Chapter 2
The screen burned my palms.
I watched the clip again.
And again.
Ethan’s head dipped once. Slow. Deliberate.
A signal.
My throat closed up. The heart monitor beside my bed beeped faster, a frantic staccato that matched my pulse. The baby kicked hard against my ribs, like she could feel the terror radiating off me.
I locked my phone and shoved it under the pillow.
Just as the door creaked open.
Ethan stepped inside. His tie was loose, his eyes red-rimmed, like he’d been crying in the hallway. He carried a paper cup of hospital coffee that had long gone cold.
He still wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Mom’s lawyer is coming back tomorrow,” he said. “She says if you sign the custody papers now, they won’t press charges for… for the distress you caused her.”
I stared at him.
The man I’d married. The man who’d held my hair back during morning sickness, who’d stayed up all night painting the nursery soft yellow, who’d cried when we saw the first ultrasound.
That man was a stranger.
“Distress I caused her?” My voice cracked. “Ethan, she threw me down the stairs.”
He flinched. “She says you grabbed her first. That you slipped when she tried to pull away.”
“Bullshit.” I reached under the pillow and slammed my phone down on the tray table. I hit play.
The grainy footage filled the screen.
Margaret’s hands on my back.
My body tipping forward.
Ethan’s face at the top of the frame.
The nod.
Ethan went pale. The coffee cup slipped from his hand and splattered across the linoleum. Brown liquid seeped into the cracks between the tiles, like blood.
He stumbled back until his legs hit the visitor’s chair. He collapsed into it, hands covering his face.
“I didn’t think she’d actually do it,” he whispered.
The words hung in the air, thick and poisonous.
I sat up, ignoring the fire in my lower back. “What did you just say?”
He looked up then, and his eyes were broken. “She’s been on me for weeks. Said you were going to take me away from her. That once the baby came, I’d never speak to her again. She said if I just… if I just let her scare you a little, you’d back off. You’d move out, get a divorce, and we could all go back to normal.”
“Scare me?” I laughed, and it sounded crazy even to my own ears. “She threw me down a flight of stairs, Ethan. Our baby could be dead right now.”
“I know.” He was crying now, shoulders shaking. “I know. I was stupid. I was so scared of her. She paid for my dad’s cancer treatment. She paid off my student loans. She owns the house I live in. She holds everything over my head. If I’d said no, she would’ve cut me off. I would’ve had nothing to give you and the baby.”
“Better nothing than dead.”
The door flew open again.
Margaret stood in the doorway. Her hair was perfectly coiffed, her silk blouse wrinkle-free, like she’d just come from a luncheon instead of a hospital where her daughter-in-law was fighting for her grandchild.
She saw the phone. She saw Ethan crying.
And the sweet, grieving mother act vanished.
Her face hardened into something ancient and cruel.
“You little slut,” she said, her voice low and steady, no trace of tears. “You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you?”
Ethan jumped up. “Mom, stop.”
“Shut up.” She stepped into the room and kicked the door shut behind her. The lock clicked. “You two think a ten-second video means anything? I’ll tell the police you edited it. I’ll say you paid the neighbor to fake it. I have friends on the force. Friends in the courts. By the time I’m done with you, Clara, you’ll be in a psychiatric ward and this baby will be mine.”
She leaned over the bed, her face inches from mine. I could smell her expensive perfume, sharp and cloying.
“Nobody will believe a poor, unstable pregnant girl over a grieving mother and a respected businessman’s wife,” she whispered. “Now sign the papers. Or I’ll make sure you never see that child again.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a stack of documents and a pen.
I didn’t move.
My mind was racing. I was trapped. Eight months pregnant, alone in a room with two people who’d betrayed me, one of whom had already tried to kill me.
Then I remembered my phone.
The video was backed up to the cloud. I’d sent a copy to my best friend Jade ten minutes ago, with a text that said: If I don’t text you in an hour, call the police. Show them this.
Margaret saw me glance at the phone. She snatched it up.
“Looking for this?” She smiled and dropped it into her purse. “I’ll hold onto this for safekeeping.”
She dropped the papers on my lap. “Sign.”
A knock on the door.
Nurse Mia’s voice: “Clara? Your friend Jade is here. She says she has a court order to see you.”
Margaret’s smile faltered.
Jade was a lawyer. A damn good one. And she hated Margaret more than anyone on earth.
Margaret stuffed the papers back into her purse, smoothing her blouse. The mask slipped back into place—sweet, concerned mother-in-law.
“Tell her I’m just leaving,” she called to the door. She leaned down to me one last time, her voice so quiet only I could hear. “This isn’t over. I have ways of making people disappear.”
She walked out, past Jade, who stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, a manila folder clamped in her hand.
As soon as Margaret was gone, Jade rushed to my side.
“Did she hurt you? I saw her car in the parking lot and ran up. What did she want?”
I looked at the door, then back at Jade. My voice was steady now. Cold.
“She wants my baby. And Ethan helped her try to kill me to get it.”
I told Jade everything. The stairs. The lie. The nod. The video.
When I finished, Jade’s face was like stone. She opened the manila folder and pulled out a set of discharge papers.
“Good news. The doctors cleared you to leave an hour ago. I already packed your bag. We’re getting you out of here. Now.”
She helped me out of bed, into a hoodie and sweatpants. My back screamed with every step, but I didn’t care. I had to get away.
We took the service elevator down to the parking garage. Jade had parked her beat-up Honda Civic in the far corner, away from the cameras.
As we climbed into the car, I glanced back at the hospital entrance.
Margaret stood in the shadows by the revolving doors.
May you like
She was holding my phone.
And she was smiling.
