“Please… just let me go,” I whispered, my voice raw from hours of tears and pleading.
My fingers gripped the icy metal bars as my knees throbbed from kneeling too long. No one answered. No one moved. The guards remained impassive, their faces blank, as if I were nothing but an annoyance. A criminal.
But I wasn’t.
I had done nothing. I didn’t even know Julian had been taken. And yet somehow, I was the one being blamed.
The echo of heels clicking sharply across the tiled hallway drew my attention. And there she was—Isabelle. Her expression twisted with fury, lips curling like a predator ready to strike.
She strode closer, eyes glinting with malice, her voice sharp and cutting. “You really think you still mean anything? Dominic was never yours. He has always belonged to me.”
I flinched, but she pressed on.
“You were just a temporary stand-in,” she sneered. “A placeholder. He needed someone while I was married to his cousin. But now… now that’s over.” She smirked with triumph. “Dominic is mine again, just as it should have always been.”
My chest tightened.
“And Julian,” she added, tilting her chin proudly, “he isn’t some unfortunate child. He is Dominic’s—his true son. His blood. His heir.”
I staggered back, the words hitting me like a physical blow.
“So instead of plotting against him out of jealousy,” she snapped, “maybe start getting used to the fact that you mean nothing to this family now.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words formed. Only emptiness. Only pain.
“And don’t even think about trying to win him back,” Isabelle spat venomously. “Whatever you do, you’ll never measure up. Not as a wife. Not as a woman. And certainly not as a mother.”
Dominic appeared behind her, jaw tight, eyes burning with fury. “You’re the reason he’s in the hospital,” he said icily. “Do you think the kidnappers were lying? They confessed—it was your doing.”
“No!” I shook my head frantically. “I didn’t! I never wanted that boy harmed!”
His voice cut through me like steel. “Because of your jealousy, right? Your own child is gone, and now you want mine dead too?”
I stared at him, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “So… you’re admitting he’s your son?”
Dominic froze, but only briefly. “Don’t change the subject!” he barked.
Before I could react further, a staff member rushed over. “Sir—Mr. Blackwell—Julian’s blood levels are critical. He needs a transfusion immediately, but the hospital has no supply for his rare blood type.”
Dominic looked at me with an intensity that made my blood run cold. “Your blood type?”
I stepped back, vision swimming. “I’m anemic… if you take blood from me—”
“She can do it,” Dominic cut me off sharply. “She will. It’s the least she can do for what she’s caused. Make sure she matches. Take her to the hospital now.”
“Dominic…” I gasped. “I could faint… I might not—”
“If my son dies,” he growled, stepping closer until his presence suffocated me, “I swear, you’ll rot in prison for the rest of your life.”
I didn’t fight. I didn’t even resist. My veins opened to the needle, blood draining away until my lips were pale, my vision spinning. My last coherent thought before darkness swallowed me wasn’t about the pain—it was the words he had spoken: my son.
No more lies. No more pretending. He had replaced me and made me bleed for it—literally.
When I awoke, the fluorescent lights above flickered and my arms ached. My vision was blurred, my body weak, when Dominic entered the room again.
I braced myself. He wasted no time.
“Did you send men after Isabelle this time?” he demanded.
“What?” I barely whispered, voice fragile. “I’m locked in a hospital room! How could I even—?”
His expression twisted in fury. “Was that your plan at dinner? Who were you texting? What was in your phone?!”
“No one!” I cried. “I swear, it’s nothing!”
He didn’t believe me. Never had.
“Guards,” he barked. “Make her pay.”
What followed was a blur—fists, pain, screaming. I stopped pleading. It was pointless.
“Please… let me go,” I whispered one final time. “Just… be happy with them. Leave me alone.”
But Dominic’s glare cut me down. “You’re not leaving. You’ll stay. You’ll suffer until I decide you’ve paid.”
The door slammed behind him.
They locked me in. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. All I could do was curl around myself, arms pressed to the empty hollow of my stomach where my child had once grown. The place Dominic had destroyed, yet still punished me for being “insufficient.”
I drifted in and out of consciousness.
Until the sound of hurried, heavy footsteps reached my ears—different from Dominic’s.
I tensed, heart hammering. Not again. Not this time.
Then—warm hands. Gentle. Protective.
“Vanessa.”
That voice. My eyes flew open.
“Tristan…” I choked, disbelief and relief warring inside me.
He was here. My only chance. My rescuer.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he murmured, cupping my face in his hands. “But I’m here now.”
I nodded, unable to fully believe he was real.
He wrapped a blanket around me and lifted me carefully to my feet. “Let’s get you out of here.”
We moved swiftly, silently through the corridors, into a waiting van, and out into the night. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t need to know where we were headed. All that mattered was that we were leaving, that I wouldn’t die in that place.
As the plane lifted off, the city shrinking beneath us, I whispered a quiet goodbye to every false promise Dominic had ever made—and a final farewell to the life he had tried to steal from me.
