At dawn, Pierce Voss finally came home.

He set a check on the dining table, an obscene amount of money, the kind meant to silence people.

He hesitated before speaking.

“Serena… What happened between Lena and me was an accident. I’ll handle it.”

He pushed the check toward me.

“Take this. Travel for a while. Clear your head.”

My voice was steady. “And how exactly are you planning to ‘handle’ it?”

His expression darkened.

“She’s carrying my child. I’ll stay with her… until the end.”

I asked quietly, “So you intend to let her keep the baby?”

Pierce paused for a long moment.

“The child is innocent.”

His jaw tightened. “Don’t make this harder for me.”

Harder for him?

A laugh broke from me, sharp, cracked, painful. I laughed until tears blurred my vision.

Pierce looked at me for a long second, something unreadable flickering in his eyes.

Then he picked up his briefcase and walked out without another word.

Days later, every newspaper, magazine, and trending page online was filled with their names:

Pierce Voss & Lena Young

He had rented out an entire revolving restaurant to celebrate her birthday.

He took her to the private hot-spring resort that used to belong to our memories, ours.

Every photo was another slap across my face.

I had become the joke of the entire Kingsburg City.

At some point I realized my cheeks were wet.

My phone lit up, a message from the doctor:

“Mrs. Voss, please remember your prenatal appointment.”

My hand drifted to my stomach, to the tiny, hard-won life created after ninety-nine rounds of IVF.

This child was a gift from heaven.

And from this moment on, the baby had nothing to do with Pierce Voss.

After my appointment, I stepped out of the clinic and saw her.

Lena Young.

She blocked my way, face twisted with something far darker than the sweet, fragile woman she had pretended to be.

“You’re pregnant too?” she asked, voice cold.

I didn’t answer.

She looked me up and down with open contempt.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m the one Pierce loves, not you.”

I said nothing.

I no longer cared about the answer.

I had already decided to leave.

Love, pride, none of it mattered anymore.

Seeing me walk past her without a reaction made her unravel.

“If he loved you, he wouldn’t have gotten me pregnant!” she shouted behind me.

“He doesn’t want you anymore! Why won’t you just leave?”

I reached the staircase.

She rushed after me, leaning close enough for her breath to touch my ear.

“Let me show you,” she whispered, voice venomous,

“who matters more to him, you or me.”

Before I could react, she threw herself backward.

I tried to grab her, but I was one second too late.

Lena tumbled down the stairs, hitting the ground with a sickening sound.

“Serena, why would you hurt my baby?” she sobbed, wailing in pain.

“The baby’s innocent…”

Blood pooled beneath her, spreading fast.

I froze in horror.

And almost at the same moment, Pierce burst through the doors, his face drained of color as he saw her on the floor.

Pierce Voss rushed Lena Young into the ER and came storming back with two security guards behind him.

“What did you do to her?”

His voice was raw, like someone had touched the one thing he could never tolerate.

I froze. The naked suspicion in his eyes hit me harder than any slap.

He didn’t even look at me again.

“Take her away,” he ordered coldly.

The guards grabbed my arms. I stumbled as they dragged me down the hallway. My shoulder slammed into the metal doorframe, blooming into a dark bruise within seconds.

Pierce saw it. His pupils tightened; something like regret flickered in his eyes.

“Careful,” he snapped at the guards. “Don’t hurt her.”

But their grip never truly loosened.

They hauled me all the way up to the rooftop.

“Pierce Voss!” I finally found my voice. “Is that what you think I am? Someone who would hurt a pregnant woman?”

His expression shifted, pain, doubt, confusion.

“Then why were you even there?”

I let out a humorless laugh. Because I had my prenatal appointment.

But I didn’t say it.

“My life is still mine, Pierce,” I said, my tone sharp. “I go wherever I want.”

His phone rang.

The moment he picked up, Lena Young’s panicked sobs spilled through the speaker.

“Pierce…Pierce, the doctor says the baby might not make it…”

His head whipped toward me, fury exploding in his eyes.

“Serena, how could you? When did you become this vicious? You couldn’t even spare an unborn child?”

His words hit me like a thunderbolt.

I stared at him, the man I had loved for ten years.

And he stared back at me like I was a monster.

“I just wanted a child!” he shouted. “Serena, I’m thirty-three years old and I still don’t have an heir! The Voss family doesn’t have an heir!”

“Serena Hale, you owe me a child.”

Owe him… a child?

Our child, he never cared. Not once.

Pain ripped through me.

“Pierce, I’m pre, ”

He cut me off, voice hoarse.

“You caused Lena’s miscarriage. You will admit what you did. You’ll apologize. You’ll serve your time. And when you’re out… we’ll go back to how we were.”

Back to how we were?

Not anymore.

I looked him straight in the eyes.

“I didn’t push her. She fell by herself..”

His jaw tightened. He hadn’t expected me to fight back.

“Take her to the station,” he said. “Charge her with assault. Seventy-two-hour hold.”

I stared at him, stunned.

He would really throw me into jail, for her?

I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood. I said nothing.

The seventy-two hours in county detention were hell.

They threw me into the filthiest cell. The other inmates had clearly been paid, they took turns finding new ways to break me.

Day one: they stripped me for “inspection” and drenched me in freezing water.

Day two: someone ground glass into my food. My stomach cramped from hunger.

Day three: three women dragged me into a bathroom stall and beat me until my vision blurred.

I clenched my jaw, refusing to scream. Blood trickled from the corner of my mouth.

The ringleader grabbed my chin.

“Heard you pissed off the Voss Mafia,” she sneered. “Word is… we’re supposed to ‘teach you a lesson.’”

Every ounce of love I’d ever had for Pierce Voss died right there.

Then warmth spread suddenly down my legs, hot, uncontrollable.

Red seeped into the thin gray fabric of my uniform.

My baby.

Tears blurred my vision.

Somewhere far away, I heard guards shouting:

“Damn it! You weren’t supposed to take it this far! If Voss finds out she lost the baby in here, you’re all screwed!”