasing us. Seventy. Eighty. Ninety miles per hour through city streets. His horn blared. Tires squealed. Other drivers screamed curses we left in our wake.

"Almost there." He kept repeating it. A prayer. A promise. "Hold on, Sofia. We're almost—"

"Ice." My voice came out strangled, desperate. "Something's wrong."

His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. "What? What's wrong?"

"I need to push." Terror clawed up my throat. "I can feel—I need to push *now*."

The SUV swerved violently enough to throw me against the door. "No! No, no, no. You can't push. Not yet. We're not there yet. Jesus Christ, Sofia, hold it in!"

"Hold it in?" Hysteria bubbled up, mixing with pain. "That's not how this works! I can't—"

My body took over. Instinct overrode everything else. The urge to push was overwhelming, inevitable, like trying to stop a tsunami with your hands.

"Two minutes!" Ice's voice cracked. "Just two more minutes. Don't have this baby in my car. Please don't have this baby in my car. Ace will literally murder me. He'll make it slow—"

The clinic materialized through my pain-hazed vision like a mirage in the desert. Ice didn't wait for the car to stop. The instant we were close enough, he was out, yanking open my door, lifting me into his arms.

Dr. Morrison appeared with a wheelchair and nurses, her expression morphing from professional calm to sharp alarm in a single heartbeat.

"Contractions every ninety seconds," Ice rattled off, words tumbling over each other. "Water broke twelve minutes ago. She says she needs to push. That's bad, right? Tell me that's not catastrophically bad—"

"Get her to delivery room one." Dr. Morrison's voice cut through everything else. "Now."

They moved with choreographed urgency. White walls blurred past. Fluorescent lights strobed overhead. Urgent voices layered over each other in medical shorthand I couldn't decode.

Then I was on a bed. Legs in stirrups. Dr. Morrison between my thighs, her hands moving quickly, efficiently.

"Don't push yet," she commanded. "I need to check dilation first."

"I can't—" The words dissolved into a scream. My body was pushing whether I wanted it to or not.

Dr. Morrison's frown carved deeper into her face. "She's complete. Ten centimeters. The baby's coming now." She looked up at the nurse. "Fetal monitor. Immediately."

Cold gel. Cold sensor pressed against my belly. Then—

*Beep... beep... beep...*

Too slow. Too irregular. Too *wrong*.

"What's wrong?" I tried to sit up, panic replacing pain. "What's wrong with my baby?"

"His heart rate is dropping." Dr. Morrison's voice remained steady, but I heard the tension thrumming underneath. "Likely cord compression. We need him out in the next two contractions, or we're doing an emergency C-section. But I don't think we have time."

"Will he be okay?" The question came out as a sob.

Dr. Morrison met my eyes. For one terrible second, she hesitated.

"I don't know."

---

**Ace's POV:**

Blood spiraled down the drain in pink ribbons. Marcus's lieutenant had required more persuasion than anticipated—the kind that left stains on clothes and souls.

The washroom door exploded inward hard enough to crack the frame. Dante stood there, chest heaving, face drained of color. One look at his expression and my stomach dropped into free-fall.

"Boss." His voice was carefully controlled. Too controlled. "We need to leave. Right now."

"What happened?" My hands stilled under the running water.

"Sofia's in labor. Ice is taking her to Dr. Morrison."

The world tilted forty-five degrees. "She's not due for—" I started.

"Her water broke. Contractions are ninety seconds apart. This is happening." Dante was already moving toward the door. "This is happening *now*."

I didn't remember leaving the washroom. Didn't remember the sprint to the car. Time became elastic—stretching and compressing, seconds feeling like hours and hours collapsing into heartbeats.

Dante drove with controlled violence. Weaving through traffic. Running lights. The speedometer climbed past ninety.

My phone screamed. Ice.

"Where are you?" He didn't bother with hello. His voice was shredded, barely recognizable. "She's in delivery. She's screaming for you. The baby's heart rate—the doctor says—"

Static devoured his words.

"Ice? *Ice!*"

Dead line.

"Faster," I ordered.

"I'm doing ninety-five—"

"Then do a hundred and twenty. I don't give a fuck about traffic laws."

Dante's phone erupted with sound. My head of security, his voice tight with barely controlled chaos.

"Boss, we have a major situation. Marcus and approximately fifteen hostiles just breached the perimeter. Heavy weapons. They're demanding your immediate presence or they start executing—"

Gunfire. Not a few shots—full automatic weapons fire. The sound of war.

"Contact! We have multiple breach points! Boss, we're pinned down! We need you here *now*—"

My blood crystallized into ice. My men. My people. Under attack while I—

"Boss?" Dante's voice cut through the chaos. Quiet. Careful. "Orders?"

I looked at the phone. Then at the road ahead. The base or the clinic. My empire or my family. The man I'd been raised to be or the man Sofia made me want to become.

The choice shattered me. And remade me.

"Lock it down," I told my security chief. "Return fire. Protect the assets. I'll be there when I can."

"But Boss—"

I ended the call.

Dante shot me a look I couldn't quite decipher. "You sure?"

"Drive."

We were still three blocks away when Ice called back. This time, his voice wasn't shredded. It was *broken*.

"Ace. Jesus Christ, Ace, get here. Something's wrong. The baby's in distress. They're saying—" A sound that might have been a sob. "They're saying they might lose him."

I ran. The clinic doors were locked. I didn't slow down. My shoulder hit wood and glass, and something gave. Alarm klaxons wailed. The receptionist screamed. I followed Sofia's screams like blood in water.

A nurse tried to intercept me. I brushed past her like she was smoke. The delivery room door burst open under my weight.

Nothing in my life—not my father's brutality, not war, not torture, not death itself—could have prepared me for what I saw. Sofia on the bed, her face a mask of agony, tears carving rivers down her cheeks. Sweat plastered dark hair to her forehead. Dr. Morrison between her legs, hands moving with urgent precision.

And the machines. God, the machines. All of them screaming in discordant symphony.

"Heart rate at fifty-five and dropping," a nurse announced. Her voice was too calm. Too practiced. Like she'd delivered this news before.

"We're losing him." Dr. Morrison's voice cut like a scalpel. "Sofia, I need you to push. One massive push and we get him out."

"I can't." Sofia's voice was destroyed. "I'm too tired. I can't do it anymore."

Then she saw me.

"Ace." My name was a prayer, a plea, a lifeline thrown to a drowning woman. "You came."

I crossed the room in three strides. Took her hand in mine. Her grip was crushing—bones grinding together—and I welcomed the pain.

"I'm here." I brought her knuckles to my lips. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere."

"Something's wrong with Jaxon." The words tumbled out between gasping breaths. "They can't find his heartbeat. The cord—they said the umbilical cord is—"

Another contraction stole her words. Replaced them with a scream that would live in my nightmares forever.

"Umbilical cord is compressed," Dr. Morrison explained without looking up from her work. "Cutting off oxygen. He needs to come out in the next sixty seconds, or we're talking emergency surgery. But we don't have sixty seconds."

"Then what?" My voice was steady. Controlled. A lie wrapped in calm.

"Sofia pushes." Dr. Morrison finally looked up. Met Sofia's eyes. "I know you're exhausted. I know it hurts. But your son needs you to be strong one more time. Just one more time."

Sofia looked at me. Her eyes were drowning. "I don't think I can."

I cupped her face in both hands. Forced her to see me. To hear me. "You are the strongest person I have ever known. You survived your father. You survived me. You can do this."

"But what if—" Her voice broke. "What if I push and he's already gone?"

"He's not gone." I pressed my forehead to hers. "He's fighting. He's your son. He doesn't know how to quit. And neither do you."

The next contraction built like a wave. Sofia screamed—raw, primal, the sound of a woman at war—and pushed.

"Good!" Dr. Morrison's voice rose. "I see the head! One more. One more massive push!"

"I can't—"

"Yes, you can." I leaned close, my lips against her ear. "Look at me, baby. Just look at me. One more push. Our son is waiting. I'm waiting. We need you. *Push*."

She pushed. The sound she made wasn't human. It was every ounce of strength, every drop of will, every fragment of hope channeled into one final effort. Her nails drew blood from my hand. Something in my fingers cracked audibly. I didn't feel it.

"The head's out!" Dr. Morrison announced. "One more for the shoulders. Sofia, one more—"

Sofia was sobbing, shaking, her body trembling like it would shatter apart. But she reached deep—into that place where her strength lived, that inexhaustible well of fire and steel—and pushed one last time.

Then—

A cry. Thin as spider silk. Weak as morning mist. But *there*. Real. Alive.

"It's a boy," Dr. Morrison said. But her tone made my blood freeze. "He's not breathing properly. NICU team to delivery one! Code blue! I need respiratory support *now!*"

They laid him on Sofia's chest for three seconds. Maybe five. Just long enough for me to see him. Too small. Jesus Christ, he was too small. His skin had a bluish tint that stopped my heart. His chest barely moved. Like he was forgetting how to breathe.

"Hi, baby." Sofia's voice shattered as she touched his face with trembling fingers. "Mommy's here. Mommy loves you so much. Please be okay. Please, please—"

They took him. Six medical personnel descended like a SWAT team. Surrounding the warming table. Blocking my view. Urgent voices calling out medical terminology that sounded like a foreign language.

"Airway obstructed."

"Not responding to stimulus."

"Suction again. More pressure."

"Come on, baby. Come on."

Sofia sobbed against my chest. I held her. Felt my own tears sliding hot down my face—the first tears I'd shed since I was eight years old and learned that crying only made the beatings worse.

The seconds stretched into geological eras.

"Still no respiratory effort."

"Prepare for bag ventilation."

"Starting compressions—"

No. *No.*

Then—

A stronger cry. Louder. Angry, almost.

"He's breathing!" someone announced. "Airway patent. But effort is poor and irregular. He needs NICU. Move!"

They swept him past us in a clear plastic capsule. A forest of tubes and wires already sprouting from his impossibly tiny body. He looked like something breakable. Temporary. Not quite solid enough to be real.

Sofia reached out. Her fingers grasped nothing but air. "Wait—please—I didn't get to hold him—"

But they were already gone. The doors swinging shut behind them. Taking our son. Leaving only the ghost of his weak cries echoing in the sudden, terrible silence.

Sofia collapsed back against the pillows. Her face was gray. Her lips bloodless.

"Is he going to be okay?" she asked Dr. Morrison, who was still working between her legs.

Dr. Morrison's hesitation lasted less than a second. It was the longest second of my life.

"His lungs are severely underdeveloped," she said carefully. Each word chosen with surgical precision. "He's going to need significant respiratory support. The next few hours are..." She trailed off.

She didn't need to finish. Critical. The next few hours were critical. Which was medical speak for: *He might not survive the night.*

My phone vibrated. I pulled it out on autopilot.

Dante: *Base secure. Marcus captured alive. Three of ours wounded. Awaiting orders.*

I stared at the text. The words made sense individually. Strung together, they were gibberish. I silenced the phone without responding.

"Ace." Sofia's voice was so small. So broken. "I'm scared."

I climbed onto the narrow bed beside her. Pulled her into my arms as carefully as I could. "I know, baby. I'm scared too."

She buried her face in my chest and sobbed. Great, shuddering sobs that shook us both.

And for the first time in my life, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't kill this problem. Couldn't torture it into submission. Couldn't threaten or bribe or manipulate my way to a solution.

All I could do was hold the woman I loved while she fell apart. And pray that our son was strong enough to survive the night.