I walked for what felt like miles, the cold wind whipping through my thin suit jacket, each step a testament to my own foolishness. The heels I wore for power in the courtroom were instruments of torture on the uneven asphalt. My body ached with a profound, bone-deep exhaustion.
Dizziness washed over me in waves. The distant lights of the city swam in my vision. My legs finally gave out. I collapsed onto the gritty shoulder of the road, the world dissolving into a vortex of black.
My next conscious thought was the sterile, unmistakable scent of antiseptic.
I was in a hospital bed. An IV tube was taped to the back of my hand, feeding a clear fluid into my veins. The white sheets felt cool against my skin.
A nurse with kind eyes and a weary face walked in. She looked at my chart, then at me, her expression a mixture of pity and professional detachment.
"Mrs. Austin," she said softly. "You were brought in by a passing motorist. You were suffering from exhaustion and severe dehydration."
She paused, taking a breath. "We also ran some tests. You were pregnant."
The word hung in the air. Were. Past tense.
"The fetus was only about seven weeks along," she continued, her voice gentle. "At that stage, it's very fragile. The physical strain, the stress… I'm so sorry, but you've had a miscarriage."
I stared at her, the words not quite registering. Pregnant. I was pregnant. The morning sickness, the fatigue… it hadn't just been stress. It had been a life. A tiny, secret life that Hilton and I had created in one of our rare, fumbling moments of connection.
My hand moved, a thing of its own accord, to my flat stomach. There had been something there. A flicker of a heartbeat. A promise. A reason for all my pathetic hope.
And now it was gone.
It was gone before I even had a chance to tell its father. Gone before he had a chance to reject it, just as he had rejected me.
The nurse said some more comforting words, then quietly left me alone with my silent, cavernous grief.
The first thing I did when I had the strength was plug my phone into the charger by the bed. It flickered to life, and a barrage of notifications flooded the screen.
A news alert from a gossip site popped up at the top. The headline was a punch to the gut.
Tech Mogul Hilton Austin Rushes to Defend Traumatized Girlfriend Ciera Rose After Police Ordeal!
I clicked on it, a masochist seeking my own destruction. The article was gushing, filled with anonymous quotes about Hilton' s profound devotion. It described how he had whisked a "visibly shaken" Ciera to the best private hospital in the city for a "full check-up."
There was a photo. Hilton was carrying Ciera out of the precinct, his face a mask of grim concern. Her face was buried in his shoulder, the picture of a damsel in distress. The article included a zoomed-in shot of a tiny, barely-there scratch on her arm, allegedly from the "struggle" at the hotel.
The caption read: A source close to Austin says he was "apoplectic" that his beloved Ciera suffered even this minor injury, vowing to "burn down the world" for her.
I looked at the photo of the scratch. Then I looked at the IV in my own hand.
He would burn down the world for her scratch.
He had left me to die on a highway, and in doing so, had killed our child.
Something inside me didn't just break. It atomized. It turned to dust and blew away, leaving behind a terrifying, empty void. The love was gone. The hope was gone. The grief was even fading, replaced by a pure, crystalline rage so cold it felt like a religious awakening.
I ripped the IV out of my hand. A single drop of blood welled up, dark against my pale skin.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My body was weak, but my mind was a razor.
I walked out of the room, a ghost in a hospital gown, my steps unsteady but my purpose absolute. I was going to find my husband.
And I was going to make him pay.
