Chapter 31 #2
The thought of my baby gave me strength I didn't know I had. I wasn't just fighting for myself anymore. I wasn't just another victim too scared to stand up to her abusers. I was a mother now, even if the baby was barely the size of a grape. And mothers protected their children, no matter what.
I'd survived my apartment burning down. Survived months of threats and terror. I'd be damned if I'd lie here meek and terrified while these bastards decided my fate—decided my baby's fate—like I didn't have a say in it.
"Is that what you signed up for when you started trafficking women? Killing babies?"
“Shut up.” But Silas didn't move toward me, didn't threaten me physically.
Just stood there with his arms crossed, a wall of indifference until we heard footsteps on the stairs.
Light and quick, accompanied by the sharp click-click-click of heels on wood that echoed in the concrete space like a countdown.
My whole body tensed, every muscle locking up with dread so intense it felt like I was being electrocuted.
The footsteps descended with purpose, with barely contained energy, and I could hear breathing now.
It was fast, excited, the sound of someone who'd been waiting for this moment for a very long time.
Then she appeared.
Morgan descended into view and nothing, absolutely nothing Emma had said or even the nightmares I’d been plagued with, had prepared me for what I saw.
This wasn't the polished, professional woman I'd seen around town with her perfect hair and designer clothes.
This wasn't the put-together county employee with her carefully constructed facade of normalcy.
This was something else entirely.
Morgan's hair hung in tangled strands around her face, greasy at the roots, clearly unwashed for days.
Her makeup was smeared with mascara tracking down her cheeks in black streaks like war paint, and her lipstick bled beyond the lines of her mouth like a grotesque parody of a smile.
Her eyes were wild, pupils dilated so wide they looked black, darting around the basement before finally landing on me with an intensity that made my skin crawl.
She wore what might have once been a nice blouse, silk and expensive, but now it was wrinkled and stained with what looked like coffee and something darker that I really hoped wasn't blood.
Her slacks were equally disheveled, and her heels, her expensive designer heels that probably cost more than my monthly boutique rent, were scuffed and dirty.
But it was her expression that truly terrified me. A manic grin stretched across her face, her teeth showing in a way that looked more like a snarl than a smile. She looked like someone who'd completely lost touch with reality, who'd crossed a line into a place where normal rules no longer applied.
Emma wasn't exaggerating. Morgan is completely fucking insane.
“There she is,” Morgan said, her voice sing-song and cheerful in a way that made my blood run cold. “There's the woman who ruined everything.”
She descended the last few steps, her heels clicking with each movement, and I could smell her expensive perfume now, layered over the sour scent of unwashed skin and something else. Alcohol, maybe.
“Morgan—” Armand started, his voice uncertain.
“Shut up.” Morgan didn't even look at him, her eyes locked on me with laser focus. “I've waited so long for this moment. So, so long. Do you know how long I've been planning this, Harper? How many months of work you've destroyed?”
She crouched down beside me, getting close enough that I could see the broken capillaries in her eyes, the slight tremor in her hands, the sweat beading on her upper lip. Close enough to see that she was completely, utterly unhinged.
This is bad. This is really, really bad.
“Look at you,” she breathed, her voice dropping to something almost reverent that was somehow more terrifying than her manic cheerfulness. “Look at you lying there all helpless. The precious victim everyone rushes to protect. Well, where are your protectors now, Harper?”
“Morgan, you don't have to do this.” I forced my voice to stay steady even though my heart was racing so fast I felt dizzy. “Whatever you think I did—”
“Whatever I think you did?” Morgan's voice rose to a shriek that echoed off the concrete walls and made me flinch. “Think? You didn't just do something, Harper. You destroyed years of planning! Years of carefully positioning myself! Do you have any idea how much work went into this?”
She stood abruptly, her movements jerky and agitated like a puppet with tangled strings, and started pacing. Back and forth, back and forth, her heels clicking against the concrete in a rhythm that felt like a countdown to something terrible.
“Connor's ranch was perfect,” Morgan said, her voice manic now, words tumbling out too fast like she couldn't control them.
“Over eight hundred acres right on the county line.
Access roads on three sides. Close enough to the highway for transport but isolated enough that no one pays attention to vehicle traffic.
Do you understand what that property is worth for my father's operation?”
She spun to face me, her eyes blazing with fury that looked hot enough to burn.
“I spent a year setting it up. A whole year playing the devoted girlfriend, getting Connor to trust me, positioning myself to either marry into that property or convince him to sell. And it was working. He was talking about our future together. About marriage. I was this close,” she held her fingers an inch apart.
“This close to securing that land for my father.”
She dated Connor for a year just to get access to his ranch? That's actually psychotic.
“Morgan, I didn't even know you then—” I tried to reason with her, but she wasn't listening.
“And then you showed up!” She screamed the words, spittle flying from her mouth.
“Poor, pathetic Harper with your sad backstory.
Oh, everyone felt so sorry for you. Let's help Harper.
Let's protect Harper. And Connor—” Her voice dripped with venom.
“Connor couldn't resist playing hero to the damsel in distress.”
She laughed a high, brittle sound that made me flinch.
“He broke up with me. Said he didn't feel the connection anymore, that he wanted to focus on the ranch. But I saw how he always looked at you. I knew. You'd gotten your hooks into him somehow and ruined everything I'd worked for.”
“I never—” I started, but Morgan cut me off.
“Then Daddy's men started applying pressure. The apartment fire that should have sent you running back to wherever you came from. But no, Connor took you in like some kind of knight in shining armor. Made you his little project. Protected you even harder.” Morgan's hands clenched into fists.
“Every move we made to scare you away just made him more attached. Made him more protective. Made my access to that property more impossible.”
She crouched down again, her face inches from mine, her breath sour and hot.
“Do you understand what you cost me? What you cost my father's organization? That ranch was supposed to be a major hub. Transportation routes. Storage. The property value alone—” She stopped, her voice dropping to something cold and deadly.
“And now it's all gone because Connor fell in love with a damaged little victim instead of marrying me.”
“Morgan, you can still…” I tried to find something, anything that might calm her down.
“Still what? Still convince him?” Morgan grabbed my hair, yanking my head back hard enough that tears sprang to my eyes. “You're living in his house. Sleeping in his bed. Carrying his baby.”
The last word came out as a snarl, and I saw genuine rage flash across her face.
“That baby,” Morgan hissed, “that baby should have been my golden ticket. My permanent claim to that property. Instead, it's yours. Another thing you took from me. Another nail in the coffin of my father's plans.”
She released my hair with a shove that sent my head cracking against the concrete. Stars exploded across my vision, bright and painful.
Fucking ow.
“My father is going to be so disappointed,” Morgan said, almost to herself now like I wasn't even there. “Years of work. All for nothing because of some pathetic woman.”
“Boss—” Silas's voice held a warning note. “We need to move. Davies might know about this location. We need to—”
“I know what we need to do.” Morgan pulled something from her pocket.
A knife.
The blade caught the light from the single bulb overhead, gleaming and sharp. Not a large knife, maybe four inches of blade, but more than enough to do damage. More than enough to—
Oh God no.
“Morgan.” Armand's voice cracked with panic. “Put the knife away. This wasn't the plan. Victor said intimidation only—”
“My father isn't here,” Morgan snarled. “My father doesn't understand that the only way to salvage any of this is to remove the problem. Permanently.”
She moved toward me with purpose, and I tried to scramble backward but with my hands bound and my head still spinning, I couldn't move fast enough. Morgan knelt beside me, and I felt the cold press of metal against my stomach as she pressed the flat of the blade against where my baby was growing.
“No—” The word came out as a sob I couldn't control. “Morgan, please, please don't—”
“Shhh,” Morgan said, almost gentle now in a way that was somehow worse than her rage.
“This isn't personal, Harper. Well,” she laughed.
“Maybe it's a little personal. But mostly, you're just a loose end that needs tying up.
You've seen too much, you know too much.
And as long as you're alive, Connor will never be accessible to us again.”
The blade pressed harder, not cutting yet but the threat was clear. My whole body shook as tears streamed down my face and every instinct screamed at me to do something to protect myself but unable to. All while Morgan stood over me in that chilling calm.