Chapter 2

I woke to a sterile white room, Ethan holding my hand, his eyes filled with a sorrow that seemed too practiced.

"Sarah, darling."

His voice was soft, gentle.

"Our baby... he didn't make it."

The words hung in the air, heavy, suffocating.

My son. Gone.

A sob tore from my throat, raw and broken.

Then, another blow.

"There was... severe pelvic trauma, Sarah. Pubic symphysis diastasis."

He explained it carefully, the medical terms blurring.

Paraplegia. I couldn't feel my legs.

My world shattered, piece by piece.

"We'll heal, Sarah," Ethan murmured, stroking my hair. "We'll move forward, together. I promise."

But his promise felt hollow, tainted by the words I' d overheard.

Liam. Olivia. A debt.

A seed of suspicion, cold and hard, took root in my heart.

As days turned into weeks, I feigned a deeper despair, a more rapid physical decline.

The grief was real, a gaping wound, but beneath it, a new resolve began to form.

I needed to know. I needed to understand.

One afternoon, his lawyer visited.

Ethan thought I was asleep, sedated.

I lay still, eyes closed, listening.

"Sarah's a kind soul," Ethan said, his voice low. "She probably would have accepted Liam."

Accepted Liam? His son?

"But I couldn't risk the Harrison influence overshadowing him. The Harrisons are too powerful."

My family' s power, a threat.

"This was a promise to Olivia's parents after they helped me early in my career. We can have other children."

The lawyer sounded uneasy, murmuring something about risks.

Then Ethan' s voice dropped further, a confession meant for only one.

"The accident... it wasn' t entirely an accident."

My breath caught.

"A loose rug, a poorly lit area I knew she' d traverse. And the medical team... they were prepared. Indebted to me, or my family."

My fall. Orchestrated.

My baby' s death. Planned.

My paralysis. A consequence he was willing to accept.

My marriage, our life together, a meticulously crafted lie.

All for Liam. All for a promise to Olivia' s family.

The betrayal was absolute, a chasm that swallowed everything we' d ever been.

The seed of suspicion bloomed into a terrible certainty.

Escape was no longer a thought, it was a necessity.