Chapter 1 #2
The doctor looks down at the cash. In a struggling clinic like this, that amount of currency is enough to look the other way. He lets out a long, defeated sigh, his posture slumping as his ethical boundaries dissolve under the weight of the money.
He looks back up at me, his eyes guarded. "How far along are you?"
"Four weeks," I reply flatly. My husband had been travelling the past couple of weeks and my last period had ended about four weeks ago, so I got pregnant somewhere in that two-week timeframe.
He nods slowly, scooping the cash off the desk and sliding it out of sight. "Follow me."
The procedure is cold, fast, and entirely void of feeling.
I stare up at the water-stained ceiling tiles, forcing my mind to go entirely blank as the doctor works. I don't let out a sound. I don't let a single tear slip. I have spent ten years perfecting the art of emotional detachment, and tonight, it is my only shield.
And yet, when it is over, a hollow ache settles deep in my abdomen. It is more than physical, more than I expected. It is the echo of a life that could have been, a future stolen before it ever had the chance to exist.
A sob catches in my throat.
I’m sorry.
The words never leave my lips, but I whisper them anyway—to the tiny heartbeat that never asked to be conceived in violence, to the child who deserved better than the monster who made it possible.
Fresh tears slide down my cheeks. I mourn what might have been, even as I know there was never another choice. Luciano stole that from me the moment he switched my pills. He turned my body into a prison and my pregnancy into another weapon.
When the grief finally eases enough for me to breathe, something else settles beneath it.
Resolve.
I am shaken to my core by what I learned about Luciano—by the sheer malice it took for him to switch my pills—and my chest is tight with the reality of what I have just done.
But I am also clean. He doesn’t own me, and he never will.
I change out of the rough hospital gown, my hands trembling slightly as I pull my clothes back on.
I dress carefully, smoothing down my dark wool coat and checking my reflection in the small bathroom mirror to ensure the mask of the obedient Caruso daughter is firmly back in place.
There can be no physical evidence of where I've been tonight.
Stepping out of the clinic into the freezing pre-dawn air, the city is still dead silent.
The adrenaline spikes through my veins all over again as I realize how little time I have left.
The sedative will be wearing off soon. I need to get back inside the DeLorenzo house, slip under the sheets, and pretend to be fast asleep before Luciano opens his eyes.
If he catches me now, after this, he will kill me.
I move quickly into the dark, flagging down another passing taxi, my mind racing as the countdown begins.
The ride back is a blur of panic and racing thoughts, but the moment the taxi drops me off a quarter-mile from the estate, a heavy, suffocating stillness hits me.
I slip back through the loose section of the iron fencing and creep along the dark gravel path. But as I approach the side door, my footsteps falter.
Something is entirely wrong.
The perimeter guards aren't patrolling the grounds.
The courtyard is completely abandoned, and the security booth near the main driveway sits completely empty.
No low murmurs from the men on duty, no glowing embers of their cigarettes in the dark.
The entire house is blanketed in an unnatural, terrifying quiet.
My pulse roars in my ears as I push the side door open. It isn’t locked.
I swallow the lump of fear in my throat and move like a shadow through the corridors, forcing myself to climb the grand staircase. Every instinct tells me to turn around and run, but I have to know. I have to look.
When I reach the master bedroom, the door is slightly ajar. I push it open, my breath catching in my chest.
Luciano is in bed, lying exactly where I left him—except he isn't snoring anymore.
The silk sheets are no longer pristine white; they are soaked through with a thick, spreading sea of dark crimson blood.
His chest is completely still, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling with a glazed, horrific emptiness.
On the nightstand beside him, the glass I used to drug him sits in the exact same spot, reflecting the dim light.
A violent wave of shock ripples through me, locking my joints. My mind spins into absolute chaos. What happened here? Who did this? And where the heck are the guards?
Before I can even process the horror in front of me, a low, distant wail cuts through the silence of the room.
The sound grows louder, sharper, multiplying until the unmistakable scream of police sirens fills the air outside. Suddenly, the dark walls of the bedroom are painted in violent streaks of blue and red as police lights begin flashing furiously through the large windows.
Panic claws at my throat. A neighbor. Someone must have heard something, seen the missing guards, or orchestrated this entire thing and called them.
I look down at my hands, then at the nightstand where the glass of drugged water sits right beside his corpse.
I left the house under the cover of night, I drugged my husband, and now I have returned to find him butchered.
The setup is flawless. To anyone walking through that door, I look entirely, completely guilty.
I force myself to close my eyes and take a deep, ragged breath, fighting to keep the rising hysteria from breaking my composure. A bitter, cynical realization settles heavy in my chest. I thought I had freed myself at that clinic tonight. I thought I had finally taken control of my own destiny.
But as the sirens screech to a halt in the driveway below, I realize the terrifying truth: even in death, Luciano still has me completely imprisoned.