Chapter 4

Adeline Combs POV:

The morning light was gray and unforgiving. I moved through the house like a phantom, gathering every photograph of us, every gift he' d ever given me, every sentimental trinket that now felt like a cruel joke. I stuffed them all into a large black trash bag.

As I headed for the door, Emerson caught me, his hand closing around my arm.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his eyes falling on the bulging bag. His brow furrowed with a flicker of unease.

"Just... decluttering," I lied, avoiding his gaze.

He visibly relaxed. "Good. We need to make more space for... for Gisele's things." He took the bag from me and set it aside, as if my past was just another piece of trash to be dealt with later.

He drew me into his arms, his hand resting gently on my stomach. "You need to rest, my love. For the baby." His embrace was warm, familiar, and for a treacherous moment, my eyes burned with unshed tears. This was the man I had loved. This was the lie I had lived.

But it wasn't me he was holding. It was an incubator.

A sharp, theatrical scream from upstairs shattered the moment.

Emerson instantly pushed me away, his face etched with panic. "Gisele!" He took the stairs two at a time.

I watched him go, my hands clenched into fists, my nails digging into my palms until they bled. I heard him find her, her fake sobs, his soothing murmurs. He was all tenderness, all concern, all for her.

I took a deep breath. "I'm going out," I called up the stairs, my voice flat.

He appeared at the top of the landing, a frown creasing his brow. "Again? Where are you going?"

"My regular check-up," I lied. It was the only excuse he would accept.

His frown deepened. "I'll come with you. Let me just get Gisele settled."

"No, don't worry about me!" Gisele's voice floated down, dripping with false magnanimity. "In fact, I have a follow-up with my neurologist today. We can all go to the hospital together."

Emerson hesitated. "I don't know if I can manage both..."

"We can go together," I said quickly, seeing my chance. It was perfect. With Gisele there to distract him, I could slip away. I had to get to the conservatory to finalize my enrollment papers. It was the last step.

At the hospital, fate intervened. Just as we were getting out of the car, Emerson's phone rang. A crisis at the label-a real one this time. His biggest artist was threatening to walk.

"Go," I said, my heart starting to race. "We'll be fine."

He looked torn, his gaze shifting between me and Gisele. "I... Adeline, take Gisele home after her appointment. Don't go anywhere else. I mean it."

The moment his car screeched away from the curb, a slow, chilling smile spread across Gisele' s face. She pushed herself up from the wheelchair, standing on two perfectly steady legs.

"Look at you," she sneered, her eyes raking over my simple dress, my tired face. "All glowing and pregnant. He only knocked you up because he thought I was never coming back. You were just a warm body to keep his bed from getting cold."

Her face was pale and drawn from her long convalescence, but her expression was monstrous.

I had no time for her games. I turned to leave.

"Don't you walk away from me!" she shrieked, her voice like nails on a chalkboard. "He's going to give me that baby, you know. He promised me. You'll be nothing but the nanny. A pathetic, barren nanny!"

I kept walking. I heard a scuffling sound behind me, then a sharp, blinding pain exploded at the back of my head.

The world went black.

I woke up strapped to a gurney in a cold, unfamiliar room. The smell of bleach was overwhelming. My head throbbed, and a thick, metallic taste filled my mouth. Panic seized me as I struggled against the restraints, but they held me fast.

Gisele sat in a chair in the corner, watching me with a look of detached amusement. She nodded to two burly men in scrubs standing beside me.

I didn't know what was happening, but a primal terror gripped me. I saw a long, metal instrument in one of the men' s hands.

A searing, unimaginable pain shot through the lower half of my body. It was a brutal, tearing agony that ripped a scream from my throat. I thrashed against the restraints, begging, pleading, but they ignored me.

It went on for what felt like an eternity. My body convulsed, sweat and tears mingling on my face. I bit through my lip, the coppery tang of my own blood doing nothing to distract from the violation.

And then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped. The room fell silent, except for my ragged, choked gasps.

Gisele walked over, a stainless-steel kidney dish in her hand. She held it next to my ear.

"There," she whispered, her voice a triumphant hiss. "There's your precious baby."

I turned my head. Inside the dish was a small, horrifying mass of blood and tissue.

A wave of nausea and grief so profound washed over me, I thought I would die.

"You're going to keep your mouth shut about this," she continued, her face inches from mine. "If you tell Emerson, if you tell anyone, I will find your father's ashes. And I will flush every last speck of him down the toilet. Do you understand me?"

I stared at her, my vision blurred, my mind reeling. The hate in my heart was a living thing, a venomous serpent coiling in my gut.

I gave a slow, deliberate nod.

She laughed, a short, ugly sound. "Good girl."

My eyes fell back to the dish. The baby. My baby. I had planned to let it go, but not like this. Not in violence and hatred.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to the empty air, to the tiny, lost soul. "I'm so, so sorry."

I closed my eyes. Twelve more days. In twelve days, my visa would be ready. I had no more attachments, no more chains.

Soon, I would be free.