Suddenly, Lily stumbled backward and threw herself onto the floor, crying out.
“Sister-in-law! I know you hate me for stealing Lucas! Are you going to kill me now?”
“Nina!” Lucas rushed down the stairs and shoved me aside.
I stumbled onto the edge of the coffee table, pain shooting through my lower back.
He knelt and wrapped his arms protectively around Lily, eyes ice cold.
“What did you do to her? Can you stop being so unreasonable for once?”
“I didn’t touch her!” I said, my voice shaking.
“You’d better not have,” he snapped. Without sparing me another glance, he picked her up and walked toward the door. “Lily, let’s go.”
I stood frozen in the living room, my hand slowly moving to cradle my belly.
Lucas didn’t come home for two days.
I quietly took down our wedding photos from the wall, one frame at a time. The sound of the last one hitting the trash echoed like a final goodbye.
My phone vibrated.
“Nina, I’m sending someone to pick something up. Can you give it to him?”
In the walk-in closet, the set of jewelry worth tens of millions lay quietly in a velvet-lined drawer. I remembered how he once said while taking photos of it, “This is for the most important person.”