Chapter 7

Arla's lungs forgot how to work. Her eyes were glued to the horrific tapestry of purple and red covering Caden's small arm.

She shot her hand out, grabbing his wrist. Her fingers clamped down harder than she intended, driven by pure shock.

Caden flinched violently. A tiny gasp of pain escaped his lips, and his free hand instantly shot over to grab the fabric of his sleeve, trying to pull it back down in a panic.

The sound of his pain snapped Arla out of her daze. She instantly loosened her grip, but her hands were shaking uncontrollably.

She ignored his attempt to hide it. She pushed the sleeve higher, rolling it all the way up to his shoulder. The puncture wounds didn't stop at his forearm. They trailed all the way up the sensitive inner skin of his bicep. Old, yellowing bruises mixed with fresh, angry red dots.

The room spun. Arla's stomach hollowed out, acid burning the back of her throat.

"Caden," her voice came out as a broken, terrifying rasp. "Who did this to you?"

Caden dropped his chin to his chest, refusing to look at her. His little fingers twisted the fabric of his shirt. "I... I fell down outside."

The lie was so obvious, so desperate, it felt like a physical knife twisting in Arla's gut. She took a deep breath, forcing the murderous rage down so she wouldn't terrify him further.

She shifted on her knees until she was at eye level with him. She kept her voice incredibly soft, but firm. "Baby, look at Mommy. I chased the bad people away tonight. No one is ever going to hurt you again. Tell me the truth."

Caden looked up. He saw the fierce, protective fire in his mother's red eyes. His bottom lip quivered, and the tears he had been holding back finally spilled over.

"It was Auntie Blair," he sobbed, his small shoulders shaking. "She said I was bad. She said I was a... a bastard. She used the needle."

The confirmation hit Arla like a freight train. Her fingernails dug so fiercely into her palms that the skin broke, warm blood pooling in the creases of her hands. She didn't feel it.

"How long has she been doing this?" Arla asked, her heart breaking into a million pieces. "Why didn't you tell Mommy?"

Caden cried harder, his hands gripping her shirt.

"Because... because Uncle Clinton said if I told you, you would get kicked out of the big house. He said I would never see you again."

"Clinton?"

The name hit the air like a bomb. Arla's pupils contracted into tiny pinpricks.

The phantom pain of the hunting knife piercing her heart violently collided with the reality of her son's tortured arm.

Caden nodded, wiping his nose. "Uncle Clinton saw Auntie Blair poke me. But he just smiled. He gave me a piece of candy and told me it was our secret."

The last remaining thread of Arla's sanity evaporated.

She finally understood. The "accident" in her past life wasn't an accident. It was a calculated, sadistic execution.

Clinton Freeman. Her fiancé. The man who swore he loved her, who promised to treat Caden like his own blood. He wasn't just the man who murdered her-he was the monster who stood by and watched her son be tortured.

The explosive anger inside Arla suddenly vanished, replaced by an eerie, absolute stillness. The tears stopped.

She stood up. She walked over to the bathroom, grabbed a tube of antibiotic ointment, and walked back to the bed.

She lifted Caden onto her lap. She squeezed the clear gel onto her fingertips and began to apply it to his wounds, her touch lighter than a feather.

Caden hissed slightly at the cold gel, but he didn't pull away.

As she rubbed the ointment in, Arla's mind raced, connecting the pieces. The memory of Clinton's proposal flashed through her mind-not the fake romance, but the frantic, almost desperate look in his eyes when he pressed the ring into her hand. 'Once we're legally married, Arla. Once the boy is officially recognized under my name, the lawyers will unlock the estate accounts. Everything will be perfect then,' he had promised. They kept her and Caden alive for one reason: the massive family trust fund that she could only access once she was legally married and had a child.

She wiped her hands on a tissue. Her eyes were as cold and dead as a glacier.

She wasn't going to just run away. She was going to stay, and she was going to drag Clinton and the entire Sargent family straight to hell.