The night I miscarried and nearly bled to death, I was trapped inside an apartment with the door bolted shut. And my godfather-turned-husband was at the hospital, kissing his mistress. He'd cut the water, the electricity, the phone line. He'd even tried to force me to kneel before Rowena and apologize. He called it a little lesson—because I, his "vicious wife," had dared to compete with his mistress for his affection. But what he didn't know was this: That night, he killed his only heir with his own hands. … … It was just past nine months into the pregnancy when a sharp, plummeting pain tore through my abdomen. My pants were already soaked through with dark red. Something was horribly wrong. I grabbed the bathroom doorframe for support and called out to Colby, who sat by the window. "Colby, I'm bleeding. Take me to the hospital." He was on a phone call, brow furrowed, murmuring something in Italian. After he hung up, he walked straight to the entryway and picked up the hospital bag I'd packed for labor. "Rowena's gone into labor. It's an emergency. She'll need these first." I stared at him in disbelief. "I'm bleeding, Colby. Our baby might be coming!" He picked up my phone from the coffee table, slid it into his suit jacket along with the building access card. "Your due date isn't for another two weeks. You heard me on the phone just now, didn't you? This is another one of your pathetic little tricks to compete with Rowena. It's cheap." "Stay home. Don't bother me." Then the door slammed shut behind him, the deadbolt sliding into place with a sound that was dull and final. I dragged myself to the door, gripped the handle with both hands, and pressed down with everything I had. It didn't budge. He'd locked it from the outside. Another contraction hit—the pain exploded from my lower spine outward—and then a warm rush of liquid coursed down my inner thighs, splattering against the oak floor. My water had broken. He'd taken my phone. Gritting my teeth, I crawled toward the landline on the side table by the couch—I remembered, I remembered there was still— The instant my fingertips touched the receiver, I saw it. The phone cord had been snipped cleanly from the jack. A neat cut. Deliberate. I had no time to process it. The contractions were coming closer together now, the stabbing pain blurring my vision. I slid down the wall inch by inch until I collapsed on the floor. Survival instinct drove me to summon one last breath and crawl toward the balcony. I shoved open the glass door. December night air rushed in, so cold it sent my entire body into spasms. We lived on the second floor. The balcony overlooked the apartment building's parking lot. "Help! Is anyone there? Call an ambulance!" Nothing. Empty. Colby had reassigned every single bodyguard to protect Rowena—his mistress, about to give birth. No one answered my screams. Every avenue of outside help had been sealed shut. All I could do was stumble back inside. The baby seemed to sense the danger, kicking frantically, each strike sending white-hot pain through my organs, my vision going black in waves. Suddenly my knees buckled and I crashed to the floor beside the coffee table, my arm sweeping the crystal fruit bowl off the surface. Shards exploded across the floor, mingling with the blood pooling beneath me. A scene of utter devastation. The spike of sharper pain jolted a brief moment of clarity back into my mind. I cannot die here. My palm groped across the floor and closed around the sharpest piece of glass I could find. I have to find a way out. I have to save my baby. That's when the red light on the ceiling-mounted surveillance camera blinked on. "Serena, are you done with this little tantrum?" Colby's voice—low, cold, detached—ricocheted off the walls of the empty room, dripping with condescension. I tilted my head back and fixed my gaze on that blinking red dot. He actually had the leisure to check the home security feed. I raised my blood-soaked hand toward the lens, making sure he could see it clearly. "Colby, I'm bleeding. I really am going into labor. Please—save our baby…" "Cut the crap." A scoff. Contemptuous and impatient. "This again." "Last time you used red ink to fake bleeding. What is it this time? Food coloring?" "Rowena is in so much pain she's about to pass out, and you're holed up at home putting on this little sob show." "Serena, you are truly a disappointment." My body was convulsing with pain. I didn't have the strength to argue. Watching the blood pool into a dark puddle beneath me, soaking through my nightgown, all I could do was beg. "Colby, for the sake of our child." "Call me an ambulance."
He was silent for two seconds. Then he sighed, his tone carrying a thread of exhaustion, as though my desperate plea was nothing more than a tired plot point in a bad soap opera. "I looked at your prenatal report before I left—the doctor's notes in black and white say everything's normal, and you've still got two weeks until your due date. You're lying on the floor playing dead because you want to trick me into coming back from Rowena's side." "These little games of yours are pathetically juvenile." I gasped for air, each word requiring every ounce of strength I had left. "My water… already broke… the baby will lose oxygen…" "Colby, this is your own flesh and blood." Through the speaker came a rustle of movement—the friction of fabric, Rowena's low moan, and Colby's voice going suddenly, impossibly soft. "Rowena, is it hurting again? Don't be scared, the doctor's on his way." After soothing her, he turned his attention back to the microphone. His tone shifted instantly from tender to cutting. "Serena, Rowena is an orphan. In this entire world, she has no one but me." "And you? You already have the Donna title that everyone envies. Why do you insist on competing with a girl who has nothing?" "She borrowed your hospital bag—that's all—and you pull this disgusting stunt to force me back." "You're rotten to the core." My cheek pressed against the cold oak floor. Tears and cold sweat mixed together, splashing onto the back of my hand—warm yet desolate. I stopped looking at the camera. I clenched my jaw, braced my elbows against the floor, and began crawling toward the entryway. Glass shards pierced my palms, punctured the skin, embedded themselves in the flesh. I couldn't feel the pain. Only one thought remained in my mind: Get out. Get out alive. I made it to the entryway, pushed myself upright, and smashed the largest piece of broken glass against the door lock. Time was precious. The agony had already drained me of any energy to search for a more suitable tool. The glass shattered on impact, the jagged edge slicing open the skin between my thumb and wrist. Blood sprayed onto the cream-colored wall. The lock didn't budge. Colby's voice came through the speaker again, barely containing his rage. "Serena! What are you doing! If you damage that door, there will be hell to pay when I get back!" I ignored him. With blood-soaked hands, I tore through the shoe cabinet. I vaguely remembered a spare key kept here. Colby's housekeeper often locked a spare key in a hidden compartment at the very bottom of the shoe cabinet. He thought I didn't know. If I could find the key, I could get out. I could survive. I dumped everything from the cabinet onto the floor, and finally—in a small tin box at the very bottom—my fingers closed around a cold brass key. I braced myself against the wall and stood, legs shaking, aligning the key with the lock. It wouldn't go in. I leaned in close, squinting in the residual light from the hallway. The keyhole had been filled. Dried industrial-strength adhesive had sealed every millimeter of the gap. The lock cylinder was completely blocked. "Don't waste your energy." Colby's voice carried a note of satisfaction. "You think I don't know what a temper you have? Stubborn, impossible to control, always looking for a chance to bolt. I was afraid you'd use the opportunity to run out and cause trouble for Rowena." "So before I left, I personally sealed the keyhole with Gorilla Glue." "Serena, the rules are simple. All you need to do is be a good girl, admit you were wrong, and promise never to harass Rowena again. Once she delivers safely, I'll come home and be with you. Understood?" I stood there, numb, listening to my husband's calculated confession of attempted murder. My back slid down the door panel, my body sinking inch by inch. This wasn't negligence. This wasn't carelessness. This was premeditated. He meant to strip me of every right to survive. I tilted my head up and stared at the surveillance camera—its lens trained unflinchingly on my trembling body, like the barrel of a gun ready to fire. "Colby, let's get a divorce." The speaker went briefly silent. Then came the explosion. "Threatening me again! Serena, is this the only trick you know? You think saying 'divorce' will make me cave? What else can you do besides cry and throw tantrums!" I closed my eyes. I didn't answer. The contractions stacked on top of each other, wave after wave, like someone was taking a dull blade to my body. Something was descending—heavy, unstoppable. I could feel it. "Colby Blackwell." I called his full name one last time. "I don't want you anymore." When I said it, I didn't cry. Then, very calmly, I raised the brass key—metal slicing through the air—and hurled it with perfect aim at the surveillance camera. The housing shattered on impact, the circuit board popped loose, the red indicator light flickered twice, and went permanently dark. The living room returned to silence. I lay in a pool of blood, gulping air that grew thinner by the second. And then, without warning, the darkness came.
Every light in the living room died in the same instant—the chandelier, the wall sconces, the motion-sensor nightlights in the hallway. Even the hum of the air conditioning and refrigerator cut off abruptly. "Ah—" The scream left my lips the same moment I understood. It was Colby. He'd used his phone's smart home system to kill the apartment's main power supply with a single tap. The only thing still functioning was a Bluetooth speaker, its ring of pale blue light glowing in the darkness. Colby's voice emerged from that circle of blue. "Serena, since you insist on being ungrateful, you can sit in the dark and reflect on what you've done." "When you've come to your senses and apologized, I'll turn the lights back on." "Don't expect me to go soft. You brought all of this on yourself." His voice was ice-cold, controlled. As though he'd completely forgotten that ever since his rival faction locked me in a warehouse for twenty-four hours three years ago, I'd developed nyctophobia. That day, he'd held me in his arms and promised that as long as he was with me, the lights in our home would never go dark. But now… Colby had apparently forgotten that promise entirely. Forgotten the wife he'd locked in the dark. I curled up on the floor, biting down hard on my lower lip, fighting the physiological terror. Blood was still leaving my body. The abdominal pain surged like a tide, each wave more brutal than the last, and with every crest, my consciousness blinked out for seconds at a time. I can't give up. I can't give up. The bathroom had scissors. Towels. If no one was coming to save me, I would have to deliver this baby myself. I forced myself to stay calm, feeling my way toward the bathroom in the dark. I crawled until my elbows and knees were raw and bleeding, and just as my fingertips brushed the bathroom doorframe, the bedroom television screen blazed to life. A video call had been force-cast onto the seventy-five-inch LCD. The sudden light illuminated the entire living room—and the long trail of dark red I'd left behind me. On screen, Rowena reclined against her hospital bed, complexion rosy, makeup flawless enough for a magazine cover. Colby sat on the edge of the bed, his arm around her, my hospital bag beside him. "Colby, is Serena mad at me?" Rowena's voice was coy and aggrieved, each word pitched with just the right amount of a quiver. "I didn't mean to take her things—it just came on so suddenly… Maybe you should go back and check on her. I can manage alone." Colby pressed a tender kiss to the back of her hand. "Forget about her. She just can't stand seeing me be good to you. The moment she notices I'm over here, she starts pulling stunts." "She smashed the security camera at home. She's probably in some corner breaking things and throwing a fit right now." He turned to face the camera, his gaze turning razor-sharp. "Serena, look at how considerate Rowena is. How thoughtful." "Now look at yourself—smashing things, lying, acting like a complete shrew." "I'm warning you one last time." His voice dropped low, the kind of quiet menace that needed no volume—like a warning issued to a traitor who'd tried to flee the organization. "If you dare make one more scene that upsets Rowena—" "Tomorrow I'll cut off every penny funding your brother's hospital stay. And you can watch him die." My heart felt like an invisible fist had clenched around it. Ethan. My eighteen-year-old brother. After the car accident three months ago, he'd been lying in the ICU, kept alive by machines maintaining his most basic vital signs. He was my only remaining family in this world. And Colby knew it. He wielded Ethan like a noose suspended above my head, ready to tighten at any moment. On screen, the loving couple nestled together. And I lay in my own blood, watching this broadcast from the darkness. A violent wave of nausea churned in my stomach. "Colby Blackwell." I screamed it with every last shred of strength. "You make me sick." On screen, Rowena immediately shrank into Colby's arms, her voice trembling. "Colby, Serena is so scary… my stomach hurts so much…" Colby's face went iron-gray. "Serena, you're asking for death." "Since you love acting insane so much, you can stay in there and rot." The video cut to black with a single click. Then came a hollow rumble from inside the walls—the sound of water flowing through the pipes vanished all at once. He hadn't just cut the power. He'd remotely shut off the main water valve. I dragged myself to the sink and twisted the faucet. A few residual drops fell—plink, plink—and then nothing. No water. No electricity. No communication. He'd driven me into a dead end, then turned around to be with another woman while she gave birth. My back against the cold bathroom tile, I gasped for air. The blood beneath me had soaked through my entire nightgown, and the metallic smell filled the cramped bathroom, so thick it tasted sweet. The baby was getting quieter. The little feet that had been desperately kicking moments ago now only produced faint, intermittent squirms. "No… no…" I pressed both palms against my swollen belly, and the tears finally broke free. "Don't be afraid." "Mama will fight to the death to save you." Gritting my teeth, I fumbled through the storage cabinet beneath the sink. My fingertips touched something cold and metallic—a pair of rusted scissors. This was my last tool.
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