Chapter 10 #3
“The procedure was done the moment I heard Romeo was back. He must not know I’m pregnant—not when I haven’t even managed to get him into bed yet.” She continued casually, as if she were discussing something insignificant. “Trust me, my body is still fragile. I’m still healing. I’m still bleeding.”
She tilted her head.
“So if you lose control and hit me, I could bleed out right here on this floor.”
Her smile became sharper.
“And guess who everyone would blame?”
My jaw tightened.
I hated her.
I hated the way she used every weakness she could find.
But as furious as I was, I wasn’t reckless.
Throwing something at her, attacking her, doing anything that could put her condition at risk would only give her exactly what she wanted.
This woman was supposed to be recovering.
Instead, she had come here to provoke me.
“So what do you want?” I asked through clenched teeth.
Before she could answer, Romeo’s voice echoed from somewhere outside the room.
“Yarina!”
Her expression changed instantly.
Something dangerous flashed in her eyes.
Then, before I could react, her hand moved.
A knife appeared.
My blood turned cold. “What are you doing?”
She closed the distance and lifted the knife slightly, voice dripping with poison.
“I watched the camera footage. Four months ago. You and Romeo. On the dining table. Fucking like animals in our house.”
Heat flooded my face.
“You disgusting whore. You attacked me, injured me, then seduced him while I was still bleeding. And now that belly? You’re already pregnant.” She stepped closer, hatred twisting her features.
“You think a child will keep him tied to you? That you’ll finally steal my man for good? I see right through you. That was always the plan.”
“You’ve gone insane. Drop that knife.” My voice trembled, but I refused to step back.
She laughed, the sound sharp and unhinged.
“I came here to find out if you’d gotten yourself pregnant. And now I have my answer.” Her eyes burned with pure hatred. “How dare you? You fucking traitor.”
She lunged.
Everything happened too quickly.
The knife flashed.
I moved on instinct.
The first slash missed.
I stumbled sideways, grabbing the nearest thing I could find—the heavy cream bottle sitting on the dresser.
I swung.
The bottle connected with the side of her head with a sickening crack.
For one second, she froze.
But she didn’t fall.
The knife moved again.
And this time, it caught me.
A sharp, burning pain ripped across my lower stomach.
I gasped.
Warmth spread beneath my clothes.
Blood.
My blood.
At that exact moment, the bedroom door slammed open.
“Juliet!”
Romeo’s voice thundered through the room.
Then came a heavy thud.
Yarina collapsed.
Her body hit the floor, and everything seemed to happen at once.
Blood streamed down her body, pooling quickly on the ground beneath her.
She looked pale and weak.
Her breathing came in desperate, uneven gasps.
It looked like the blade had struck dangerously close to an artery.
But I barely registered it.
Because pain exploded through my stomach.
My hand flew to my belly.
My knees weakened.
I staggered backward, reaching for the wall to keep myself upright.
The world blurred.
My baby.
My baby.
I looked toward Romeo.
For one desperate second, I thought he would see me.
See the blood.
See the fear.
See that I needed him.
But he was already moving.
Straight toward Yarina.
He dropped to his knees beside her, his face changing as he saw her blood-soaked body.
“Yarina.”
His voice was filled with panic.
He pressed his hands against her wound, trying to stop the bleeding.
I stood there frozen, one hand against the wall and the other protecting my stomach.
Then his eyes found me.
And everything changed.
The panic disappeared.
The fear became anger.
Pure, violent anger.
“Do you have no heart at all? How can you do this to your own sister?”
His voice cut through the room.
Before I could answer, he was on his feet.
He crossed the distance between us in seconds.
His hands grabbed my arms and slammed me against the wall.
Pain shot through me.
His grip was brutal.
His breathing was ragged, like an animal barely holding itself back.
“This is the second time you’ve physically hurt her!”
His voice shook with fury. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Tears burned my eyes.
Not from fear.
From the unbearable ache of realizing that even now, even bleeding and terrified, he saw me as the villain.
“Just because I let the last incident slide,” he snarled, “doesn’t mean you should keep testing my patience.”
His fingers tightened around my shoulders. “You don’t understand, do you?”
His eyes were filled with rage. “Yarina means everything to me.”
The words cut deeper than the knife.
“You cannot keep wishing her dead just because you married the man she loves.”
My tears finally spilled free as I stared at him, at the man who was supposed to be my husband but had become the person who hurt me most.
My stomach was bleeding.
The reality of it was almost impossible to comprehend.
There was blood beneath my hands. Blood soaking through my clothes. Blood that belonged to me—and possibly my baby.
Fear unlike anything I had ever known clawed through my chest.
But Romeo didn’t see it.
Or worse...
He saw it and didn’t care.
The monster standing in front of me, consumed by rage, looked at me as if I were the danger.
As if I were the threat.
I hadn’t attacked Yarina.
Not this time.
I had defended myself.
But he didn’t care about the truth.
He only cared about her.
“I’m bleeding.”
The word barely left my mouth.
It came out as a broken gasp, forced out by the terror of the fury burning in his eyes.
Only then did Romeo release me.
The second his hands disappeared from my arms, my body gave up.
My legs collapsed beneath me.
I slid down the wall, one hand pressing desperately against my bleeding stomach while the other searched uselessly for something to hold onto.
Anything.
Someone.
“Romeo...” I whispered, my voice barely audible as tears blurred my vision.
But he wasn’t looking at me anymore.
He had already turned away.
He walked toward Yarina.
The woman who had come into my room with a knife.
The woman who had attacked me.
He lifted her carefully into his arms as if she were something precious and fragile. “I’ve got you.”
My heart shattered.
Because I had never heard that tenderness from him.
Not once.
“You’re going to be okay,” he whispered to her. “Just hold on for me.”
He carried her away.
My husband carried another woman away while I sat bleeding on the floor.
Blood marked his path as he left.
And he never looked back.
I tried to call his name.
I tried to make my voice work.
“Romeo...”
My throat tightened.
“Please...”
The room spun.
“Don’t leave me...”
But the words were too weak.
Too quiet.
He was already gone.
No one was coming.
The pain in my stomach intensified until it felt like fire tearing through my body. Every breath sent another wave of agony through me.
I pressed both hands against the wound, desperately trying to stop the bleeding.
But the warmth kept slipping through my fingers.
My baby.
My baby.
“No...”
A sob escaped me.
“Please...”
I didn’t care about myself.
I didn’t care about Romeo.
I didn’t care about the marriage, the trust fund, or any of the battles I had been fighting.
I just wanted my child safe.
Black spots danced across my vision.
The room tilted sideways.
My strength disappeared.
And as darkness swallowed me, the last thought I had was a desperate prayer.
Please... don’t take my baby.