David took a sip of wine. He didn’t look at me. He looked at the wall.
“Listen to my mother, Anna,” he said indifferently. “She knows best. Don’t make a scene in front of Mark. Go to the kitchen.”
A sharp pain ripped through my lower abdomen. It wasn’t hunger. It was a cramp. A very strong one.
I gasped, clutching my stomach. “David… something’s wrong. It hurts.”
“Move!” Sylvia shouted, pointing toward the kitchen door.
I turned. I stumbled. The world tilted.
Chapter 2: The Fatal Push
I tried to walk. I really did. But the pain in my stomach was like a white-hot iron twisting inside me.
I stopped near the kitchen island, gripping the granite countertop to keep from falling.
“I said move!” Sylvia screamed behind me.
She had followed me into the kitchen. Her face was twisted with pure, horrible rage. She couldn’t stand disobedience. She couldn’t stand that I had challenged her authority by trying to sit.
“I can’t,” I gasped. “Sylvia, please… call a doctor.”
“You lazy, lying brat!” Sylvia yelled. “Always sick! Always tired! You’re pathetic!”
She lunged at me.
She placed both hands on my chest, right over my heart, and shoved.
It wasn’t a gentle push. It was a violent, forceful shove fueled by years of bitterness and cruelty.
I lost my balance. My swollen feet slipped on the tile floor.
I fell backward.
Time seemed to slow. I saw the ceiling lights spin. I saw Sylvia’s mocking face recede.
My lower back slammed into the sharp edge of the granite island countertop.
CRACK.
It wasn’t the sound of a bone. It was the sound of impact—deep and dull.
I crashed to the floor hard. My head bounced off the tile.
For a second, there was only shock. Then came the pain. Not in my back. In my womb.
It felt like something had torn.
“Ahhh!” I screamed, curling into a ball.
“Get up!” Sylvia shouted, standing over me. “Stop faking! You didn’t even hit your head!”
Then I felt it.
Heat. Wetness. Soaking my underwear. Spreading down my thighs.
I looked down.
Against Sylvia’s immaculate white kitchen tiles, a bright crimson pool was rapidly expanding.
“The baby…” I whispered. The horror was absolute. It drowned me.
David ran into the kitchen, followed by Mark.
“What happened?” David asked, annoyed. “I heard a crash.”
“She slipped,” Sylvia lied instantly. “So clumsy! Look at this mess! She’s bleeding on my grout!”
David looked at the blood. He didn’t kneel. He didn’t yell for help.
He frowned.
“God, Anna,” David groaned. “Can’t you do anything without drama? Mark, sorry. She’s… she’s going through a rough time.”
Mark was pale. “David, there’s a lot of blood. Maybe we should call 911.”
“No!” David snapped. “No ambulance. The neighbors will talk. I just made partner; I don’t need a domestic incident report.”
He looked at me. “Get up, Anna. Clean this. Then we’ll go to the ER if you keep bleeding.”
“ER?” I gasped. “David… I’m losing the baby! Call 911!”
“I said get up!” David yelled.
He grabbed my arm and yanked me.
Another gush of blood. The pain was blinding now.
I realized then, with a clarity that cut through the agony, that he didn’t care. He didn’t love me. He didn’t love our child. He loved his image. He loved his control.
To him I wasn’t a person. I was an accessory.
And my accessory was broken.
With a trembling hand I reached into my apron pocket. My phone. I needed my phone.
“I’m calling the police,” I sobbed.
David saw the screen light up. His eyes turned black.
“Give me that!”
He snatched the phone from my hand. He didn’t just take it—he threw it.
He hurled it across the kitchen. It hit the far wall with a sickening crack and shattered into plastic shards.
“You’re not calling anyone,” David whispered, looming over me. “You’re going to shut up. You’re going to stop bleeding. And you’re going to apologize to my mother for ruining my Christmas.”
Chapter 3: The Lawyer’s Arrogance
I lay in a pool of my own blood and the remains of my unborn child. The pain should have paralyzed me. The physical impact should have knocked me unconscious.
But something else was happening.
The Thorne lineage was waking up.
But David had just killed my child.
