Chapter 6

I woke up to the dull ache in my groin and the sharper pain in my soul. I could hear the nurses cooing over Kason through the thin wall.

"Oh, Mr. Cooley, you must be so brave! Ms. Yates has been by your side all night."

"She's so devoted to you."

A bitter, acidic taste filled my mouth. The dream of holding my own child, a dream I had secretly cherished for years, was gone. Snatched away by Eve's possessive cruelty.

Tears I didn't know I had left began to fall, silent and hot against my temples. I had survived her games, her lovers, her public humiliations. But this? This was a wound that would never heal.

A wave of pure, undiluted hatred washed over me. It was so intense it was almost a physical force. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted her to feel a fraction of the pain I was feeling.

My hands clenched at my sides. I looked down at the fresh stitches on my abdomen from the procedure. Without a second thought, I dug my fingernails into the wound and ripped.

A sharp, searing pain shot through me, but it was nothing compared to the pain in my soul. Blood seeped through the bandages, warm and sticky against my skin.

A nurse walked in and gasped. "Mr. Hahn! What are you doing?"

She rushed out, yelling for help. A moment later, Eve burst into the room, her face a mask of fury.

"Stop it!" she screamed, rushing to the bed.

The nurses who had followed her in scurried away, leaving us alone. They knew better than to interfere when Eve was like this.

I ignored her, clawing at the wound again, tearing it wider. The physical pain was a welcome distraction from the gaping hole in my heart.

"Why are you doing this?" she demanded, grabbing my wrists. Her grip was like steel. "Is it because you don't want to be tied to me? Because you want to have children with someone else?"

I finally looked at her, my vision blurry with tears and pain. "I despise you, Eve."

Her face fell, a flicker of genuine hurt in her eyes before it was replaced by anger. "You don't get to despise me. I did this for us."

"For us?" I laughed, a broken, hysterical sound. "You mutilated me! You took away my future! You think this is love? This is a cage! A prison! And you are the most twisted, sadistic warden I have ever met."

I was screaming now, all the years of pain and resentment pouring out of me. "You don't deserve a child, Eve. You don't know the first thing about love. You only know how to possess, how to control, how to destroy."

She flinched as if I had struck her. Her grip on my wrists tightened, her knuckles white. For a moment, she just stared at me, her chest heaving.

Then, a cold, chilling smile spread across her face. "It doesn't matter what you think, Bennet. The decision was never yours to make."

She ordered her guards to take me back to the penthouse. They dragged me out of the hospital, my wounds bleeding, my spirit shattered, and threw me into my old bedroom. This time, they locked the door from the outside.

I was a prisoner again.

She had a doctor come to treat my self-inflicted wounds, a silent, grim-faced man who worked for her. He patched me up, gave me a sedative, and left without a word.

I was alone, trapped in the mausoleum she called a home. I couldn't escape. There was nowhere to go.

The next day, she had someone slip a phone under the door. It was a new one, with only her number in it. A few minutes later, it buzzed with a message.

It was a picture of my father's house. The old rose garden, where my mother's ashes were scattered, had been dug up. The message was simple: "Come home. Or I sell the house and pave the garden."

It was a checkmate. She knew my one weakness. My one unbreakable tie to this world.

I had no choice.