Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 121 - Chapitre 130

Crawford opened the folder and slid a document across the table toward me. Hospital intake forms. My hospital intake forms, from the night I lost the baby while Maxton laughed on the phone in the next room.“These medical records from your miscarriage,” Crawford began, leaning forward with that cruel smile widening by a fraction, “show that the fetus was already deceased before the physical trauma was recorded. The medical examiner’s notes indicate that fetal demise likely occurred prior to the external injuries documented on your body.”My throat closed. The words were clinical, detached, describing the death of my child in language that belonged in a textbook instead of a courtroom.“Isn’t it possible, Ms. Morrison,” Crawford continued, his voice dropping to something almost gentle, almost sympathetic, which made it infinitely worse, “that you induced the miscarriage yourself? To free yourself from a relationship you no longer wanted? To position yourself as a victim who could then

I used the spare key. The lock clicked, the door swung open, and I found her sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed in the navy suit she wore to court, her hair still pulled back in the neat knot, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes staring at a spot on the wall that contained nothing.She was not crying. She was not shaking. She was not doing anything at all. Just sitting, perfectly still, like a machine that had been switched off and was waiting for someone to press the power button.“Lara.” I crossed the room and knelt in front of her, putting myself in her line of sight. “Look at me.”Her eyes did not move. They stayed fixed on the wall behind me, unfocused, vacant, the eyes of someone who was present in body but had gone somewhere else entirely in their mind.“I saw what Crawford accused you of in court.” I kept my voice gentle, low, the way I spoke to her during panic attacks. “It’s a lie. Everyone who matters knows it’s a lie. The medical records prove the pregnancy wa

(Kyle's POV)The hospital hallway smelled like bleach and bad coffee and the particular kind of sterile emptiness that made you feel like the world outside had stopped existing. I sat in a plastic chair that was designed for waiting and nothing else, my elbows on my knees, my bandaged hand throbbing with every heartbeat, staring at the floor tiles while nurses moved past me in soft shoes that barely made a sound.Maxton did this. The thought circled my brain like a shark in shallow water, relentless and hungry. Every headline, every accusation, every cruel word Crawford hurled at her in that courtroom, every comment from strangers threatening to kill her on the street. Maxton orchestrated all of it, and the woman I loved was lying in a hospital bed because the weight of his cruelty finally exceeded what her body could carry.They took her behind closed doors the moment we arrived. IVs and monitors and medical terminology I could not process because my brain had shut down everything ex

(Lara's POV)Kyle didn't come back.Not that night, not the next morning, not when they brought me breakfast on a plastic tray with juice that tasted like watered down regret. I ate alone. Stared at the door between every bite, waiting for it to open, hating myself for wanting it to.I told him to leave. He left. That was what I asked for. So why did his absence feel worse than his presence ever did?Because you wanted him to fight harder, a voice whispered inside my head. You wanted him to ignore the words and hear the pain behind them.But that was unfair. I could not push him away and then resent him for going. That was the kind of twisted logic Maxton used to trap me. "You made me do this." "If you hadn't provoked me." I was not going to become the person who punished someone for respecting her boundaries.Still. The room felt emptier without him in it.I kept thinking about what he told me. His sister. Sofia. The girl who died because nobody pulled her out in time. He saw her whe

(Kyle's POV)I barely slept.Every time I closed my eyes, her face was there. Not Sofia's. Lara's. The way she looked at me when I told her I cared about her. The way her lips parted and her breath caught and her eyes went wide like I had just handed her something she did not know how to hold.I should not have told her. That was what the old version of me kept repeating while I stared at my bedroom ceiling in the dark. Confession was weakness. Vulnerability was a weapon you handed to people so they could use it against you later.But the new version, the version that Lara had been quietly building inside me without either of us realizing it, that version knew the truth. She deserved honesty. Not because of Sofia. Not because of the contract. Because she was Lara, and I was tired of pretending she was anything less than the woman who made me forget every rule I ever built to keep myself safe.When morning came, I dragged myself out of bed and walked to the kitchen expecting silence an