Eloise Stephenson POV:
"Hate me?" Jacob scoffed, his laughter cold and hollow. He easily caught my flailing hands, twisting them behind my back. "You dare to hate me? I saved you, Eloise! I pulled you from that hellhole, I fought my family for you, I gave you everything! And this is how you repay me? By destroying the only peace I' ve ever found?"
He shoved me roughly, sending me sprawling across the floor. My head hit the edge of the coffee table, a sharp pain blooming at my temple.
"You will pay for what you did to Ema," he snarled, his eyes burning with a chilling resolve. "You will pay for my child. And you will pay for my peace."
He turned, his back to me, and walked out without another word, the shattered front door rattling in his wake. The silence he left behind was deafening, suffocating.
From that night on, a new, horrifying routine began. Every night, he would return. Not with love, not with tenderness, but with a cold, brutal ritual of degradation. He would take me, not as a husband, but as a tormentor, extracting his twisted penance for Ema's supposed loss. Each touch was a violation, each word a poison, designed to break what little spirit I had left. I became a shell, my body a hostage, my mind a fortress of numbness.
Then came the morning sickness. The subtle shifts in my body. The undeniable truth. I was pregnant. Again.
A tiny, fragile tendril of hope, pathetic and foolish, unwound in my heart. Maybe… maybe this time. Maybe this child, undeniably ours, could mend the gaping chasm between us. Maybe it could remind him of the love we once shared, the vows he once made. Maybe it could be our redemption.
The hope was brutally short-lived.
He appeared in the doorway of my private study, not alone, but flanked by two grim-faced military police officers. His eyes were like chips of ice, devoid of any warmth, any recognition. My breath hitched. I knew, with a sickening certainty, that this was it. The end.
"Jacob," I whispered, my voice trembling.
He ignored me, his gaze fixed on the officers. "Take her," he commanded, his voice flat, emotionless. "Discipline her. Until the problem is resolved."
My blood ran cold. The problem. He meant the baby. Our baby.
"No!" I screamed, lunging forward, my arms outstretched. "Jacob, please! This is our child! Our flesh and blood! Don' t do this!"
He finally looked at me, a cruel, mocking smile playing on his lips. "Our child?" he repeated, his voice dripping with venom. "How quickly you forget, Eloise. I' ve been ensuring you couldn' t get pregnant for years. Every night. Every single time. My child would never come from you."
The words slammed into me, knocking the air from my lungs. My entire body went rigid, frozen in a tableau of horror. Years. He had been doing this for years. All the times I had wondered, all the times I had yearned for a child, for a family with him… it had all been a calculated deception. He had actively prevented it. And I had been too blind, too trusting, to see.
"You… you wouldn' t dare," I stammered, the words catching in my throat.
He stepped closer, his face a mask of chilling disdain. "You are a broken, tainted vessel, Eloise. You are unfit to carry my legacy. Unfit to bear the Finley name. Ema, on the other hand…"
He paused, a flicker of something almost tender in his eyes as he spoke her name. "Ema is pure. Untouched. She was meant to give me children. She was meant to be the mother of my heirs."
He turned, dismissing me with a wave of his hand. "See to it," he told the officers, his voice cold and final. "Make sure she understands her place. And make sure our… mistake is rectified."
He walked away, leaving me to the mercy of the two unfeeling officers. I stopped struggling. The fight had left me. My body felt heavy, lifeless, a puppet with severed strings. I allowed them to bind me, to lead me away. It was over. All of it.
The pain returned, sharp and searing, more intense than any I had ever known. Not just the physical agony of losing my child, but the agonizing realization of what Jacob had become. I felt the life draining from me, a part of my soul tearing away. Each contraction was a brutal reminder of his cruelty, of the love that had curdled into poison. My world went dark again, not from exhaustion, but from a profound, soul-shattering despair.
When I next opened my eyes, the world was a blur of white. Hospital walls. The sterile scent of disinfectant. My body was weak, fragile. I was close to death, they told me. Just barely clinging to life.
Through the hazy fog of pain and medication, I saw them. Jacob. And Ema. He was supporting her, his arm wrapped protectively around her waist, their heads bent together in what looked like tender conversation. They walked past my bed, their faces bathed in the soft, glowing light of the hospital corridor. They didn' t see me. Or if they did, they didn' t care. There was no flicker of recognition, no pause, no hesitation. They simply walked on, a perfect, blissful couple, leaving me, the discarded wife, to bleed out alone.
In that moment, something in me snapped. The last vestiges of love, of hope, of forgiveness, withered and died. In their place, a cold, hard ember ignited. It wasn't despair anymore. It was pure, unadulterated hatred. My eyes, which had been filled with tears, were now dry, reflecting only a chilling, blood-red resolve.
I reached for the phone beside my bed, my hand trembling but steady. My brother, Hal. He was the only one I could trust. He was the only one who understood.
"Hal," I whispered, my voice raw but firm. "I need the fake death formula. Now."
