Chapter 1 - The Color of Survival
The first kick landed before dawn, while my unborn daughter was still turning beneath my ribs. By sunrise, my husband and his parents were laughing over coffee while I bled on their kitchen floor.
“Get up, you lazy cow!” Adrian shouted at five in the morning. “Do you think being pregnant makes you a queen? Get downstairs and cook for my parents—now!”
He wrapped his hand around my ankle and dragged me from the bed. At thirty-four weeks pregnant, I hit the hardwood on my hip, gasping as pain tore through my stomach.
“Adrian, stop. Something’s wrong.”
His mother, Lenora, watched from the doorway in a silk robe. “She always says that when work needs doing.”
His father chuckled. “You married a spoiled one.”
They had arrived the night before and announced they were staying indefinitely. Adrian had already moved their luggage into the nursery.
For weeks, Adrian had hidden my car keys, monitored my calls, and emptied our joint account. He called it protection. I called it a cage, though never where he could hear without punishing me.
“Our baby needs that room,” I had whispered.
He slapped me so hard my ears rang. “My parents come first.”
Now he hauled me downstairs by the arm. I gripped the banister, trying to protect my stomach, but another cramp folded me in half. When I reached the kitchen, Lenora pointed at eggs, bacon, and flour arranged across the counter like instruments of punishment.
“Biscuits from scratch,” she said. “And don’t burn them.”
I leaned against the island. “I need a hospital.”
Adrian’s face changed. The charming smile he wore for neighbors vanished, leaving the cold man only I knew.
“You need discipline.”
His fist struck my shoulder. I fell. A second blow caught my back. His parents did not move.
Lenora laughed when I crawled toward my phone. “Look at her performing.”
But she did not know the phone had already unlocked against my palm. She did not know that for six months I had been collecting photographs, recordings, bank statements, and medical reports. Most of all, she did not know my attorney had created an emergency code after Adrian threatened to kill me if I ever left.
With my vision narrowing, I typed one word to my older sister, Mara.
RED.
Adrian kicked the phone away.
“Who did you text?”
“No one,” I whispered.
He crouched beside me, smiling because he believed fear had finally made me obedient.
Then warmth spread beneath me, darkening my nightgown.
Lenora wrinkled her nose. “She wet herself.”
I knew better.
My water had broken.
And somewhere across the city, the most dangerous people Adrian could have awakened were already moving.
Mara wasn't just my older sister; she was a senior partner at one of the city's most ruthless corporate law firms, and she was married to the district's Deputy Chief of Police. I had hidden the abuse from her for a long time, out of shame, out of fear that Adrian would hurt her too. But when I found out I was pregnant, the fear shifted. It was no longer just about me.
Through the haze of blinding pain, I could hear Adrian’s heavy boots pacing the kitchen floor. He looked at the puddle on the tiles, realization finally dawning on his cruel features, though it wasn't a realization born of guilt—it was born of inconvenience.
“Look what you’ve done,” he hissed, grabbing a dish towel and throwing it at my face. “Clean this up. If you think a little leak is going to get you out of making breakfast, you’re dead wrong.”
“Adrian, the baby is coming,” I choked out, wrapping my arms around my swollen belly. A contraction hit me then, a wave of agony so intense it forced a primal scream from my lungs.
His father finally stepped forward, looking mildly annoyed. “Maybe you should just drive her to the clinic, son. We don't want a mess in the house.”
“She’s faking it to ruin your visit,” Adrian growled, but as another gush of fluid pooled around me, tinted with an alarming shade of crimson, even he hesitated.
May you like
He bent down, grabbing me by the hair to force me to look at him. “If we go to the hospital, you slipped on the stairs. Do you understand me? You were clumsy. You fell.”
I didn't answer. I just closed my eyes and prayed that my single word—RED—had been enough.
