To Lay Ruin at the Child's Grave

In the sterile hospital room, the shrill ring of the telephone shattered the silence. It was my father, Arthur Keaton. He didn't waste a second.

"You were too reckless, Aveline!" his voice boomed through the receiver. "Ronan is the Don of the Callahan family! You know men like him have a temper. What you did jeopardizes our entire alliance!"

In his eyes, my dignity, my life, was dust compared to the family's interests. I leaned back against the pale hospital pillow and stared at the oppressive gray sky.

"Dad…" I interrupted calmly. "The child you were counting on—the one meant to solidify our family's alliance—is gone."

The line went silent, filled only with the faint hum of static, as if mourning the silent tragedy.

Shortly after, my uncles stormed into the room. They wore plastered-on looks of false sympathy, but their eyes were all fixed on my now-flat stomach.

"What a shame… it was a boy."

"How could you be so careless, Aveline?"

"Ronan may have been wrong, but how could you, as a mother, fail to protect your own child?"

Every word was an accusation. To them, I hadn't lost a child; I'd lost a commodity.

"Don't worry," one uncle said, patting my shoulder in a hollow gesture of comfort. "We'll make him pay. Besides, you're still young. There will be other children."

I looked coldly at these men steeped in greed. "He doesn't need to pay for anything."

I slowly sat up, my gaze sweeping over them. "I'm ending this marriage."

A stunned silence fell over the room. My mother-in-law, Moira Callahan, who had been lurking in the corner, muttered, "A disgrace to the family. Can't even keep a child, and now she wants a divorce?"

My father-in-law, Patrick Callahan, scowled and dialed Ronan's satellite phone. This time, it connected. The background was chaotic.

"What now?" Ronan snapped, irritated.

Patrick switched the phone to speaker and shoved it in front of me. "You tell him."

I stared at the glowing screen. "The baby's gone."

A pause. Then Ronan's roar cut through the silence. "Enough, Aveline! You'd lie about that just to make me submit? I already cut things off with Scarlett!"

"I've practically locked myself away to prove my loyalty to you! Why are you still hung up on the past? Do you have any idea how much crap I'm dealing with out here? Can't you be a little more considerate?"

He never asked how I was. He never asked where our son was buried.

I thought of the past five months—the nights I’d stared at the ceiling until dawn, unable to take medication for my depression because of the baby.

Meanwhile, he slept in the next room, where I sometimes heard the faint laughter of other women.

Tears welled in my eyes. Just then, my parents arrived. They didn't offer a hug; they stood with my uncles, a united front against me.

"You want a divorce? Don't even think about it!" my mother, Eleanor, scolded. "If you dare leave him, I'll have you removed from the Keaton Group's board of directors!"

This was the family I had sacrificed everything to protect.

A white-hot rage surged through me. I snatched a water glass from the bedside table and hurled it against the wall. Shards flew, and water sprayed across the floor.

My uncles recoiled, staring at me in shock.

I stood amidst the wreckage, my eyes burning. "Then remove me! From this day on, my life is my own! No one will ever control me again!"