THE CONTRACT

Rosaline's POV

My mother was dead.

I kept repeating it to myself like if I did, it would start to feel real to me. It didn't. It just sat there in my chest. It felt heavy and distant, like something i wasnt ready to accept yet..

The police said it was a heart attack. Quick. She likely didn't suffer.

This was probably supposed to make me feel better.

Except it didn't.

Donald arrived at my parents' house an hour after I called him. He walked straight to me, pulled me into his arms without saying a word and held me while I finally broke down. No pretty tears. Real, ugly tears that came with choking and a feeling of breathlessness.

He rubbed my back and said all the right things and I let myself completely lean on him, because I needed something solid to rely on.

For a moment I forgot about Wesley.

For a moment he was just my husband and I was just a woman who had just lost her mother and needed something to hold on to.

That moment didn't last long enough for me.

The next few days were filled with constant calls from families, friends and relatives I barely knew, each of them offering their condolences. My father looked like a shadow of himself. He ate whenever people put food in front of him. He shook hands, accepted hugs and said thank you with a voice that no longer sounded like his own. Like he was just a shell of the man he once was.

I watched him and I worried.

Donald stayed close for the first two days. Then the business trips started again.

I told myself it was fine. The company he was handling wouldn’t stop just because he had lost something. That's what I told myself anyway.

On the fourth morning after my mother's death I woke up early and for some reason I couldn't go back to sleep. I drove to my parents house before the sun came up. My father was still asleep. The house was quiet. The walls felt empty, like they knew that the person that filled it with color was gone. Like they were grieving with me.

I went to my mother's bedroom.

I don't know what I was looking for exactly. Maybe just to feel close to her. Maybe just to sit somewhere that still smelled like her perfume and wait for some magical moment where she suddenly appears and tell me it's all a bad dream.

I sat on the edge of her bed for a while. Then I started going through things. My hands traced gently. Just straightening, just touching. Her jewelry box. The photographs on her dresser. The little notebook she wrote things so she wouldn’t forget them later on.

Then I noticed the drawer.

The bottom drawer had a small lock on it. I had never paid attention to it before. It had always just been there, just part of the furniture but not special enough for me to actually pay attention to.

Today I paid attention.

I tried looking for clues in the obvious places first. Inside her jewelry. Under the bed. Nothing. Then I looked at the notebook again. I flipped to the last page and there it was, written in between her Netflix password and a pin number.

A four digit code.

I found the small key tucked inside the spine of a book she always kept on her nightstand. My hands were already trembling as I crouched down and opened the drawer.

Inside was a thick envelope.

I took it to the kitchen table. I made myself a cup of tea but didn’t drink it. Then I opened the envelope

The document inside looked formal. It was printed on heavy paper, bound with a metal clip, and stamped at the bottom with two signatures and a notary seal. I had to read the heading twice before I could accept what I was reading.

It was a marriage contract.

A betrothal agreement between my parents and a man named Franklin Hart. I checked the date and it was dated eleven years ago when I was just seventeen.

I read it slowly. It stopped making sense and I read it again.

According to this document, I had been promised to the son of Mr. Franklin. The arrangement was formal. There were legal and financial terms that basically sold me to him for the benefit of both our families. Everything had been laid down without my consent like I wasn’t a human being but a piece of equipment.

And then six years later they had broken the contract.

They had given me to the Mendez family instead. To Donald.

My hands shook so badly that the paper started rustling.

Every illusion of control i thought i had over my own life and love story crumbled and rearranged itself in my head. The betrothal I had resented before slowly coming to accept. Everything that happened between Donald and i.

What part of it was real and what part was arranged? Or did they just move me from one contract to another like they were trying to find the highest bidder at an auction?

I sat at that kitchen table for a long time.

Then I noticed something else in the envelope.

There was a single folded note tucked behind the contract, smaller than the rest. I unfolded it carefully.

The handwriting was sharp and slanted, pressed onto the paper with intentionality. Like they were sending a message.

Your parents thought breaking our agreement would have no consequences. Your mother was the first to learn otherwise. Unfortunately, she couldn’t survive the lesson. Your father will be the next to learn. And you, Mrs. Mendez, you must be curious to know who exactly put a tragic end to the life of your dear mother. Before you bury her, find out who put her in that grave.

— F.H.

The tea cup slipped from my fingers and shattered on the kitchen floor.

My mother didn't have a heart attack.

Someone killed her.

SICK

Rosaline's POV

I told myself it was grief.

Every morning for two weeks I basically dragged myself out of bed feeling like someone life chewed and spat out. Food smelt like crap, I had absolutely no energy. I cried at random things like an old song on the radio, a familiar smell that reminded me of mom, or even the way dad acted differently after her death.

This was grief. These were the things grief did to a person.

So I told myself that's all it was.

Donald started coming home less and less.

Each time, he had a new explanation for it. Either it was a board meeting that took too much time or an emergency meet up with the staff. I started to get numb to it at some point. I’d just wake up, kiss him goodbye and watched as he drove out, not knowing when exactly he’d be back.

The note from F.H. was folded inside the pocket of my winter coat. I hadn’t told anyone about it. Not donald.

Not even Crystal.

Each time I wanted to, but then I decided this was something I didn’t want to bring her into in case it gets too dangerous. This was something that caused the death of my mother. Who knew who else they would target to get to me. This was something I had to take care of myself.

While I was dealing with that, my body was finding new and creative ways to disorient me.

It started with the nausea.

I was making coffee on a Tuesday morning when the smell of the coffee hit me hard and wrong. Deeply, violently wrong. I made it to the bathroom just in time to throw everything in my stomach up.

I assumed it was something that would pass if I just drank ginger tea.

It didn't pass.

The next morning it happened again. And the morning after that. Soon it became a routine to see me crouched by the basin in the bathroom waiting for the next wave to hit me.

The suspicion of something I hated myself for thinking about came to mind.

I shoved it out immediately. I was not ready to look at that thought. Not even close.

Crystal showed up on a Thursday without warning, the way she always did. She held two coffees in her hands and took one long look at me standing in the doorway and said "You look terrible."

"Good morning to you too," I said.

"I'm serious, Rosaline. When was the last time you ate something proper?" She pushed past me into the house and dropped the coffee on the kitchen table. Then her eyes narrowed as she looked at me more carefully. "How long have you been feeling like this?"

"It's grief," I said. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine" She crossed her arms. "Are you sleeping?"

"Mostly."

"Eating?"

"When I can."

"Are you…" She didn’t complete it. She seemed to making some calculations in her mind and I hated it when she did that because she was almost always right. "Rosaline. When was your last period?"

The question was like a bucket of cold water.

I opened my mouth. Closed it.

I couldn't remember.

***

Crystal drove me to the clinic herself.

I stared out the window and did the math in my head.

Unfortunately I was excellent with calculations. Unfortunately because no matter how I did, I was met with the same conclusion. And I didn’t want that conclusion.

We got there and a nurse took my details at the front desk. Another one led me to a small room with pale blue walls and a strong smell of alchohol and medicine that I would have been able to tolerate on a normal day.

The doctor was a woman, early fifties. She was calm and reassuring and somehow that helped me calm down a bit. She asked me some questions and took a blood test.

Crystal was in the waiting room. I had told her I was fine going in alone.

I wasn’t fine. Not one bit.

I sat in that pale blue room and stared at the wall trying very hard to be positive. Tried not to think about the date. I tried not to think about the symptoms and what they could possibly mean for me.

The doctor came back.

"Mrs. Mendez," she said. "Your results are back."

I gripped the edge of the examination table, anxious and a bit lightheaded from all the clashing scents I was suddenly so sensitive to.

"You're pregnant," she said. "Approximately six weeks along. Congratulations."

The words landed in my head like a steel ball.

Six weeks.

The thank you came out in a murmur. I was still in a daze. It was like I was out of my own body, watching myself move on auto-pilot. I heard myself ask a few questions in a calm and reasonable voice. I heard the doctor answer them. She even handed me a printed sheet with next steps and a referral and a due date circled.

I folded it neatly and put it in my bag.

Then I walked out of that room, past the waiting area where Crystal jumped up the moment she saw my face. She had this concerned look on her face and I didn’t know how to tell her.

Six weeks.

I stood on the pavement and tried to self diagnise one final time. I knew the test results weren’t wrong but I just didn’t want to accept them. I wanted something else. Anything other than the news I just got.

Six weeks ago was my wedding night.

In six weeks I had slept with Donald exactly once and that was the night he came back from Singapore.

Which meant the baby growing inside me right now had nothing to do with my husband.

Crystal, seeing me in a daze, appeared at my elbow. "Rosaline. Talk to me. What did they say?"

I turned to look at her.

"I'm pregnant," I said.

Her face froze in horror.

"And it's not Donald's.”

Rosaline’s Pov

The world didn’t stop spinning. I stared at the clinic’s glass doors, the sterile smell of rubbing alcohol still clinging to my skin. The words six weeks kept repeating in my head.

“Rosaline, look at me.”

Crystal stepped into my line of sight, her blue eyes searching mine. She reached for my shoulders and held them firmly, forcing me to focus on her instead of the thoughts racing through my head.

“I can’t,” I whispered. “I can’t believe this.”

“Listen to me,” Crystal said, slipping into that serious tone she always used whenever things got bad. “Don’t spiral. Not yet. Hospitals make mistakes. Lab errors happen all the time. A false positive is entirely possible.”

I let out a hollow laugh. “A false positive? Crystal, the timing is oddly specific. Six weeks. One night. One mistake with the wrong brother.”

“You only slept with him once,” she reminded me, tightening her grip on my shoulders. “The odds aren’t a hundred percent. Maybe you’re just stressed. Your period could be late because of your mother, because of everything that’s happened. The body does strange things when you’re grieving.”

“The doctor didn’t say I was stressed.” My eyes dropped to my stomach. It was still flat, still completely normal, but I couldn’t look at it the same way anymore. A strange mixture of fear and protectiveness settled over me. “She said I was pregnant.”

“One test isn’t enough to build a life around,” Crystal insisted. She guided me toward her car, lowering her voice as if someone might overhear us.

I nodded, but even I knew I didn’t believe her.

Something felt different. I couldn’t explain it, but deep down, I knew. There was a heaviness inside me that hadn’t been there before.

“And Donald?” I asked as Crystal opened the passenger door.

Crystal stopped. Her expression immediately turned serious.

“You tell him nothing. Not a word. Not until we know for sure. If you tell him now and it turns out to be a mistake, you’ve just planted a seed of doubt that will rot your marriage from the inside out. And if it’s true…” She hesitated. “Well, we have time to figure out a cover story.”

“A cover story.” I repeated the words slowly. They left a bitter taste in my mouth. “I’m already living a cover story.”

“Exactly. So just keep the mask on. Smile, be the grieving daughter, be the loving wife. Can you do that?”

“I don’t know if I can even breathe, Crystal.”

“You can. You have to. For the baby or for the sake of not having a baby. Just hold it together.”

I climbed into the car, the leather seat cold against my thighs. The drive home passed in a blur. I stared out the window as Manhattan moved around me, the skyscrapers rising into the sky as if nothing in the world had changed.

But my world had.

Once I got inside the house, the silence felt almost unbearable. I went straight to the dining room, where my laptop was still sitting open.

Franklin Hart.

I typed the name into the search bar and hit enter.

No results found.

I frowned and tried again.

Frank Hart.

Nothing.

Hart Industries.

Still nothing.

Franklin Hart New York.

Nothing.

I stared at the screen.

It was impossible.

The note had been explicit. My parents had signed a contract with this man. They had betrothed me to his son. This man had claimed responsibility for the “lesson” my mother had learned, a lesson that had ended with her death.

Yet, in a city where every billionaire seemed to have their entire life documented by tabloids and business journals, Franklin Hart didn’t exist.

“Who are you?” I whispered to the empty room.

I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.

Then I thought about the son I’d never met.

The man I was supposed to marry.

My parents had traded me like property, and when the deal had fallen apart, they had simply handed me over to the Mendez family instead. I couldn’t help wondering if Franklin Hart’s son was somewhere out there, carrying his own anger and resentment.

The thought of another man believing he had a claim over me made my stomach twist.

I felt trapped between two worlds.

There was Donald, my husband, who was slowly becoming a stranger to me.

And then there was Wesley, my brother-in-law, the man who had taken advantage of me on my wedding night.

I shut the laptop with a sharp snap.

I needed to find a way to contact Franklin Hart. I needed to know where my father was and why my mother had to die.

But every time I tried to focus on the mystery, I was pulled back to the more immediate problem sitting inside my own body.

I placed a hand over my stomach.

A shaky breath left my lips.

Then the doorbell rang.

The sudden sound echoed through the hallway, making me jump.

I froze.

My heart began pounding.

Donald wasn’t supposed to be back for another two days.

I quickly smoothed down my dress before walking toward the entrance. My footsteps were quiet against the plush carpet. When I reached the door, I opened it only a crack.

A man stood on the porch.

He wore a charcoal-gray suit that probably cost more than most people’s cars. His expression was serious, almost emotionless. He didn’t smile or offer a greeting. He simply stood there with his hands clasped in front of him.

“Mrs. Mendez?”

His voice was flat and professional.

“Yes,” I replied, squinting against the afternoon sun. “Who are you?”

“I am an associate of Mr. Wesley Mendez.” His expression didn’t change. “He requests your presence immediately.”

Something inside me snapped.

After everything that had happened today, the last thing I needed was another demand from Wesley.

I tightened my grip on the door.

“Tell Wesley that I have nothing to say to him,” I snapped. “He can request whatever he likes, but the answer is no. Now leave my house.”

The man didn’t move.

He didn’t even blink.

Instead, he stepped forward, closing some of the distance between us. His shadow fell across the doorway.

“I’m afraid that isn’t an option, ma’am.”

I scoffed.

“Excuse me? You can’t just come here and demand that I go with you. I’m the wife of Donald Mendez. If you don’t leave right now, I’ll call security.”

The man’s expression remained unchanged.

He reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out his phone, as though he were about to call Wesley himself.

“Mr. Wesley Mendez was very specific in his instructions,” he said. “He mentioned that you might be… reluctant. Therefore, he has instructed me that if you do not come willingly, I am to take you by force.”

I stared at him.

For a moment, I honestly thought I’d heard him wrong.

Then my mouth fell open.

“You’re kidding. You’re actually threatening to kidnap me in broad daylight?”

“It is not a kidnapping when the request comes from a family member of your standing, Mrs. Mendez,” the man replied.

He shifted his weight slightly.

That was when I noticed it.

There was something different about him. The way he stood. The way he moved. He wasn’t just some ordinary secretary sent to deliver a message.

There was a hardness in his shoulders and a precision in every movement that made me think he had training of some kind.

“Please, do not make this unpleasant,” he continued. “Step outside, or I will be forced to carry you.”