Chapter 4

Only then did it hit me.

From outside, the glass was one black reflective sheet.

But a detail even Myrtle could catch with a single glance, Gerard hadn't spared half a second to notice, too disgusted to pause.

Gasping, I gave up every last scrap of dignity.

I crawled over and wrapped my arms around her feet, begging like something less than human.

"Myrtle, save my baby."

"If you'll just call an ambulance, I'll agree to anything, even divorcing Gerard."

Myrtle raised a brow, and someone at her side instantly set a chair down behind her.

She looked down at me, her silver heel nudging my pregnant belly, not gently, not hard, and gave a cold laugh.

"Who gave you the nerve to bargain with me?"

"Any woman but me who gets pregnant with Gerard's child doesn't deserve to give birth!"

The pressure on my hand grew heavier.

I flinched back on instinct, but one of her people dragged me back, palm pinned down.

The moment that sharp heel ground into my finger bones, I screamed.

My whole body shook with the pain.

Thrashing, I bit down hard on Myrtle's ankle.

Her face turned vicious, and she kicked me away.

The next second she went down, chair and all, sprawled on the floor.

She stared at me, her face twisted in pain.

"Sister, I let you out to be kind."

"Why do you have to destroy me..."

Gerard, who'd come running at the noise, saw the shard of glass buried at the top of Myrtle's thigh.

His eyes went cold.

"Hailey, did you really have to cause a scene this big?"

I shook my head desperately, dragging at the bloodstains on my hem, tears blurring everything.

"Gerard, I didn't, believe me."

"This is all my blood and the baby's. That cut on Myrtle..."

He kicked my hand away.

Clearly he'd seen the words I'd written on the door too.

Just as I was crawling toward Gerard, weak and stubborn,

Myrtle clutched her leg and bit her lip until it bled.

"Sister really is clever, writing a plea for help in lipstick just to trick me in here."

"Isn't that right... ah, Gerard, my leg hurts so much."

Before she could finish,

Gerard swept Myrtle into his arms and rushed out in a panic.

"Every private doctor to the top-floor suite in three minutes. Now, this instant!"

Out in the hall, the harsh lights lit up the reek of blood filling the room.

I dragged myself along the floor, pulling the flesh that had slid out of me.

Inch by inch, I crawled out of the room.

"Baby, don't be afraid... Mommy is going to find someone to save us."

But with Myrtle hurt,

everyone in the club was too afraid of crossing Gerard, all of them hurrying upstairs to beg his forgiveness.

Outside, more than a dozen of the city's well-known doctors climbed out of seven or eight private cars, medical bags in hand, cramming into the elevator.

"Save... save me..."

Until the last doctor to arrive, a woman, noticed me in the corner, drenched in blood.

Shocked, she pulled out her emergency kit.

"Ma'am, how are you bleeding this much?"

But Gerard, coming down from upstairs, quietly stopped her hands.

He frowned down at me.

"Stop the act. Anyone who knows would say that's Myrtle's blood. Anyone who doesn't would think it's yours."

"Come on. Go kneel and apologize to her."

"Otherwise, even if you scrape together fifteen thousand, the Gilbert family won't claim this child."

I lifted my eyelids halfway, dead all over.

I gestured for him to look at my right hand, the flesh crushed to pulp under Myrtle's heel.

"Isn't this enough to pay her back?"

Gerard sneered.

"The self-injury routine. Cute. If I didn't know exactly what you are, I might've believed it."

"A woman who'd harm her own child would snap a hand for sympathy without a second thought."

Is that so?

I looked at the dead flesh sliding out from between my legs and pulled at the corner of my mouth.

"A few minutes ago, our second child was gone too."

At that, Gerard's pupils shrank hard.

Then he came back to himself and refused, on instinct, to believe it.

"Hailey, you're playing pitiful again."

The next second, the woman doctor cradling the stillborn she'd carried out burst into tears.

"Sir, the baby really isn't breathing."