Death

Rafael's large hand stretched out, demanding.

I stepped back, hiding the test pack behind my back. "Don't touch me," I hissed.

My voice trembled, but my eyes blazed at him with undisguised hatred.

Chloe laughed softly, stepping forward from behind Rafael's broad back.

Her silk nightgown flowed, exposing her smooth thighs.

"Oh please, Serena. You're acting like the most wounded victim here. Hand over that test. My brother has the right to know whether his 'vessel' is functioning properly or not."

"Shut that filthy mouth, Chloe!" I snapped, my voice breaking with fury.

"You are absolutely disgusting! You slut!"

Chloe's eyes flashed viciously. She lunged toward me, her hand raised high.

SLAP!

A hard slap landed on my cheek. The corner of my lip instantly tasted salty with blood.

Yet, what destroyed me was not the physical pain.

It was Rafael's reaction.

The man simply stood there, staring at me with a face as flat as an ice sculpture.

There was no flash of anger that his wife had been slapped.

No defense.

"You..." I stared at Rafael with heaving breath. "You let her hit me? I am carrying your child!"

"You are carrying my heir," Rafael corrected in his lethal baritone voice.

"That does not make you special, Serena. Do not overstep your boundaries. You were the one who insulted Chloe first."

Chloe smiled with complete triumph.

She suddenly shoved my shoulder hard. "Get out of my way, you barren woman, oh, sorry, I mean incubator."

My body staggered backward.

My heel slipped on the shards of the porcelain vase.

I fell and sat down hard on the cold marble floor.

A sharp pain suddenly pierced my lower abdomen.

I let out a muffled shriek, clutching my stomach in panic. "It hurts..."

Rafael's green eyes narrowed slightly.

He turned toward the guard who had just come running over upon hearing the commotion.

"Take her to her room," Rafael commanded in his usual tone, full of an inevitably demanding authority.

"Lock the door from the outside. Make sure she does not take a single step out, and call the family doctor."

"If anything happens to the fetus in her womb, you will all pay with your lives."

Rafael turned, wrapped his arm around Chloe's waist, and guided the woman back into his study.

The door shut firmly with a loud thud, sealing me inside the true reality of things.

That night, on the marble floor scattered with porcelain shards, the remnants of my adolescent love for Rafael Navarro shattered into pieces.

Completely dead, transformed into a revulsion that rotted at the bottom of my stomach.

***

The master bedroom that had once felt like a gilded cage was now truly a prison.

The doctor had examined me, given me a uterine-strengthening injection, and left without a single word on Rafael's orders.

A violent rainstorm began pouring heavily outside the window, beating the glass ferociously.

Lightning struck, splitting the night sky.

I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at my own reflection in the mirror.

Swollen eyes, bleeding lip, a face as pale as a corpse.

Several wounds on my body, cuts from the vase shards.

And several bruises.

"I will not let my child be born in this hell." My hand stroked my still flat stomach.

"I will not let them be touched by those monsters. I will not let them separate me and my child."

I stood up. Time was a luxury I did not have.

I opened the hidden safe behind the painting. I took out a faded red velvet box.

Inside it were an emerald necklace and a pair of diamond earrings, the only inheritance from my late mother that I had managed to hide from the Navarro family.

Footsteps were heard approaching.

My bedroom door was opened slightly from outside.

Maria, the senior maid assigned to bring my dinner, stepped inside carrying a tray.

I immediately lunged and grabbed her arm, pressing my hand over her mouth before she could scream.

"Maria, help me," I whispered desperately. I shoved the jewelry box into her trembling hands.

"This is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Enough to settle your family's debts and take your children far away from this city."

Maria's eyes widened at the gleam of the emeralds.

"Give me the key to the servant's door at the back gate and lend me your raincoat," I said sharply, looking straight into her eyes.

"Or I will die and rot in this room."

"They, they want to separate me from my child!"

Maria swallowed.

She stared at the jewelry, then stared at my stomach.

Slowly, the old maid nodded.

***

The roar of the rain disguised my footsteps.

Wearing Maria's oversized black raincoat, I slipped through the pitch-dark back garden of the mansion.

The night wind cut to the bone, but adrenaline made me immune to the cold.

I managed to reach the old garage where the servants' cars were parked.

I started the engine of a worn-out sedan whose keys were always left in the dashboard drawer.

The car drove through the back gate that Maria had left unlocked.

The old car took less than five minutes to exit the Navarro mansion grounds.

I was free.

Yet, I knew this freedom was only temporary.

Rafael Navarro possessed unlimited power and connections.

He would find me before sunrise if I simply fled like this.

I needed more than just escape.

I needed death.

I had to die.

I bit my lip, glancing to the side.

There was a steep cliff on the right.

I clenched my fist, stroking my stomach.

For my baby.

Impulsively I steered the car to the right side.

The rain grew wilder, the road slippery with mud.

At this moment, my mind was perfectly clear.

I stopped the car exactly three meters before the edge of the cliff.

My feet stepped out of the car.

The rain immediately drenched my entire body.

I unwound the white silk scarf wrapped around my neck, the scarf Rafael had given me in the first year of our marriage.

Without much deliberation, I reached into my pocket, took out the folding knife I always carried wherever I went.

Without a moment's hesitation, I dragged its sharp edge across my palm.

"Ahh!" I hissed as the stinging pain bit.

Fresh blood dripped heavily.

I smeared it roughly onto the white scarf, then hooked it on a thorny bush right at the edge of the cliff.

As though the scarf had snagged there as I fell.

I returned to the car, released the handbrake, then shifted the gear lever to neutral.

With what strength I had left, I pushed the back of that old car from behind.

The wheels scraped over gravel and mud.

The car rolled slowly, then faster and faster, until it finally broke through the flimsy road barrier and plunged freely into the darkness of the night.

Several seconds later, a muffled explosion was heard as metal struck the large rocks below.

I turned around, and walked away.