Chapter 3: Escaped with his child

(Lyra’s POV)

“You really think you deserve to give birth to my child?”

The words hit me harder than a slap. Rhys’s voice was cold, almost bored, as if he were commenting on the weather, not the life growing inside me.

“The baby’s innocent…” I murmured, clutching my stomach. It was all I could say, the only argument I had.

He scoffed and leaned in, his eyes sharp with disgust. “Innocent?” he repeated, his voice dipped in venom. “There isn’t a shred of innocence in anything that comes from you. Or your bloodline.”

I looked down at the floor, biting my lip hard enough to taste metal. “It wasn’t planned,” I said quietly. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

But he didn’t believe me. Of course, he didn’t. He never believed me.

“Spare me the act,” he snapped. “You think you can trap me with a child? That I’ll forgive you, or worse, love you because of it?”

I shook my head, fighting the urge to cry. “That’s not why—”

“Any other woman could carry my child, Lyra. But not you. Not with your mother’s blood. I won’t have my child inherit filth.”

The way he said it—casual, cruel—made something inside me shatter.

“Get rid of it,” he ordered, like it was nothing.

Tears burned behind my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall. I wouldn’t cry—not in front of him. But my hand instinctively rested on my belly, shielding it.

I can’t lose this baby. Not like this.

Before I could gather the courage to speak, his phone buzzed. He didn’t even hesitate. Just picked it up and answered, “What?”

A man’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Mr. Maddox, there's been a situation in the stock market. We need your attention immediately.”

Rhys looked at his watch. Without missing a beat, he said, “Handle it yourself.”

And then, just like that, he turned and walked away.

I stood there, unmoving, watching him leave. I felt nothing but a strange, icy clarity. As the taillights of his car vanished into the street, I whispered to my unborn child, “We’re leaving. Now.”

I didn’t know where we were going. I just knew we couldn’t stay.

I grabbed my car keys and drove until the city lights grew dim and the roads narrowed. Then I parked on the side of a quiet street and spotted a bus idling near a corner store.

A woman at the door looked at me curiously. “Where to, miss?”

“Wherever it ends.” My voice came out hoarse.

I boarded, sat near the back, and turned off my phone. I wouldn’t let Rhys track me. I hugged my bag to my chest and, for the first time in what felt like forever, let myself drift into uneasy sleep.

I don’t know how many hours passed. I only knew that the bus finally stopped at a sleepy town called Bloomstead, a place I’d never heard of but felt safe in simply because Rhys hadn’t touched it yet.

I checked my bank account. There was enough. Not much—but enough for now.

To be safe, I bought a cheap flip phone—one with no apps, no tracking. I’d severed everything. Rhys couldn’t follow me now.

I reached out to the only person I could trust—Elridge Elridge, a college friend who lived in Moonreach, a quiet mountain town with spotty internet and worse roads. The kind of place where secrets could stay buried.

She picked up the moment I called her from a payphone. “Lyra?” she said, stunned. “Are you okay? You sound—”

“I just need somewhere to stay. Please.”

She didn’t ask more. “Come. I’ll be waiting.”

Six hours later, as Rhys’s sleek black Bugatti pulled into our villa’s driveway, I was already gone.

He stepped into the living room, expecting me to be curled up on the couch like always. But the air was still. No lights. No soft scent of my perfume. No me.

“Lyra?” he called.

Silence.

He stormed upstairs. Bedroom. Bathroom. Library. Balcony. Empty.

He stared at the space I used to sit at—the windowsill where I read. Nothing.

His face twisted with realization. “She ran.”

He yanked out his phone. Dialed my number. Straight to voicemail.

“Damn it!” His voice echoed through the empty house.

I had arrived in Moonreach by nightfall. The air was cool, the scent of blooming camellias filling the narrow dirt roads. Spring had just begun.

Elridge’s small home sat on the edge of the village, wrapped in the scent of pine and the hush of rural peace. She threw her arms around me when I arrived.

“God, Lyra. You look… exhausted.”

“I am,” I whispered.

She looked down and saw my belly. Her eyes widened. “Eight months?”

I nodded.

“You really did it.” There was something close to awe in her voice. “You ran.”

“I had to. He didn’t want the baby.”

Over the next few days, I settled in. The village was small. Quiet. Kind. The people took to me quickly, especially the children at the school where I filled in as a music teacher. They called me Miss Vance, and for the first time, I didn’t feel like I had to hide who I was.

Elridge watched me closely one morning as I practiced a lullaby on the old school piano.

“You know,” she said carefully, “you should think about heading into the county before you give birth. Rent a place with running water. Hospitals nearby.”

“I will,” I promised. “Soon.”

“You’re really doing this alone?” she asked. “No going back?”

“There’s nothing to go back to.”

She sighed. “You’ve changed. You used to be so timid.”

I smiled faintly, resting a hand on my belly. “Not anymore. Not since them.”

Back in the city, Rhys was losing his mind.

For six months, he searched. Every bank withdrawal, every possible location. He deployed teams, offered bounties, tracked mutual contacts—but I stayed hidden.

One night, in a drunken haze of frustration, he kicked his car’s tire and roared into the sky. “Where the hell are you?!”

He had no idea I was in a place without street signs, tucked between mountains, where the only thing louder than the silence was the laughter of children during recess.

What scared him most was the thought of me being touched by someone else.

The idea that another man might lay a hand on me, even accidentally, ignited something violent inside him.

I was his. Always.

But I wasn’t.

Not anymore.

“You’re really not going back, are you?” Elridge asked again as we hung laundry in the fading sunlight.

“No,” I said simply, feeling

the baby kick inside me. “He doesn’t deserve to know this child.”