Watching him like this, I felt my stomach turn over.
From the moment he chose to play "child trafficker," every tender thing between us had been a lie.
I held the baby tighter and stepped back, wary down to my bones.
William's cold eyes fixed on me, his face darkening by the second.
In the end all of it broke loose in one shout.
"You really can't bear to give up this little waste? Fine. I'll let you keep it until you've had your fill!"
Just then a sharp scream tore out of the next room.
A maid stumbled out of the suite, her face drained white.
"Mr. Delgado, Miss Pruitt just took a delivery, and it's... it looks like... a dead cat."
William frowned on reflex.
"Didn't I have Astrid's cat sent somewhere else to be kept? Why would there be any other animal in this house?"
Before the maid could answer, Astrid came running out of the room barefoot.
She burrowed into William's arms as if she'd found her shelter, trembling, crying like rain on pear blossoms.
"Will... I just upset Lily, and I thought I'd order her an iced latte to make up for it... I never imagined the delivery bag had a cat's body in it..."
"And... and there's more..."
She turned suddenly frantic, looking up at William, nearly breaking apart as she spoke. "The ones who used to torment me are back... it's them... they sent me a threatening letter!"
The menace around William grew heavier, his thin lips pressed into a hard line, his eyes sharp.
The next second, that gaze, cold enough to kill, landed on me.
"It was you?"
I froze without thinking. It hadn't even crossed my mind that any of this could be pinned on me.
But William wore the look of a man already certain.
"Only you know how to let people into the complex, only you know Astrid keeps a cat, and that she's staying here with me now."
I listened, disbelieving, as he stacked the charge on me, and forced out an explanation.
"It wasn't me. I don't even know where that cat is."
He let out a cold laugh.
"You think if you drive Astrid out, I'll just let you have your way and keep this child? Isabella, no wonder you're in such a hurry to leave. You really have schemed for everything."
His words dropped into my ears, and the heart already sour inside me went a few degrees colder.
I'd chosen to leave because I didn't want to keep tangling myself in this.
"I'd like to see how many days you can keep this little waste alive without me!"
In the end William threw the baby and me into the basement.
Damp seeped down the corner of the basement walls, faint light leaking through the gaps in the boards, like a cage there was no escaping.
This was the space we'd once planned to turn into a play paradise for our daughter.
The half-assembled toys were heaped in a corner, long since gathered with dust.
Just like the love between William and me, discarded long ago.
He gave the order to the bodyguard behind him.
"Until she realizes her mistake and hands the child over willingly, no one is to let her out!"
The basement was pitch black, a chill wind moving through it.
It set my heart shaking with fear I couldn't hold back.
But William showed no sign of softening. After all, he still had to comfort his frightened sweetheart.
Once it was done, he walked out without looking back.
The dark hid the tears at the corners of my eyes.
I felt around on the floor for a few small toys and clumsily soothed the baby in my arms, who had already cried herself breathless.
I don't know how long it took, but the room slowly went quiet.
I used the phone William had forgotten to take and called my brother.
"He's locked me in the basement. I'm so cold."
William used the security cameras to track down the few thugs who had once tormented Astrid, and only after he'd reported them and had them taken away did he remember me, shut in the basement.
He leaned back on the sofa and rubbed wearily at the space between his brows.
"Has she admitted she was wrong?"
The butler's voice shook a little.
"Mrs. Delgado and the young miss vanished an hour ago."
"Vanished? What do you mean?"
William still had his eyes closed, and he let out an indifferent cold laugh.
"The whole basement has only that one door, and I posted a full five bodyguards on it. A fool who understands nothing, with a baby that only knows how to cry, how could they vanish into thin air? Don't joke with me."
He waited a long while for the rest, but the assistant beside him said nothing.
He opened his eyes, looked at the faintly trembling figure at his side, and something tightened in his chest.
A sickening rush of panic took over his mind.
He stood, pushed the assistant aside, and walked alone to the basement, kicking the door open.
Inside, there was nothing but silence.
He had a flashlight brought in, but even after searching every corner, he never saw the faintest shadow of me.
William knitted his brows, an unreadable emotion in those deep eyes.
"She's still hiding somewhere in this house."
"Lily's timid. In a room this dark she can't even walk straight. She couldn't have gone far."
Before he finished, his body had already gone rigid.
That was it. He knew his wife was timid, afraid of the dark.
And still he had locked her, with his own hands, into a place like an abyss.
William suddenly thought of the freight elevator years ago, when he asked me why I told jokes with my back turned to him, and the next second met my eyes brimming with tears.
In that moment he finally understood that I was afraid too.
The heartbeat that had skipped years ago caught up now.
The image in his mind shifted.
It was the first time he'd burst into my home with the police.
Because of the fire, my father had whipped me with a belt until the skin split open.
I had curled into the corner, my teeth biting down hard on my lip, refusing to make a sound no matter how much it hurt.
Only two silent trails of tears down my face declared the fear and the wronged ache.
In that moment the fury that flared up almost swallowed him whole.
From then on he swore he would never let me suffer again.
Then William thought of what he himself had just done, and regret tangled with panic took over his reason.
Just then the assistant came running in from outside, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
"Mr. Delgado, we've checked every camera. Mrs. Delgado... she really is gone."
