Chapter 1

Eight months pregnant, I was bleeding heavily, an abnormality in the pregnancy, and I rushed to the hospital to get checked.

I had just stepped into the elevator when one of Milton's students shoved me right back out.

“Professor Cox's wife, I've got documents to get to Professor Hughes, it's urgent. Take the next one.”

Blood had already soaked the hem of my dress.

The stabbing pain low in my belly wouldn't stop.

My face went cold in an instant. I grabbed Prudence Pruitt by the hair and hauled her straight out of the elevator,

squeezing in myself a second before the doors closed.

Late that night, Milton came home looking exhausted, and the first thing out of his mouth was an accusation.

“Pru was in a hurry to bring me those files. Why did you hit her?!”

“That girl has severe anxiety. Because of that one thing you did, she cried the whole day and nearly threw herself off the top of the hospital!”

I threw the slippers I'd been about to hand him right at his chest.

“Milton, she pushed a woman bleeding in her third trimester out of the elevator, and instead of saying a word about that, you come here and blame me?! Has your brain rotted?!”

“Severe anxiety? Looks more like severe drama queen to me!”

Milton went silent at once,

and just like always, he made me soup, soaked my feet, and coaxed me to sleep.

But when I woke, I found myself standing inside the elevator of the hospital's abandoned building,

and outside the clear glass,

Milton stood with his arm around Prudence, watching me with a vicious grin on his face.

“You like elevators, don't you?! Then you can stay in there!”

“You called Pru's anxiety drama. Well, today's a perfect chance for me to see whether your severe claustrophobia is just drama too!”

The dark closed in around me.

I forced my trembling hand steady, took out my phone, and dialed.

“Cut off Milton's future. Send him to hell. Today.”

1

My claustrophobia was diagnosed by Milton himself, the expert.

Ten minutes in a sealed space, and I'd very likely hurt myself.

Twenty, and my life would be at risk.

After I got pregnant, Milton always carried me up and down the stairs,

precisely because he was afraid an elevator would trigger the claustrophobia.

But now he stood outside the glass doors of the elevator,

looking at my phone as its screen went dark, and let out a laugh dripping with mockery.

“Priscilla Cox, you dialed a four-digit number and announced you were going to end my future. That's the funniest joke I've heard in my whole life.”

The words were barely out

when the students standing behind him burst into a roar of laughter.

“Professor Cox's wife, if this had happened eight years ago, maybe we'd believe you. But now? Now it's just a joke of epic proportions!”

“Right…”

Prudence propped a hand on her hip and stepped forward, tapping a slender finger against the glass in front of me,

her smile pure ridicule.

“Still think you're that young, brilliant new star of the medical world from eight years ago? Now you're just a hen sitting around all day thinking about how to hurry up and lay her egg!”

Prudence's words set off another explosion of laughter.

Milton, though,

steadied under the laughter, his face slowly turning cool.

He swept a glance over the pitch-black space around me, and over me, already shaking, my eyes full of panic inside the elevator,

then raised a hand to cut off the laughter.

He took a step forward until he was right in front of me, and spoke in a flat voice.

“Priscilla, all those baseless, reckless things you said just now, I won't hold them against you.”

“Just apologize to Pru, and I'll let you out.”

Fury shot straight up into my chest.

I took a step forward and slammed a fist against the glass in front of Milton.

“Milton, have you lost your mind?!”

“Tell me what I did wrong?! She's the one who pulled me out of the elevator first!”

“I'm carrying our child in here. You know better than anyone how hard this child was to get!”

Why this child had cost us so much,

Milton knew better than anyone.

Years of work in labs overseas had damaged his body,

and over these eight years,

so that he could become a father,

I had gone through eighteen rounds of IVF, taken the egg-retrieval needle, long as my forearm, into my body more times than I could count,

before we finally had this child.

The day the pregnancy was confirmed,

Milton, who hadn't even cried when his mother died, held me and sobbed against my shoulder,

his whole body shaking as he held me like I was some priceless treasure, his voice trembling.

“Cilla, if in this life I, Milton Hughes, ever wrong you, may I die a terrible death.”

The words of the man I loved, of course I believed them without a shred of doubt.

Through eight months of pregnancy, I was careful at every turn.

Because of the poor sperm quality, I spent most days of the week at the hospital,

and Milton made sure the hospital knew early on that my prenatal checkups always got a clear path.

But never in a thousand years did I think that, because of one Prudence,

he could lose himself this completely…

The stabbing pain low in my belly pulled me back.

Only then did I notice the blood had soaked through again below my waist.

Yesterday, as I left the hospital, the head of obstetrics had warned me over and over,

“You cannot bleed again. You're going to deliver very soon. One more time, and these eight months of work are all for nothing.”

I cupped my swollen belly and shuffled up to Milton, forcing the words out through my teeth.

“Milton, let me out.”

“If my claustrophobia hits, you know what that means.”

When I threw myself forward, the bloody fabric clung to the glass door of the elevator,

leaving a streak of bright red on the clear glass.

The sealed space had me shaking uncontrollably.

A flicker of hesitation crossed Milton's eyes as he looked at me.

He slowly raised his hand, the elevator's control pinched between his fingers,

and just as his fingertip was about to press it,

a soft, tearful cry came from behind him.

“Professor Hughes, please, just let her out. My worthless little life is nothing compared to hers. If I'd known I'd put you in such a hard spot, I should've jumped off the hospital roof yesterday…”

Prudence's words made Milton's gaze turn ice-cold in an instant.

He flung the elevator remote away and looked at me with pure viciousness.

“Priscilla, so even now you still don't see what you did wrong. Fine. Today I'm going to make you suffer for it!”

With that, he turned at once and gave the order.

“Go. Get big black blocks of sponge and pack this whole elevator full!”