I refused to give up my reserved hospital parking spot for my husband’s ex, Ava. She’d call on rainy days, claiming she was too frail to walk from the public garage. “It’s just a few extra steps,” I’d say. “Why obsess over my spot?” When Leonard found out, he raged: “She got soaked and nearly lost the baby! Couldn’t you be decent for once?” I scoffed. “She chooses to walk in the rain instead of driving. How is that my fault?” He apologized, playing the perfect husband for months—until my water broke. For three hours, he drove in circles, deliberately missing the delivery window. On the hospital monitor, he smirked at the camera, holding Ava: “First come, first served, right? Let’s see how long you’ll wait in line for your life.” 1 A tearing agony ripped through my abdomen. I grabbed Leonard’s arm, my knuckles white. “Get me to the hospital! Now!” He shoved my hand away, a sneer twisting his lips. “What’s the rush? When Ava was burning up with a fever in the rain, she was in a hundred times more pain than you are now.” The car lurched to a halt. I peered through the window, my heart sinking. This wasn’t the hospital. It was a desolate, subterranean parking garage. “Leonard, are you insane? The baby is coming!” He didn’t answer. Instead, he switched on the car’s dashboard screen. It wasn’t the navigation system. It was a live feed from the hospital’s CCTV. There, in the private birthing suite I had booked and paid for, lay Ava, nestled comfortably in bed, attended to by a team of nurses. Through the screen, Ava looked directly into the camera, her eyes welling with crocodile tears. “Rebecca, I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. “I went into labor early, so I had to take your suite. The doctors say my condition is critical, that I need to be admitted immediately.” The floor fell out from under me. “This was your plan all along.” Leonard lit a cigarette, taking a long, leisurely drag. “First come, first served. Your words. So now, you can wait right here.” The contractions were coming faster, harder. A cold sweat beaded on my forehead. “Then take me to another hospital!” “Another hospital?” Leonard laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “You’re the one who said I didn’t have to pay for anything. Why should I help you?” He cranked the air conditioning, aiming the vents directly at me. An arctic blast hit my body. I began to shiver violently, the cold making the searing pain in my belly even more unbearable. “Leonard, this is your child I’m carrying!” “Is it?” His eyes were chips of ice. “Ava told me she saw you. Wrapped in another man’s arms. We don’t know whose child that is, do we?” I stared at him, aghast. “You’re delusional! When have I ever—” “Enough!” He spun around, his face a mask of disgust. “Ava’s been fragile her whole life. You, the pampered princess, couldn’t just let her have a damn parking spot. You had to let her get sick. Now, it’s your turn to understand what real pain feels like.” The car doors clicked shut, locking me in. Leonard got out, leaving me alone in the suffocating, freezing space. Then, I felt a warm gush. My water had broken. The fluid soaked through my dress, staining the expensive leather of the seat. On the screen, Ava’s pathetic mask dropped, replaced by a triumphant smile. She gave a little wave to the camera. A moment later, the car door was wrenched open. Leonard stood there, flanked by five imposing men in dark suits. “It’s too warm in here,” Leonard said, his voice dripping with condescension. “How could you possibly appreciate the misery Ava felt in that cold rain?” My eyes widened in terror. “Leonard, the baby is coming! Get me to a hospital!” “Coming?” He scoffed. “Did you give a damn when Ava went into premature labor?” Two of the men moved forward, grabbing my arms and hauling me out of the car. A mixture of amniotic fluid and blood dripped onto the grimy concrete. The pain was so intense I could barely stand. “What are you doing? Let go of me!” Leonard ignored my pleas, simply pointing towards a car wash bay in the corner of the garage. The men dragged me towards it. I fought with everything I had, but a fresh wave of agony, like a blade twisting in my gut, stole my strength. “Leonard! I’m serious, the baby is coming out!” He picked up the nozzle of a pressure washer, aiming it directly at me. “Rebecca, you’ve been coddled your whole life. You have no idea what real suffering is.” A brutal, high-pressure blast of water slammed into my body. “Aaargh!” The water was ice-cold. The force of it knocked me to the ground. The bloody fluid around me was blasted across the concrete floor. I curled into a ball, but two of the enforcers pinned me down, their grips like iron. From the screen of a tablet one of them held, I could hear Ava’s cloying voice. “Leonard, maybe that’s enough. She’s pregnant, after all…” “You’re still defending her?!” Leonard’s rage intensified. He cranked the pressure washer to its maximum setting. “She’s the reason you went into labor early! The reason our son is now fighting for his life in an incubator! This is nothing compared to what she did!” The icy jet hit me again, and I thought I would drown in the pain. Soaked, my hair plastered to my face, I was a pathetic, broken thing on the floor. “Enough… please… the baby’s coming…” I begged, my voice a ragged whisper. Leonard’s eyes were merciless. “Cut her clothes off.” “No! You can’t!” I screamed, my voice raw with terror. One of the men produced a pair of shears. With a sharp rip, my maternity dress was torn open. “Leonard! You’re a monster!” He looked down at me, a god passing judgment. “When Ava was drenched and feverish, she felt just as helpless. Now it’s your turn.” The shears continued their work, shredding what was left of my clothes. The profound sense of shame was sharper than any contraction. A violent spasm seized my womb, and I instinctively reached for my pocket. It was still there. The micro-locator. My last hope. I covertly pressed the button. As the signal went out, a wave of relief washed over me. My parents would get the alert. They would come for me. I just had to hold on until they arrived— “Rebecca. What are you doing?” Leonard’s voice cut through the air. He snatched the device from my hand and, with a vicious stomp, crushed it under his heel. “Calling for help? You’re always full of tricks, aren’t you?” The electronic components scattered across the wet concrete. I collapsed, defeated, as the contractions intensified, one crashing into the next. I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t. I’d taken emergency first aid and physiology courses in college. I had to rely on myself now. I regulated my breathing, trying to relax my muscles, to work with the rhythm of my body. Through the haze of pain, I could feel the baby moving down. I could feel the head crowning. “Leonard, I’m giving birth! Right now!” I gritted out. Maybe, just maybe, I could deliver this baby myself. Seeing this, Leonard’s face darkened into a thunderous scowl. From the tablet, Ava’s panicked voice shrieked, “Leonard! I nearly bled to death during my delivery! How can it be this easy for her?” Her voice was thick with jealousy and disbelief. Leonard nodded, then turned and beckoned to someone behind him. “Doctor, come here.” Only then did I notice he’d brought his own private physician. A middle-aged man in a white coat approached, a syringe in his hand. “She’s having it too easy,” Leonard commanded, his voice devoid of all emotion. “Give her the contraction suppressant.” What?! My eyes flew wide with horror. “Leonard, you can’t! That will kill me! It will kill the baby!” The doctor didn’t hesitate. He knelt, and I felt the sharp prick of the needle in my arm. “No—!” The drug hit my bloodstream like liquid ice and fire. My lower abdomen seized as if caught in a giant, crushing vise. The baby, which had been moments from birth, was violently halted, forced back. The tearing sensation that followed blacked out my vision. Blood began to pour from me, pooling on the ground, a crimson tide. I was suffocating, my body convulsing uncontrollably. “Ava lost more blood than this,” Leonard stated, looking down at me in the spreading pool of my own blood, his tone terrifyingly calm. As the drug’s effects began to wane, I summoned every last ounce of strength I had. With a final, desperate push, the baby slid out of my body. Lying in the bloody mess, I trembled as I looked down at the infant in my arms. His skin was a terrifying shade of blue. His tiny mouth was closed. There was no cry. “My baby! My baby!” I clutched him to my chest, my shaking hands stroking his cold, still face. The private doctor rushed over, preparing to perform emergency resuscitation. “Get out of the way!” Leonard shoved the doctor aside and snatched the baby from my arms. “I’ll do it! Ava taught me how!” I could only watch in horror as he took my son. Following the “special technique” Ava had supposedly taught him, Leonard began to perform forceful chest compressions on the newborn. CRACK! The sickening snap of a tiny bone echoed through the parking garage. My son’s ribs were broken. He stopped breathing altogether. “NO!!!” A raw, animalistic howl tore from my throat as I scrambled toward Leonard. “Leonard! You killed our son! You monster!” I snatched my baby back, holding his lifeless body tight. He was so small, so fragile, like a perfect porcelain doll. A doll whose eyes would never open. Leonard stood frozen for a second, then his shock morphed into rage. “It’s your fault! This is all your fault!” he roared, kicking out at me. “If you hadn’t been so selfish about that parking spot, Ava wouldn’t have gone into premature labor! She would have been calm, and she would have taught me the right way!” “You’re lying! Ava did this on purpose!” I screamed, tears streaming down my face, dripping onto my son’s cold cheek. “She wanted our baby dead!” “Shut up!” Leonard gestured to his men. “Tie her up!” Rough hands dragged me away from my child. The ropes bit into my flesh, but I felt nothing. All I could feel was the gaping void where my heart used to be. From the tablet, Ava’s voice cooed, “Leonard, my love, Rebecca is just too cruel. She needs to learn what true despair feels like.” Leonard nodded, then turned to his enforcers, a group of men who looked like they’d just been released from prison. “You lot,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “Show her what a hard life really is.” The men’s faces split into leering, predatory grins. I closed my eyes. It was for the best. My child was gone. What reason did I have to live? Just as a filthy hand was about to touch me— BOOM! The garage’s rolling steel door was torn from its moorings. A convoy of sleek black sedans screeched to a halt inside. Men in tactical gear swarmed out, neutralizing Leonard’s thugs with brutal efficiency. Screams of pain replaced the leering grins. The man leading the charge rushed to my side, shrugging off his expensive suit jacket and wrapping it around my shivering body. “Ma’am! I’m sorry I’m late!” I leaned weakly into his embrace, my eyes fixed on Leonard’s stunned face. “Rebecca… who… who are you?” Leonard stammered, his voice trembling. “Ma’am?” From the tablet, Ava’s voice rose in a panic. “Leonard, run! They look like the mob!” I stared at Leonard, my voice weak but crystal clear. “Him. And the woman on that screen. I want them to wish they had never been born.” Leonard stumbled backward, his face ashen. “Impossible! You’re just a regular office worker! How could you…” My head of security, Jackson, let out a cold laugh, his eyes dripping with contempt for the man before him. “Mr. Anderson, every penny you’ve ever spent, every luxury you’ve ever enjoyed, was a gift from Ms. Gilbert.” “The fact that your company, Anderson Corp, was pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy… you thought that was your business acumen?” Jackson sneered. “That was Ms. Gilbert pulling strings from the shadows.” The blood drained from Leonard’s face. “No… that’s not possible…” “The mansion you live in, the sports car you drive, every single contract your company has landed—” Jackson enunciated each word like a hammer blow. “Which one of those wasn’t arranged by her?” On the screen, Ava’s voice grew shrill. “That’s impossible! Rebecca doesn’t have that kind of background! She’s a nobody, a—” “Silence,” I cut her off. “A nobody from the wrong side of the tracks dares to speak in my presence?” Leonard was shaking from head to toe. “Rebecca… our three years together… our marriage…” “Marriage?” I laughed, but the sound was hollow and sharp with mockery. “You murdered my son, and you have the audacity to speak of our marriage?” The pool of blood on the floor had begun to congeal around the tiny, still form of my dead child. “Jackson, take them,” I commanded, closing my eyes. “And remember my instructions. Make them wish they were dead.” “Yes, ma’am!” Jackson gestured, and his men seized Leonard. “Rebecca! You can’t do this!” Leonard struggled. “We can start over! I can fix this!” Start over? I opened my eyes, and the sheer coldness in them made him flinch. “Do you know what I hate more than anything in this world, Leonard?” He stared, bewildered. “Betrayal,” I said, each word a shard of ice. “Especially from someone I truly gave my heart to.” A medical team rushed in, carefully lifting me onto a stretcher. As they carried me away, I gave Leonard one last look.
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