Joel's contemptuous scoff hit my back before the door closed.

"How many times are you going to play this little game? Doesn't it bore even you?"

"Tomorrow you'll crawl right back and beg."

I got into the rideshare.

The driver asked where I was headed.

I gave him the address of the private women's hospital downtown.

My phone screen lit up.

A message from Joel.

"Get your ass back here tonight and apologize to Lily, or I'm killing your card in the morning."

I looked at it for two seconds.

Then blocked his number.

Every social media account, every messaging app. Deleted, all of it.

Neon slid past the car window, light and shadow smearing across the glass.

Five years ago, Joel's startup had just collapsed. Creditors tracked him down—cornered him in an alley and beat him until he couldn't stand.

I stepped in front of him and took the bat meant for his head.

He held me—blood soaking through my hair, dripping down my temples—and sobbed like a child.

"Pauline, I swear I'll never let you suffer. Not ever."

"I'm going to give you the best of everything this world has."

Later, he really did make it.

And he really did give the best of everything to someone else.

I touched my swollen belly.

Baby, I'm sorry.

Mama can't bring you into this world to suffer.

The hospital corridor was cold.

The antiseptic smell crawled up my throat and sat there, thick and wrong.

I sat on the bench outside the operating room, waiting for the first surgery slot in the morning.

Notifications kept pinging on my phone. Spending alerts, one after another.

My supplementary card.

Lillian was using it, burning through the luxury boutiques that stayed open past midnight.

Bags worth hundreds of thousands. Jewelry past a million.

The charges poured onto my phone like running water.

Of course Joel had put her up to it. This was his way of grinding me down—making me crawl back and grovel at his little mistress's feet.

I opened the banking app and reported the supplementary card lost.

The world went quiet.

Just before dawn, my attending doctor arrived.

She looked at my pale face and let out a sigh.

"Miss Sullivan, have you truly decided?"

"Six months along. Inducing at this stage puts enormous strain on the body, and..."

She trailed off.

I knew what she wanted to say.

My womb was too thin. After this induction, I might never carry another child as long as I lived.

I nodded.

"I've made my decision."

The doctor held the consent form I'd had Joel sign last night.

"If the family member's signature checks out, we'll prepare to go in."

That was when a nurse came rushing over.

"Dr. Finch, there's a situation in the VIP wing."

"There's a pregnant woman—Lillian Fox—saying she's in pain and won't settle for anything less than our best suite."

"But that suite was reserved by Miss Sullivan two weeks ago."

I froze.

Lillian?

What was she doing here?

Before I could make sense of it, a commotion broke out at the far end of the corridor.

Joel had his arm around Lillian, flanked by a wall of bodyguards as they walked toward me.

Lillian's cheeks were pink, glowing. Not a flicker of discomfort on her face.

She spotted me instantly, and her eyes lit up.

"Oh, Joel—what a coincidence! Pauline's here too."

She cradled her belly with both hands and nestled against Joel, all softness and sweet helplessness.

"Pauline, I feel just terrible about this. I think I caught a chill last night, and the baby won't stop fussing."

"Joel insisted—he absolutely wouldn't let me stay home."

"I heard you booked the best VIP suite here. You wouldn't mind giving it up for me, would you? Just this once?"

Joel stared at me, his face cold.

"Pauline. You really know how to run, don't you."

"What's next—hiding from me in a hospital?"

He didn't even glance at my swollen belly.

"Give the room to Lily. She's having complications."

I sat on the bench and looked up at him.

"I need a room too."

Joel let out a cold laugh.

"A room for what? There's nothing wrong with you."

"Lily's delicate. What are you doing fighting her for a bed?"

Lillian stepped forward and snatched the hospital bag I'd set on the chair.

She ripped the zipper open and the baby clothes inside spilled across the floor.

She nudged them with her foot, lip curling.

"Oh my, Pauline—what even is all this? These little rags?"

"Joel got me a full set of custom ones, you know."

She stood on top of those soft little garments, laughing so hard her shoulders shook.

Joel watched her from the side, indulgent, unbothered.

"Enough. Forget about her. Let's go to the room."

I looked at the clothes on the floor, dirty now under her shoes.

I'd sewn every stitch of them by hand over the past six months.

I stood up slowly.

"Take the room."

"I don't need it anymore."

Joel frowned, as if he hadn't expected me to give in so easily.

"Smart of you."

He wrapped his arm around Lillian and walked away without looking back.

Lillian turned her head and flashed me one last smile. A victor's smile.

I watched them go.

Then I turned to the doctor.

"Let's go. Take me to the operating room."

The doors slammed shut behind me.

Cold steel pushed inside.

Pain.

The kind that splits you open from the inside out.

I bit down and gripped the sheet until my knuckles ached, and I did not make a sound.

Tears slid from the corners of my eyes and disappeared into my hair.

Then a brutal, twisting cramp—and something tore free from deep inside me.

Five years of loving Joel Delgado, ripped out along with it.

The surgery lasted three hours.

When they wheeled me out, my face was the color of paper.

The doctor held my hand, eyes rimmed red.

"Miss Sullivan, it was a fully formed baby boy."

"Would you… like to see him?"

I closed my eyes and shook my head.

"Dispose of it."

Don't look. If I look, I won't be able to let go.

If I look, I won't have the strength left to leave.

I lay in the general observation room for two hours.

Then I forced myself upright and changed into my own clothes.

A nurse tried to stop me.

"Miss Sullivan, you can't leave—you're still bleeding badly—"

I pushed her hand away.

"I'm fine."

Every step I took, warmth soaked through beneath me, steady and unstoppable.

But I had to keep walking.

When I reached the elevator, I heard laughter drifting from the VIP suite.

Lillian's voice.

"Joel, this room is gorgeous. When I have our baby, I want to stay here too."

Joel's voice came back so tender it practically dripped.

"Sure. Whatever you want."

I leaned against the cold wall and forced the ghost of a smile.

Goodbye, Joel.

I pressed the elevator button and rode it down.

A black Maybach was already waiting at the hospital entrance.

The door opened, and a man in a bespoke suit stepped out under a black umbrella.

His eyes dropped to the bloodstains on my skirt, and his pupils contracted sharply.

"Pauline!"

He crossed the distance in a few quick strides, wrapped a long overcoat around me.

Then he lifted me into his arms.

"Brent. Take me home."

I leaned into him and blacked out.

…

Inside the VIP suite.

Joel was peeling an apple when his assistant burst through the door, white-faced and gasping.

"Mr. Delgado! Mr. Delgado, it's bad—"

Joel frowned.

"What's the panic? Is the sky falling?"

His assistant held up a photocopy, hands shaking so badly the paper rattled.

"Your wife... your wife, she—"

"What has she done now? Hasn't she caused enough trouble?" Joel cut him off, impatient.

The assistant dropped to his knees on the spot.

"She got rid of the baby!"

The knife in Joel's hand froze mid-stroke against the apple, and the blade sliced into his finger.

Blood dripped onto the carpet.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

The assistant held out the photocopy.

"This is the family-signature archive copy the hospital just sent over."

"The form you signed in the bathroom last night wasn't a prenatal checkup confirmation..."

Joel snatched the paper from his hand.

Black ink on white paper.

CONSENT FOR LABOR INDUCTION — PATIENT AUTHORIZATION

In the bottom right corner, his own bold, slashing signature.

His mind went white.

"No... that's impossible!"

He tore out of the room like a man unhinged.

At the doors of the surgical ward, he seized a nurse by the shoulders.

"Where's Pauline? Where is she?!"

The nurse flinched.

"Miss Sullivan... she's already left. The induction is done."

"The baby? Where's my baby?!" Joel's eyes were bloodshot, his voice a raw shout.

The nurse pointed toward the medical-waste corridor beside them.

"Already gone. Medical waste."

Joel's legs gave out and he sank to his knees.