Chapter 2

The next few months were a special kind of hell. Chloe' s abuse escalated, fueled by her own insecurities and the growing reality of my pregnancy. She found fault in everything I did. The food I ate wasn't nutritious enough. The way I walked was too clumsy. The sound of my breathing was irritating.

One afternoon, I was in the kitchen, trying to make myself a sandwich. My hands were shaking from morning sickness. I dropped a knife on the tile floor with a loud clatter.

Chloe wheeled in from the living room, her face a thundercloud.

"What are you doing? Trying to wake the dead?" she snapped.

"I' m sorry, it slipped."

"You' re so useless," she spat, her voice dripping with contempt. "You can' t even hold a knife properly. What if you fell? What if you hurt my baby?"

She grabbed my arm, her fingers digging into my flesh. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

"You will be more careful," she said, her face inches from mine. "Or I will make you regret it."

Just then, we heard the sound of the front door opening. It was Liam, home early from work.

Chloe' s expression changed in an instant. The rage vanished, replaced by a look of wide-eyed fear. She let go of my arm as if it were burning hot.

"Oh, darling, you' re home," she cooed, turning her wheelchair around to face him. Her voice was suddenly soft and trembling. "Ava was just… she was frightening me. Waving that knife around."

Liam' s eyes flickered from Chloe' s expertly feigned terror to me. I stood there, silent, the red marks from her fingers already blooming on my arm.

Before I could say a word, a wave of dizziness washed over me. The room tilted, the edges of my vision going dark. I swayed on my feet, my legs giving out. I collapsed onto the floor, the world fading to black.

I woke up in my small, sparse room in a separate wing of the house. A doctor was packing up his medical bag. Liam stood by the window, his back to me.

"She just fainted," the doctor said to Liam. "It' s exhaustion and malnutrition. The pregnancy is putting a tremendous strain on her body. She needs to rest and eat properly. The baby' s health depends on it."

After the doctor left, Liam finally turned to face me. His expression was cold, devoid of any concern.

"Chloe is very upset," he said flatly.

I stared at him, bewildered. "She lied, Liam. She grabbed me."

He ignored my words. Chloe appeared in the doorway, her eyes red-rimmed and moist. She had perfected the art of crying on command.

"I was just so worried, Liam," she whimpered, looking at him with heartbreaking adoration. "When I saw her with the knife, I thought… I thought she was going to hurt herself. Hurt the baby. It was my fault for startling her."

It was a masterful performance. She took the blame in a way that made her seem even more like a victim, and me, more like a reckless, unstable threat.

Liam' s face softened as he looked at his wife. He walked over to her, stroking her hair. His loyalty was absolute, a distorted thing built on Chloe' s lies and his own desperate desire for a child.

"You need to apologize to Chloe," he said to me, his voice leaving no room for argument. "You scared her."

I looked from his cold, commanding face to Chloe' s triumphant smirk. I was a tool. An object. My room was little more than a cell, a place to keep the incubator safe between uses. My past life as an architect, a person with dreams and a future, felt like a distant memory belonging to someone else. They had stripped it all away.

A wave of utter exhaustion washed over me. Arguing was pointless. It would only lead to more cruelty from Chloe, more cold indifference from Liam.

I pushed myself up into a sitting position.

"I' m sorry, Chloe," I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. "I' m sorry I scared you."

Chloe gave a magnanimous little nod, dabbing at her dry eyes. "It' s alright, Ava. I know you' re under a lot of stress."

Later that night, Liam came to my room alone. He closed the door behind him, the sound of the latch clicking into place sending a shiver down my spine.

He walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. He didn't speak for a long time, just looked at me.

"I know this is difficult," he said finally. His voice was lower now, more intimate. "Chloe is… fragile."

He reached out and took my hand. His touch was not gentle. It was possessive.

"Just get through this, Ava," he said. "Do your part. Keep Chloe happy. I will make sure you are well compensated. I will protect you."

His idea of protection was just another form of control. He wanted my compliance, not my well-being. He wanted to manage the situation, to smooth things over until he got what he wanted.

I pulled my hand away from his.

"I don' t want your protection, Liam," I said, my voice stronger than I expected. "And I don' t want your compensation."

He raised an eyebrow, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes.

"I' m leaving the day the baby is born," I stated, looking him directly in the eye. "I' m taking the money stipulated in the contract, and I am walking away from all of you. Forever."

A muscle twitched in his jaw. He was not used to being defied. He saw me as a problem to be managed, an asset to be controlled. He never considered that the asset might have a will of its own.