Chapter 2

The lock clicked.

It was a mechanical, sharp sound, but in the heavy silence of the hallway, it echoed with the finality of a gunshot.

I was in our bedroom. My bedroom. Yet, looking around, it didn't feel like mine anymore. The windows were sealed shut. My phone was gone. The landline cord had been severed, leaving a useless wire dangling from the wall.

I sat on the edge of the bed, my hands trembling as they hovered over my stomach.

*I'm sorry,* I whispered to the tiny life curled inside me. *I'm so sorry I chose him.*

Three days bled into one another.

I was fed on a tray, like an animal or a prisoner. I saw no one. The silence remained unbroken until the door clicked open on the fourth morning.

It wasn't Gabe.

It was Harper.

She sauntered in, draped in my silk robe. The very one Gabe had bought me for our second anniversary.

"It's a little loose in the shoulders," she noted, smoothing the fabric possessively over her stomach. "But I'll grow into it."

She drifted around the room, touching my perfume bottles, trailing a finger over my jewelry box. She picked up a silver brush-my grandmother's brush-and ran it through her hair.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. I was slumped in the corner chair, too weak to stand.

"Gabe thought I should be comfortable," she said airily. "The guest room mattress is too firm. The doctor said stress is bad for the baby. So, naturally, I'm moving in here."

"This is my room."

"Not anymore." She smiled. It was a sharp, predatory thing. "Gabe is in the Hamptons. He needed to clear his head. He left me in charge."

She pulled a newspaper from her pocket and tossed it onto my lap.

SULLIVAN WIFE SUFFERS MENTAL BREAKDOWN.

The headline screamed in bold black letters. Below it was a statement from my own parents, the Jennings.

*"Charlotte has always been unstable,"* the quote read. *"We are praying for her recovery and support Gabe during this difficult time. We ask for privacy regarding the paternity of her unborn child."*

I couldn't breathe. The air seemed to vanish from the room.

My parents. They had sold me out. They depended on the Sullivan fortune to keep their failing business afloat, and now, they had traded their daughter for a check.

"Everyone thinks you cheated," Harper said softly, her voice feigning sympathy. "Everyone thinks you lost your mind and tried to hurt me. Gabe is the grieving victim here. And I? I'm just the supportive friend helping him survive the tragedy."

"Get out," I rasped.

"Make me."

She laughed, a cold, tinkling sound, and walked to the door. "Oh, and don't bother screaming. The staff has been replaced with people on our payroll. No one is coming for you, Charlotte. You're already a ghost."

The door slammed shut. The lock clicked again, sealing my fate.

I stared at the newspaper until the words blurred into gray smudges. Anger, hot and violent, started to replace the shock. But then, a sharp, tearing pain ripped through my lower abdomen.

I gasped, doubling over.

It wasn't just a cramp. It was a warning.

I curled into a ball on the floor, clutching my stomach as if I could physically hold us together. Stress. Dehydration. Fear. It was killing me. It was killing us.

"Help," I whispered to the empty room, my voice cracking. "Please, somebody help me."

But the house was silent. And for the first time in my life, I knew what it meant to be truly, terrifyingly alone.