Three Years Behind Bars The Billionaire's Surrogate Secret

At some point, the one-sided beating finally stopped.

Three days. Just get through three days, and I'll be free.

The thought flickered through my mind as I curled into a corner and drifted into unconscious sleep.

On the first day, a guard rapped on the cell door.

"Thelma Pruitt, you've got a visitor. Clean her up, ladies. Make sure nothing shows."

The women laughed as they answered, smoothing my hair with deceptive gentleness.

"Don't even think about telling anyone," the ringleader hissed in my ear, her fingers finding a bruise and twisting until I nearly blacked out. "Or one day you'll just quietly stop breathing in here."

I stumbled to the visiting room in a daze. The moment I saw Colton Abbott, the tears came before I could stop them.

"Colton..." I picked up the phone, my voice shaking beyond my control. "It's Mommy. Colton, look at me. Please look at Mommy."

The little boy wore a crisp white shirt and black dress pants, styled like a miniature prince. I could see traces of Hudson in the line of his brows, the shape of his eyes.

But his gaze was cold. A stranger's gaze. When he heard my words, his small brow furrowed hard.

"Thelma!"

Hudson cut me off.

"We agreed on this. Aria is Colton's mother. What are you trying to do, embarrass her?"

"Looks like Aria was right. Every chance you get, you try to steal the children."

"Do you really want Colton to have a murderer for a mother?"

My heart felt like it was sinking through my chest.

"But—"

But he's my child.

I carried him for ten months. I gave birth to him. I never even got to see what he looked like as a newborn before Hudson took him away.

Then Colton spoke.

"You're a bad woman."

His voice was small, but every word reached me with perfect clarity. "Mommy told me. You're a bad woman. You tried to steal Daddy, so they locked you up."

I froze. My whole body trembled.

"Colton!"

Hudson's voice cracked like a whip. He crouched down to the boy's level. "That was very rude. You should call her Auntie Thelma."

Colton flinched, his eyes rimming red.

He pouted, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded drawing, pressing it flat against the glass.

Four people: Daddy, Mommy, Colton, Willa.

Colton pointed at the figures. "This is our family. You're not in it."

He folded the drawing back up and turned to leave.

Hudson picked up the receiver and offered a few careless words. "Behave yourself in here. I've already had a word with the right people. No one's going to give you trouble."

My eyes were locked on the small retreating figure. Without a word, I pulled open my prison uniform.

Pale skin covered in bruises. Layer upon layer of welts and wounds, mottled purple and black.

"This is what your word got me?"

Hudson's expression shifted the instant he saw the marks on my body.

"Thelma, you painted those on, didn't you?"

"Let me guess—next you'll say Aria ordered it?"

He pulled out his phone and held it up to the glass, showing me a string of messages from Aria.

"If Aria hadn't shown me the proof ahead of time, I might've actually believed you!"

"I've told you before—she's innocent in all of this. Stop trying to drag her name through the mud!"

"I'll come see you again tomorrow. Colton's upset now. He'll probably run straight to Aria crying."

I sat there, motionless, the dead tone of the phone still buzzing against my ear.

Ten years. I'd been with Hudson for ten years.

And he didn't believe a single word I said.

The glass still seemed to hold the ghost of that drawing. A family of four, sketched by my own son's hand.

I wasn't in it.

When I got back to the cell, a bucket of filthy water hit me square in the face.