Chapter 4

Just as Clara reached the door, Corinne suddenly pushed away from Kane.

"No, I can't do this!" she cried, her voice thick with manufactured hysteria. She ran past them, out onto the apartment's terrace. "I'm just making things harder for you, Kane! Everyone would be better off if I were gone!"

Before anyone could react, she had climbed onto the railing of the high-rise balcony.

"Corinne!" Kane's roar of terror was primal. He sprinted after her, grabbing her around the waist and hauling her back from the ledge.

Corinne struggled in his arms, but as she did, her eyes met Clara's over Kane's shoulder. The look in them was not one of despair. It was a cold, calculated, victorious smirk.

This was all a show. A sick, twisted performance to cement her role as the fragile victim and Clara as the villain who had driven her to the brink.

The sight of it, the sheer, manipulative evil of it, sent a fresh wave of nausea through Clara. She clamped a hand over her mouth and fled. She ran out of the apartment, past a stunned doorman, her mind screaming. Behind her, she could hear Kane's frantic, soothing voice, murmuring promises to Corinne.

She found her car in the visitor's garage and peeled out onto the wet streets of New York. Rain began to fall, smearing the city lights into a blurry, impressionistic nightmare. She didn't know where she was going. She just drove.

A few blocks later, she had to slam on the brakes, pulling over to the side of the road. She threw open the car door and vomited onto the pavement, her body heaving with violent, empty retches.

It was two in the morning when she found herself outside her mother's brownstone in Brooklyn. She leaned on the doorbell, her body trembling.

The door flew open. Her mother, Marion, stood there in her bathrobe, her face etched with alarm. "Clara! My God, what happened?"

Marion pulled her inside, out of the rain. Clara collapsed onto the familiar floral sofa, soaked to the bone and shivering uncontrollably. She felt like a ghost.

Her mother returned with a mug of warm broth. Clara took one sip and immediately gagged, the liquid coming right back up.

Marion's expression shifted from worry to a sharp, focused concern. Her eyes dropped to Clara's flat stomach.

"Honey," she said, her voice soft and careful. "When was your last period?"

The question hung in the air. Clara's mind went blank. With the stress of the last few months, the constant fighting, she hadn't been paying attention. She couldn't remember.

A cold, slithering dread coiled in her gut. "No," she whispered, shaking her head. "No, it can't be."

Marion disappeared into the bathroom and came back with a small, rectangular box. She pressed a pregnancy test into Clara's cold, numb hand.

The next three minutes in her mother's bathroom were the longest of her life. She sat on the closed toilet lid, the plastic stick resting on the counter. Outside, a clap of thunder rattled the old windows. A flash of lightning illuminated the small room, and in that stark, white light, she saw them.

Two pink lines.

A strangled sob escaped her lips. She dropped her head into her hands, her body shaking with a new kind of terror. This wasn't a miracle. It was a curse. She was pregnant with the child of the man who had just traded her for a debt settlement.

The door opened and Marion came in. She saw the test, then her daughter's crumpled form, and wrapped her arms around her.

"We can't let him know," Marion said, her voice fierce and protective. "You know what he'll do, Clara. He'll take it. He'll claim it as his own."

Clara clung to her mother, the tears finally coming in a hot, silent flood. But through the despair, a new, primal instinct was stirring. She placed a trembling hand on her stomach.

"I need to go to a doctor," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "I need to be sure."

As her mother went to find her some dry clothes, Clara's phone, which she'd left on the end table, lit up. A text message from Kane.

We're not done. My lawyer's office. Tomorrow.