After You Killed Our Daughter, I'll Never Come Back

"Security? There's someone here trying to hurt my wife."

Several guards burst into the room within minutes. They seized me by the arms and hauled me off to the police station.

The next morning, I walked out of the station, but Julian's men were already waiting. They shoved me into a car and drove me to the villa.

Julian sat on the sofa, reading a picture book to Grace's belly. The moment he saw me forced to my knees on the floor, every trace of tenderness drained from his face.

"Gertrude, you should count yourself lucky. Grace and the baby are both fine."

He set the book aside and walked toward me, then ground his heel into the back of my hand.

"Apologize to Grace."

I had no time to fight him. Not now. I clenched my teeth and forced the words out.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Weiss."

Then I lifted my head and looked at Julian, my gaze flat and empty.

"Are we done, Mr. Weiss?"

He raised an eyebrow, amusement pooling in his eyes.

"Grace really enjoyed the dishes you cooked the other day. How about you stay and wait on her through her postpartum recovery?"

"Don't you dare—"

My phone erupted in my pocket, vibrating so hard I felt it in my ribs.

I fumbled it out with shaking hands. The nurse's voice on the other end was frantic.

"Ms. Harding, Jeanette's gone into cardiac failure. You need to get here—"

Before she could finish, Julian snatched the phone from my hand.

"One night apart and you're already this desperate to call your man, Gertrude?"

I stared at the phone in his grip. Something inside me snapped. A raw, guttural scream tore from my throat as I grabbed the fruit knife off the table and pressed it to my own neck.

"Julian!"

"If anything happens to Jeanette, I swear to God I will make every last one of you pay with your lives!"

The color drained from his face. He shoved the phone back at me.

I ran. I ran like a woman possessed, all the way to the hospital. But the second I burst through the doors, they were already wheeling her out, a white sheet pulled over her small body.

The pain hit so hard it locked every muscle in place. I couldn't move. I couldn't scream. I couldn't make a single sound.

In the message thread he'd never once replied to in four years, a notification appeared.

Julian: Don't do anything stupid.

Julian: I just transferred two million dollars to your account. Get the child into surgery now.

I didn't reply.

I gathered my daughter's body into my arms, held her close, and stepped off the windowsill.

Julian was already racing toward the hospital when his phone rang. His assistant's voice cracked through the speaker.

"Sir, it's bad. Ms. Harding jumped."