Chapter 9

Laurence told the driver to send her back home by herself. He didn’t stay for the night. Maybe he had been let down by her constant refusal of sex. After a quick shower, Zoey went downstairs and ate some cake. The overpowering sweetness of the confection barely registered on her tastebuds. Tears fell from her eyes uncontrollably.

Her pregnancy had made her more emotional than usual. She didn’t want to cry, but she couldn’t stop her tears from flowing. Zoey wiped away her tears and sat in the living room for a moment, just staring blankly into the air. Once she settled her emotions, she went upstairs. She was very tired, but she couldn’t sleep.

She took out her phone, tapped on the first contact on Whatsapp, and began typing hesitantly.

“Laurence, I’m pregnant.”

Her finger paused on the send button. Never mind, she decided at the last minute. What was the use of telling him? It wasn’t like he would do anything differently. Zoey decided to get an abortion that weekend.

Having decided that, she closed her eyes and forced herself to sleep. In her dreams, Laurence was ten years old again. His hands were tied up with steel wires, and he was blindfolded, barely breathing. Zoey managed to free herself from her binds. She was weak, so her hands were cut up by the steel wires. After some difficulty, she managed to free him too.

Unfortunately, their kidnapper had come back. He slapped her so hard that she could hear buzzing in her ears. Laurence had almost died in that incident. The police were right on their heels, so he ended up being the kidnapper’s punching bag when the pressure got too much. Zoey was scared that he would die, so she kept talking to him, telling everything she knew, from fairy tales to random stories she made up herself.

She had wanted him to stay alive.

When Zoey woke up, it was morning again. It had been a long time since she last dreamed about the kidnapping. She still had scars left from the trauma. She had tinnitus in her left ear and permanent scarring on her hands. Zoey went to the hospital to see her mother. She was laying quietly in the ICU as if she were sleeping.

Her father, Robbert Jenner, had transferred the Fulton family’s wealth and took their business as his own after her maternal grandparents died under mysterious circumstances. Her mother, the heiress of the Fulton family, had been thrown into an asylum after her husband had gotten his hands on her inheritance. Robbert moved his business to Northwell and married Sarah’s mother, Jasmine Teller. Sarah then became the heiress of the Jenner family.

And Zoey became a lowly illegitimate daughter. Zoey held her mother’s hand and talked to her softly.

“Just a little longer, Mom.”

She had no proof that Jasmine had caused her mother to jump from a building, and neither did she have any information on her grandparent’s car crash, but she knew that her father had a hand in ruining her life. When the accident happened, her grandparents had been locked in the car and burned to death.

Immediately after that, the Fulton family business was transferred to her father. He didn’t only gain control of the company. He also gave Jasmine half of his allocated shares. Not only did the shameless couple ruin a family, they even tried to kill them. Zoey felt disgusted even thinking about them.

…

After visiting her mother, Zoey went to the gynecology department. She was told during the consultation that she needed to book an appointment for the abortion, and before she could get the surgery, she had to undergo several tests. The tests tired her out quickly. She would be having her abortion next weekend, early in the morning.

Sitting alone on the bench in the corridor of the hospital, Zoey gripped the hospital invoice tightly in her hands and took a deep breath. She wondered if the subtle pain in her stomach was just her imagination. It wasn’t unbearable, so she ignored it.