Chapter 2

Dr. Ramirez looked at Mark, a question in his eyes. "Mr. Thompson, about your son... sometimes, with children..."

Mark cut him short. "He's gone. Focus on my wife."

His voice was steel. Absolute.

"The hysterectomy is necessary," Mark continued, turning slightly, as if to ensure the doctor understood. "She's lost so much already. Another pregnancy, the risk... it would be too cruel."

Cruel. He used that word.

My mind reeled. He was orchestrating this, every horrifying detail.

He wanted Leo gone. He wanted me barren.

His phone call replayed in my head. "The kid is handled."

The payment.

This was a plan. A monstrous, cold-blooded plan.

Mark glanced back at me, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes, then quickly looked away. He didn't want me to see his face.

He ended his call. "Make sure no one disturbs me. I need to arrange things."

He walked out, leaving me with the hum of the machines and the weight of his words.

The assailant, the attack, Leo... all of it, a setup.

Mark wanted his other life, the one I was about to discover.

He was eliminating obstacles. Leo was an obstacle. My ability to have more children, another obstacle.

The pre-op nurse came back in. "Just a little more pain relief, dear, before we take you in."

Mark had asked for that, I heard him.

Pain relief for me, while he plotted the end of my world.

The irony was a bitter taste in my mouth.

I bit down hard on my own tongue, the metallic tang of blood a small, sharp reality against the overwhelming horror.

I had to stay quiet. I had to pretend.

My son. My sweet, innocent five-year-old Leo.

Murdered. By his own father.

How could a man do that? How could he look at his child, his own flesh and blood, and decide he was an inconvenience to be erased?

The physical pain from my wounds was a distant throbbing compared to the agony ripping through my soul.

I felt a tear escape, hot against my temple.

Then, the surgical lights above me blurred, and despite my resistance, the darkness finally claimed me, if only for a while.