“Where’s the baby?” he asked, his voice shaky. “Maisie, where’s our child?”
Just then, Sean emerged from the elevator, talking on his phone. “What now?” he called over. “I could hear you two fighting from all the way down the hall! You’ll scare the baby. I have to get back to court right away; there’s a kidnapping case on trial, something about a pregnant woman being stabbed. The prosecution’s pressing charges.”
As he took in my appearance, he glanced at Ross. “Hey bro, did she give birth already?”
The question seemed to jolt Ross back to his senses. He grabbed my shoulders, shaking me as panic filled his eyes.
“Maisie, you had the baby, right? Don’t scare me like this!”
Ross’s questions came in a rush, his hands gripping my shoulders and shaking me, his face desperate.
My heart bled just as deeply.
I could still feel the knife plunging into my stomach, the wrenching pain as I felt my baby slipping away. That horror was seared into my mind, raw and unrelenting.
I had never felt such hatred.
A hatred that engulfed me entirely. If only he had answered the phone, if he had given me a moment of his time, if he had sensed that I needed him – our baby might still be alive.
Looking at Ross’s and Sean’s guilty faces now, I felt nothing but revulsion.
“The baby is gone,” I said flatly. “Not only mine, but Ellie’s as well. She’d just found out she was one month pregnant. I told you both, but you didn’t listen. There’s nothing left to say. Divorce is the only option.”
Ross stumbled back, disbelief flooding his eyes as he muttered, “So you weren’t just trying to scare me. The baby… our baby is actually gone.”
Then, snapping out of his shock, he shouted, “Maisie, you’re not even human! The baby was eight months along, and you just decided to end it out of spite? She was fully formed!”
“Are you insane? How could you kill our child? Come with me to the police station – you need to pay for this!”
A bitter, sad smile crossed my face as I met his gaze. “If you want to talk about killers, look at yourself and Winnie. I was attacked because of a surgery you performed, out of revenge for a life you couldn’t save. They found me because of you. They beat me, they kicked me, they drove a knife into my belly, and you call me inhuman?
“Who led them to me? Your dear ‘sister’ Winnie. She let them know that kidnapping me would draw your attention. So, tell me, who really killed our child?”