echoed off the high ceilings.
Then, a burst of white-hot agony so violent it stole the oxygen straight from my lungs.
I screamed, a primal, guttural sound, and collapsed against the edge of the marble island, curling my body inward to protect my unborn child with my good arm. Tears blinded me instantly.
Julian froze. For half a second, his chest heaved. Then, I watched the most terrifying transformation a human face can undergo. The boiling rage vanished completely. His features smoothed out. His breathing slowed. In the place of fury came pure, cold, tactical calculation.
He looked at my arm, hanging at an unnatural angle, and then looked at his expensive watch.
“Get your coat,” Julian said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. “You slipped on the wet bathroom tiles. If you say a single word to the contrary, I will ensure they deem you an unfit, hysterical mother,
and you will never hold this baby.”
He wrapped his arm around my waist, lifting me from the floor. As he half-carried, half-dragged me toward the private elevator, my vision swam with pain and terror. We were going to the hospital, a place meant for healing, but as the elevator doors slid shut, I realized I was trapped in a moving cage with a monster who had already written the script of my destruction.
And the worst part was, I had no one left in the world to tell.
The ride to the elite private hospital in the Upper East Side was a masterclass in psychological torture. Julian sat beside me in the back of the chauffeured Maybach, holding my uninjured right hand gently. To the driver in the front, we looked like a wealthy, devoted husband comforting his heavily pregnant, clumsy wife.
I was trembling so violently my teeth
