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“Miss, are you sure about this?” The doctor stared deeply into my eyes hoping to see if I was joking or would change my mind.
“Yes, I haven't been as sure as I am now.” My voice came out steadier than I expected. She set her pen down slowly. “Mrs Whitmore” she folded her hands. “You don't need to decide today. It's only 3 weeks,” She paused. “ Your uterine lining shows signs of significant weakness. The fact that this pregnancy succeeded— ." She exhaled. “—Is frankly a miracle. There's no guarantee your body will allow this again”.Her voice dropped low. “This may be your only chance.” The words shot a pain through my chest. With tight trembling hands I responded, “No qualms, I don't intend on giving birth anyway” I interjected. Especially not for a man like him. She studied me for a moment and nodded in defeat. “Okay, I will prepare you for the necessary procedures.” She confirmed and glanced back at the monitor. “You'll need a minimum of three days to recover. I suggest you plan on staying here for those few days “ “Noted.” My appointment for the abortion was scheduled and that was the first part of it. I gathered my bag, thanked the doctor and got up ready to leave. But paused to look over the appointment card slipped into my hand. A frown settled on my face. The earlier the better. “Erm doctor, I'm sorry but can't you move this date forward?” I paused as I explained further cause the look on her face was more of confusion . “I do have an engagement on that day, I'd rather I finish and recover fast before it happens. “ She looked up, and for a second, something flashed across her face. Was it pity ? “Alright Miss, I can shift it to two days from today.” “That'll be fine with me,” I managed a small nod. “Thank you” was my last word before I left her office as the door clicked shut behind me. I let out a deep breath I didn't know I was holding. The child isn't at fault. A part of me still felt sad. I knew that. With one hand pressed flat against my tummy, I let my thoughts take over. The baby was innocent. Completely innocent. But I also knew what kind of world I would be pushing it into. A world where its father's hands belonged to another woman. Where it would grow up either ignorant of the truth or destroyed by it. I won't do that to it. I won't give birth to a child just to watch it be swallowed by that world. For three good years, Damien and I have tried for a baby. God, in the beginning he was everything. He was sweet , showered me with gifts and showed me that I was really born to be loved. He never for once took a glance at another woman. Anytime I looked into his eyes, all I saw was the raw desire for me. On our very first anniversary, he made love to me . And that was the best day of my life. He made my life whole and no man was closer to that. Everything was okay, until I noticed his sudden change. He became moody and a little aggressive. And even stopped making love to me, but when he did, it was the gentle thing we used to share. It was rough like he poured anger into it. At least he hasn't laid a finger on me. He recently started leaving early for work and getting back home very late and when I ask about it, the only thing he says is, “I'm tired, we'll talk about it tomorrow,” “Had a meeting” “I need peace to work” I gave him peace, the space he asked for and still gave him the benefit of doubt. I was very patient though it did break my heart. I thought he always worked hard and was too drained or had rough days at work. But I was wrong all this while. Until the night he looked me up with coldness in the eyes, stomped the table with a fist and said to me , “You have no right to question my lateness. It is none of your business” For the very first time in the years we've been together, he rejected my food like it had poison in it. Fresh air hit my skin, making me relax a bit. It was nothing like what I felt earlier. My feet moved on their own. Though with burning knees, my feet still wouldn't stop moving. My phone vibrated in my bag. I pulled it out and picked it up when I saw the caller ID. “Hello, Lawyer Lawrence here. Am I speaking to Mrs ….” “Oh hi , Mr Lawrence. Yes that's me “ my voice came out normal which surprised me a bit. Not that I expected to sound like how I was looking at the moment. “My assistant mentioned you came to my office this morning. My apologies, i had a hearing on a different case ” Typical of a Lawyer. “How can I help you?” I hesitated for a while before I continued, “I did. Can you please help me draft a divorce. I don't think I can continue with it any longer “ “A divorce ?” “Yes. I want to divorce my husband “Damien The transition from dying in the mud to staying alive in a hospital room was marked by the smell of alcohol and the heart monitor as my eyes flustered open. My right side felt completely dead. A heavy, throbbing pressure anchored my left shoulder, and a thick, rigid brace locked my right hip into place. I moved my chin half an inch, my throat feeling like it was lined with dry glass. The IV line taped to the back of my hand tugged against my skin. Across the room, sitting under the glare of the wall-mounted monitor, was Marcus. He sat in an armchair with his coat draped over his knees, watching the green line spike and fall across the screen. "You're awake," Marcus said, his voice low, lacking its usual sharp, official edge. I tried to swallow, my lungs aching deep behind my sternum where Fray’s second round had grazed my ribs. "Noah..." The word came out as a broken, barely audible rasp. "He's safe, Damien," Marcus said, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his
Serena The gravel driveway of the Ridge compound was a sea of churned brown mud, illuminated only by the rhythmic, blue-and-red strobes of the two city police cruisers idling near the smashed outer gate. I had a second thought staying near the cars. I stood thirty yards ahead in the driving rain, my coat soaked through, my wrists bruised purple and raw where the plastic zip-strips had cut into my flesh hours ago. Eleanor had tried to keep me in the vehicle; Marcus had tried to tell me the tactical team was still clearing the perimeter. I didn't care. I couldn't breathe. My heart was a cold, dead stone sitting in the bottom of my stomach. The heavy concrete bunker set into the granite cliff was smoking. Thick, oily plumes of black diesel smoke were venting from the high exhaust grates, mixing with the rain to drop gray soot over the gravel courtyard. He was in there. Damien had gone in alone, without armor, without a weapon, chasing a devilish monster with four hun
Damien The red fire in my left shoulder never existed. The blood dripped off my elbow, and pooling on the cold concrete existed neither. There was only the sound of my son calling me Daddy for the first time since I've known him. "Hold on, Noah," I whispered, my voice low, steady, cutting straight through the shrill screaming of the security sirens outside. Fray didn't hesitate. He raised the pistol three inches, aiming directly for the bridge of my nose, his thumb pulling back the heavy hammer of the Sig Sauer. "End of the ledger, Damien," Fray stated coldly. I didn't try to dodge the barrel. I drove my right foot into the concrete, throwing my entire body forward into the gap, turning my left shoulder to take the angle. BANG! The second round grazed my ribs, tearing through skin and muscle, but my momentum was already absolute. I brought the heavy iron crowbar down with everything I had left in my body, striking the steel work table directly in the center. CRASH!
Damien I didn't feel the freezing mud soaking through my ruined leather as I cleared the tree line at the edge of the estate. The only sound in the universe was the high-voltage roar of my own blood screaming through my ears. Victor’s sleeper agent. It hadn't been Rose, and neither Lawrence. They were just greedy, noisy children playing with Victor Hale’s leftover scraps. Fray had been the architect from the day Arthur Holt died. Fifteen minutes ago, when I tore through the abandoned garage on Level B3 and found Serena bound to that rusted drainage pipe, her wrists bleeding onto the concrete, her voice completely gone from screaming... everything inside me died. I hadn't called Marcus. Not even the federal marshals or my legal team. The law was a slow, bureaucratic joke that sat in air-conditioned courtrooms while my four-year-old son was logged as an offshore asset. I looked up through the heavy gray downpour at the compound built into the side of the granite ridge. I
Serena The cold against my shoulder blades wasn't just concrete; it was of reinforced subterranean bedrock pressing down like a physical hand, sealing off the world above. The air in the placr had died the second those magnetic blast doors slammed shut. It smelled of stagnant transmission fluid, damp road salt, and the sharp, metallic bite radiating off the heavy pistol in Fray’s hand. Four feet away, Fray’s hand holding the Sig Sauer was unnaturally still, the black steel held low, its muzzle aimed directly at the space between my boots. "Look at him, Serena," Fray murmured, his voice smooth, devoid of any human resonance. "Look at the child. He doesn't even know enough to be terrified. He’s looking at me the way he’d always looked at me." I didn't look down at my son. If I looked down, my focus would break, and if my focus broke, I knew the lead in that chamber would cut through my sternum before my lungs could catch another breath. Instead, I shifted my weight two inches to
Fray I stood three paces inside the shadow of Column Green, checking the digital chronometer on my inner wrist.It read 14:12 PM. On the surface, everything looked like it was tearing itself apart. Upstairs in Courtroom, the rubber-stamped justice system was celebrating its predictably loud, chaotic triumph. Rose Holt was being loaded into a federal transport van in steel cuffs, her makeup ruined, and her decade year delusion of corporate absolute rule evaporated into court records. They thought she was the apex predator. They prolly thought Lawrence was the puppet master. They thought Marcus was the grand orchestrator of law and order. Idiots. All of them. My left hand rested naturally inside the pocket of my charcoal trench coat, my fingers lightly touching the smooth, cold casing of the master thumb drive. $412,890,000.00 USD. The entire liquid reserve of the Hale Primary Trust, silently drained at 03:42 AM while Damien was staring out his fifty-fourth-floor window pl
Serena Victor had been a little off. The Victor I had known this short period was the giddy type. He had good days and bad days, and the good days were so good that they made the bad days harder to absorb. And I'm sure this is one of the odd ones. On the good day, he was sharp and demanding and
RoseI rubbed my now visible belly, which had grown into the size of a double football.Satisfaction seeped into my heart thinking about the fact that everything was falling into places just like I wanted.I was twenty-two weeks now. Damien had become a bit distance, but I don't mind. As long as I
Rose's PovThe moment I heard “mission accomplished" and saw the news on the internet. Every stress in me diminished. It's hard trying to compete when you're as white and pure as a baby horse. This is just the beginning. That night, I remember he came to me sweet and eyes filled with lust but got
Serena's Pov Beeping.That was the first thing.Not pain, not light, not the slow crawl back into consciousness that they show in films where everything is soft and gauzy and someone is holding your hand. Just beeping. Steady and indifferent, like the world had kept running while I was somewhere e







