A wave of nausea, sharp and violent, rose in my throat. I swayed, my hand finding the cool wall for support. The world was a blur of mocking faces and condescending whispers.
Hilton, having successfully placated his sobbing mistress, was now stroking her hair, murmuring sweet nothings. She was slowly calming down, her tears subsiding as her victory became absolute.
Then, with a final, triumphant smirk in my direction, Ciera approached me again, her expression one of nauseating pity. "Are you okay, Aleta? You look so pale."
She reached out, her fingers with their perfectly manicured nails aiming for my sleeve. "Maybe you should sit down-"
What happened next was a masterpiece of calculated malice. As her hand brushed against my arm, she let out a piercing shriek and threw herself backward, as if I had shoved her with all my might.
Her body collided with a medical cart laden with supplies. It crashed to the floor with a deafening clatter of metal and shattering glass. Needles, vials, and gauze scattered across the polished linoleum.
Ciera landed amidst the debris, clutching her arm and letting out a pained cry. "Ow! My arm! She pushed me!" She looked up at Hilton, her eyes wide with manufactured terror. "Hilty, she pushed me into the glass!"
Hilton' s face, which had been soft with concern for Ciera, instantly transformed into a mask of glacial fury. In two long strides, he was in front of me, his shadow swallowing me whole.
"You bitch," he snarled, his voice a low, dangerous growl. He grabbed the front of my hospital gown, twisting the fabric in his fist. "Did you touch her?"
He shoved me against the wall, the impact knocking the air from my lungs. "Apologize to her. Right now."
"I didn't touch her," I choked out, my head spinning. The lie was so blatant, so theatrical, yet he believed it without a second of hesitation.
"Liar!" he roared. He raised his hand and slapped me across the face. The sound was a sharp crack in the stunned silence of the hallway. My head snapped to the side, my cheek stinging with a fiery, humiliating pain.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Ciera, still on the floor, a flicker of a triumphant smile on her lips before she buried her face in her hands and started sobbing again.
"I'll ask you one more time," Hilton said, his voice dangerously calm. "Apologize."
I tasted blood in my mouth. I looked him in the eye, the man I had once loved, now a monster I didn't recognize. "No."
The second slap was harder. My vision swam with black spots. He was going to hit me again, but his bodyguards, who had been lingering in the background, stepped forward.
"Sir," one of them said, a flicker of unease in his eyes.
Hilton ignored him. He looked down at the floor, at the glittering shards of a broken vial. He bent down, picked up a large, jagged piece of glass, and stood up. He held it in front of my face, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying light.
"You want to play games, Aleta?" he whispered, his voice laced with venom. "Fine. Let's play."
He grabbed my arm, the one that wasn't bleeding from where I'd pulled the IV. With a deliberate, steady motion, he dragged the sharp edge of the glass across my forearm.
It wasn't a deep cut, but it was precise. A thin line of red welled up instantly, blood trickling down my arm, dripping onto the pristine white floor. It was a mirror image of the cut on the medical report I had seen, only mine was real.
The pain was sharp, but it was nothing compared to the arctic cold that flooded my veins. He had physically branded me with his disbelief, his cruelty.
He dropped the glass, which clattered at my feet. He looked at the cut on my arm, then at me, his eyes devoid of any remorse. "Now you have a reason to be in the hospital," he said coldly.
He turned his back on me, scooped a "weeping" Ciera into his arms, and strode down the hallway without a second glance. His bodyguards followed, leaving me alone, bleeding and broken, in the center of a circle of shocked and silent onlookers.
I stood there, propped up by the wall, the blood from my arm dripping a steady, rhythmic pattern onto the floor. Drip. Drip. Drip. Like a clock ticking down the final seconds of my old life.
He had never believed me. Not for a second. He had seen me, his wife, pale and grieving in a hospital gown, and his first instinct was to believe I was a liar. He had chosen her, her lie, her ridiculous performance, over me and the truth of our dead child.
The pain in my arm, the sting on my cheek, the ache in my empty womb-it all coalesced into a single, terrifying point of clarity.
Love was a liability. Hope was a weakness. Forgiveness was a fool's errand.
My phone was still clutched in my hand. My fingers, stained with my own blood, were surprisingly steady as I dialed two numbers I knew by heart.
The first was to my father's most trusted fixer. The second was to Adrien Farley, my childhood friend, the only man who had ever looked at me without calculating my value.
"Aleta? What's wrong? You sound…" Adrien's voice was tight with concern.
"I need you," I said, my own voice a stranger's, hollow and toneless. "It's time to burn it all down."
As I hung up, I heard the distant wail of sirens growing closer. I didn't move. I just watched as the revolving red and blue lights painted the walls of the hallway.
They weren't coming for me.
They were coming for him.
I had the hospital security footage. I had the medical report of my miscarriage. I had the jagged piece of glass with his fingerprints all over it. And I had the full weight of the Owen political machine behind me.
I looked down at the blood on my hands and, for the first time in a very long time, I smiled.
