The Fathers of My Child?

#Dorothy’s POV#The car is silent except for the soft noise of the highway and Joel’s voice flirting through the phone like I’m not sitting right next to him.His hand’s on the steering wheel, but his mouth is somewhere else entirely.“Yeah baby, I’ll be back in two days max. I had to fly out for a quick thing. Money stuff, you know,” he says smoothly, laughing under his breath. “Yeah, yeah… of course I miss you. Why wouldn’t I? You're my favorite.”He chuckles.My stomach tightens.He’s been on the phone since we landed in New Jersey. I haven’t said a word. Just sitting here, lips pressed together, fingers picking at the hem of my dress.The leather seat sticks to the back of my thighs. I shift slightly.Joel glances at me once in the rearview mirror, then goes back to his call. “I’ll send you a picture when I land, okay? Maybe more than one…”I blink at him.Dead inside.He finally ends the call and tosses the phone onto the dashboard like it’s made of trash. Like the girl he was ju

#Dorothy’s POV#Dinner time.Also awkward.The long table stretches between the three of us like an abysm. I can’t even reach the salt without making it obvious I’m desperate for flavor, or distraction.Joel sits at the head with his legs crossed and his knife gliding smoothly through some overpriced cut of beef. Rico lounges on the far end with his chair tilted back, already halfway through his wine. I nibble at bread like it’s the only thing safe on this table.“I’ve had your bags moved to the guest house upstairs,” Joel says, not bothering to look up.“Oh, Joel, you treat me like a brother so much. I’m touched,” Rico replies, grinning.He clutches his chest in fake emotion and bats his lashes. I stifle a laugh. Joel does not.Joel rolls his eyes. “It’s important for you to know that there’s a time limit to your duration here. The faster you get the job done, the better it is for all of you.”“All of us?” Rico raises a brow. “Calm down, Joe. At least let me get back into the city an

#Joel’s POV#The next morning.The door swings open, and I step in with the sun behind me and a headache between my eyes. The hallway smells like someone’s burned toast. Or cheap perfume. I don’t care to tell which.I drop my keys in the dish by the entrance, loosen my collar, and start unbuttoning my shirt.I should’ve stayed at Hillary’s. Or maybe gone to Teena’s. Anywhere but this cursed villa.But something told me to come back early.Something told me I needed to see what the hell was going on in my house.And I do.I walk into my room—And stop.Just. Stop.My blood goes cold.There, tangled under the sheets of my matrimonial bed, is him. Rico.And her.Dorothy.My wife.His bare chest rises slowly with sleep. One of his legs is kicked over the sheet. My sheet. My bed. She’s curled beside him like a quiet little question mark. Her hair fanned out. The old shirt she’s wearing isn’t even hers. It looks like it's his.I blink.My vision tints red.“What. The. Fuck.”My voice isn’t

#Dorothy’s POV#“Dorothy. What the hell is going on with you?”Cass’s voice hits me like a slap through the screen. Not loud or cruel. She's never like that with me. Just… real. Like she knows something’s wrong just from the way my name sounds in the air.“I’ve messaged you six times. SIX. I’m starting to feel like the creepy ex-girlfriend who won’t take a hint, but guess what? I’m not gonna stop. Because you’re my friend. Because I care. Because I see the way you write about yourself when you’re not looking, and it scares the shit out of me.”I stare at the screen, my fingers hanging over the keyboard but not moving. Her voice shakes a bit toward the end, like she recorded it in a rush, maybe from the bathroom at work. I imagine her with her locs tied up in a messy bun, tapping her phone like she wants to reach through it and yank me into whatever state she’s in.“You told me once you didn’t believe in safe spaces,” she continues, softer now. “You said everywhere you’d ever gone, som

#Rico’s POV#I’ve been in a lot of clinics. For dumb injuries. For broken noses. Once for a knife wound that barely missed my hipbone.But none of those visits ever felt as violent as this one.I didn’t even get touched. Didn’t bleed or cry.But watching her?That shit did something to me.I saw her hands tremble when the doctor said “time-sensitive.” I heard her breathing pause when he brought out that injection tray. She tried to act tough—like always—but I saw through it. She was shrinking. And it was the first time I realized this wasn’t just a contract for her. This wasn’t just about Joel, or money, or duty.This was survival.I watched her force herself through it. I watched her smile like it didn’t taste like shit in her mouth. I watched her walk out of that office like she wasn’t one gust of wind away from crumbling.And Joel?Nowhere. No call. No fucking message. Not even a damn emoji.What kind of man sends his wife to fight for her body alone?I crash on the couch that nigh