Selene's eyes were locked on my face, studying every micro-expression, waiting for me to shatter. Waiting for the tears, the screaming, the collapse.
But I just looked at her, and my voice came out steady. "Noted."
I turned to keep walking, even as agony tore through me like a riptide beneath still water. But before I could take a single step, a brutal force slammed into my back.
I had no time to react. My feet slipped out from under me and I fell hard from the raised step beside the hospital bed, crashing to the floor. A violent, twisting pain ripped through my abdomen.
The agony consumed me. I lay on the freezing tile, powerless, watching the bright red stain spread beneath me as my vision flickered and went black.
I lost our baby.
When I walked out of the operating room, I was numb. Cold to the bone. My heart was ash.
I placed the dissolution papers I'd prepared long ago on the bedside table. Without a backward glance, I walked out of the family's private hospital, the place that had been my prison for five years, and took a cab to the airport.
One moment before boarding, my phone buzzed a final time. One last message from Samuel, still laced with that untouchable arrogance: