Chapter 4

Maurice snatched the phone out of my hand and hurled it against the wall.

"Lisa, this is family business. The cops don't touch this. What's your problem?"

I looked at the man who'd chased me for two years, dated me for three, and been married to me for one, and I laughed at myself.

"Then why smash my phone if you've got nothing to hide? I was blind to marry you, Maurice. That doesn't mean you bought me."

"And my daughters are not your trading chips. I have no interest in raising somebody else's sons."

Seeing I wouldn't budge, his voice softened.

"Don't fight it. They're a quarter blood to me, so that basically makes them my sons."

"This way all three of our girls have two big brothers to look out for them. It's the best arrangement. Trust me, honey. Please?"

I laughed until I was crying. "You'd use my suffering, my daughters' whole lives, just so you can have a son and a daughter."

"The biggest mistake of my life was believing you!"

Marina slapped me across the face. "Son, stop wasting your breath on her. You let this woman run loose and she'll tear the roof off the house."

"My God, you people beat a woman who just gave birth?" Jane's face was pure disbelief.

Annette had already slapped her right back. "Swapping babies is against the law, and now you're beating a new mother. A whole family that doesn't know the first thing about the law."

Marina clutched her cheek and wailed. "Son, your wife hired someone to hit your own mother. I've got no reason left to live!"

"I'll go die right now, I'll go find your father in the ground!"

"You dare hit my mother!" Maurice's face twisted, and he drove his fist into Annette's face.

She went down screaming, and still he kept kicking and punching.

Jane rushed in to help and got her hair yanked by the groom's elder sister and Maurice's second sister.

"Stop, stop hitting her…" I clawed at Maurice's shirt.

Annette was in her fifties, sixties. How was she supposed to take a full-grown man's fists?

"Hit her, son, hit her! That's what a real man does!" Marina cheered her children on from the side.

Maurice's elbow swung back with the punch and caught me in the nose. Blood sprayed out.

Everyone froze. I cupped my nose, blood running out through my fingers.

The pain was so sharp I was sure the bone had broken.

"Lisa, you stood behind my brother on purpose!"

"Trying to play the martyr to force the whole family to do what you want. Not a chance."

The groom's elder sister and the second sister watched me like I was a threat.

Whatever guilt had been in Maurice's eyes vanished. "Lisa, play the martyr all you want. It won't work."

"I want a son. I will have a son!"

I raised the phone watch and gave a broken little laugh. "I already called the police."

The watch was Maurice's wedding gift to me. He'd said it had live location tracking, so if I was ever in danger I could reach him first thing.

Now the danger was him and his family.

The only ones who could save me were the cops.

I dragged both nurses into this, got them hurt and bleeding. I'm so sorry.

"You little slut, you actually called the police! The Romans don't want a daughter-in-law like you. Son, divorce her!"

"After triplets her belly's like a rind of watermelon. Who'd want her?" Marina sprang up, screaming at me.

Maurice glared at me, threatening. "Lisa, last chance. Call them back and say it was postpartum depression, that you reported it by mistake."

I clenched my back teeth and glared right back. "In your dreams. I'm going to see every one of you eat prison food."

Maurice's hand closed around my throat, his face twisted. "Lisa, you're forcing me. You did this!"

I couldn't breathe. I beat at his hand. "Let go… let go of me!"

Both nurses charged in again to help me, and Marina and the groom's elder sister and the second sister set on them.

Just as I closed my eyes in despair, the door crashed open.

Sibyl Swanson. My sister was here!

She'd come with a whole squad of bodyguards in black!