My Husband Let His Mistress Kill Our Baby

The hospital ceiling was white. Perfectly, sterile white. I stared at it, counting the tiles because counting meant I didn't have to think about the emptiness inside me. Not the physical kind—though that was there too, a hollow ache where something precious had been. This was deeper. A void where hope used to live.

The door opened. Caden's footsteps were measured, controlled. He didn't rush to my bedside. He stood at the foot of the bed, hands in his pockets, his expression carved from ice.

"The doctor says you'll recover." His voice was flat. Clinical.

I turned my head to look at him. "Our baby—"

"Don't." The word cracked like a whip. His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath his skin. "Amber told me everything."

Something cold slithered down my spine. "Told you what?"

"That you did this on purpose." He stepped closer, his eyes dark with disgust. "That you couldn't stand the thought of ruining your figure. That you saw the pregnancy as an inconvenience."

The words didn't make sense. They couldn't be real. "Caden, I lost our child. I was bleeding out in the hallway while you—"

"While I what?" His voice rose. "While I was working to provide for this family? While you were plotting to destroy the one thing that could have redeemed you?"

"Redeemed me?" I tried to sit up, but pain lanced through my abdomen. "I didn't do anything. Amber made me carry those boxes, move those planters. She knew—"

"Amber has been nothing but supportive." He leaned over the bed, his face inches from mine. "You couldn't even keep my heir safe. What kind of mother kills her own child?"

The slap would have hurt less.

He straightened, adjusting his cufflinks with sharp, angry movements. "I'll send a car when you're discharged."

He walked out. The door clicked shut with a finality that echoed in my hollow chest.

***

I returned to the estate three days later. My legs barely held me as I climbed the stairs to Caden's office. The staff scattered when they saw me, their eyes sliding away like I was something diseased.

I didn't knock. I shoved the door open.

Caden sat behind his mahogany desk, a tumbler of scotch in his hand. He looked up, irritation flashing across his face. "Everly, I'm busy—"

I pulled the wedding ring from my finger and threw it at him. It bounced off his chest and clattered onto the desk.

"I want a divorce."

Silence. He stared at the ring, then at me. Something shifted in his expression—surprise, maybe. Or calculation.

"You're upset. Understandable, given—"

"You're a murderer." My voice didn't shake. It was steel, forged in the fire of everything they'd taken from me. "You and your mother and that snake you call family. You killed my baby."

He stood, his chair scraping back. "You're hysterical."

"I'm done." I pulled the divorce papers from my bag and slammed them on his desk. "Sign them."

For the first time since I'd known him, I saw something like fear flicker in his eyes. He picked up the papers, scanning them. Then, slowly, deliberately, he tore them in half. Then quarters. Then confetti.

"No."

"You don't get to decide—"

"I decide everything." He moved around the desk, backing me toward the door. "You're my wife. You belong to me. And you're not going anywhere until you remember that."

***

The penthouse was a prison dressed in marble and glass.

Caden had me moved the next morning. Not to our home—to a high-security building in Manhattan, forty floors up. The view was spectacular. The city sprawled below like a promise I couldn't touch.

Two guards stood outside the door. I'd tried to leave once. They'd blocked my path, their faces impassive.

"Mr. Brooks's orders, ma'am. You're not well. For your own safety."

The phone line was dead. The internet, disconnected. My laptop, confiscated. My cell phone, gone.

I was alone with the silence and the view and the grinding ache in my joints that reminded me I was still alive, even though I didn't want to be.

Days blurred together. A maid brought meals—a different one each time, never making eye contact. I stopped eating. What was the point?

Then Sarah came.

She was young, maybe twenty, with nervous hands and eyes that actually saw me. She set down the dinner tray, and for a moment, our gazes locked.

"Please," I whispered. "I need help."

Her eyes widened. She glanced at the door, then back at me. The smallest nod.

I grabbed a napkin from the tray, my hands shaking. I had no pen, so I used the edge of a fork to scratch words into the paper, pressing hard enough to tear through in places.

*Kendrick Wright. Tell him Everly needs him. Held against my will. Brooks penthouse, Manhattan.*

I folded it small, my fingers clumsy. When Sarah reached for the tray, I pressed the napkin into her palm.

She closed her fingers around it. No words. Just another tiny nod.

She left, and I returned to the window, staring out at the city that held me captive. Somewhere down there, people were free. Somewhere, my brother existed, unaware that I was drowning.

I pressed my forehead against the cold glass.

And I waited.