AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Finalising my English essay, I breathed a sigh of relief at getting that project over and done with. It was one of the biggest graded projects, and I’d done it from the comfort of my dorm room where I’d been relegated for the last month as my bump had doubled in size.
Not that I was complaining as such, but I was. It was inconvenient and I was a prisoner of my own making. Anything I could need was brought to me.
I’d video-called my family and Lizzie frequently, and it was depressing how easily they didn’t notice the change in my mood, because I was that good at faking how I felt nowadays.
My walls were built solidly, keeping those I didn’t want to know—for their safety, and mine, and now especially this baby’s—out.
Early hours the next morning I awoke to small cramping pains, and Iknewit was time. Even though it was three weeks before my due date. I timed the contractions as the pain got worse. As much as I hated it, I contacted him. No one else knew, except professionals, so I had to rely on him.
Within hours I was back to the private facility with him at my side giving birth. The only other two faces I recognised were the sonographer and the doctor who I’d seen a lot over the years—he treated my injuries.
It wasn’t a short birth. My insides felt on fire, and I wanted to lay down at the same time as walk around.I never want to do this again.
Sometime later, I had the epidural. It settled the agony to a bearable level. The hours passed in slow motion and nearly twenty-four hours later, he was born.
I pursed my lips together, sniffling as tears flowed freely down my cheeks as his tiny body was placed onto my chest. I just stared at him. My hand wiped over the fragile human within my hands, my child. God, this felt unreal. Bits of sticky substance and blood were dotted over him, yet I didn’t care. He gave a small cry and my chest seemed to deflate.Alive.
Adam cleared his throat, bending over to run a gentle finger through his hair. I had the urge to rip my son away from him, but something gave me pause, it was the look in his eyes akin to wonderment. “Give him a name, little angel. He deserves that much from his mother.”
I reminded myself of my favourite names and decided on the best one based on now seeing him in person. “Kai,” I announced. “Kai for the first name, and Dean for his middle name.” I glanced at him, he gave a sharp nod.
“You understand he’s going to have my surname, yeah?”
Unfortunately.
Within moments, Kai had been removed from my chest by the doctor and placed within his arms. He stood and made his way out the room, I panicked.
“No! Where are you going? Bring him back!” I shouted, trying to move but not getting anywhere. My body was successfully anaesthetised, trapping me.No no no. “Give me my son, he’smine!” I shrieked.
Staff members looked away as Kai’s cries bounced off the walls. He took him away with one last look that I couldn’t decipher, leaving me with parting words that bounced around my skull to a dull beat.
“You’ll see him in due course. I’ll be back soon once I’ve handed him to his new guardians.”
He was lying. I knew better than to hope.
My heart crumbled.
* * *
Six weeks of recovery from childbirth, where he didn’t touch me at all as my body fixed itself. Forty-two days until he started back the abuse as usual.
As if nothing happened. As if I didn’t give birth. As if nothing changed.
But it had. I changed, irrevocably.
He hadn’t.
And if I held any smidgen of hope that he’d allow me to reunite with Kai, to spend time with him and specifically bond, I was mistaken. I was given reminders not to question him, of what, or rather who he now had to hold over me as a bargaining chip.
Chapter35
Preston
The Pavilion had gone to ground. Adrian West had taken his most trusted and useful allies with him and disappeared with our woman.
We pulled up to the less than appealing building, all of us parking up and sliding out the doors. The place was a fucking dive, exactly the kind of place my dad and brother hated, but would believe it’s somewhere we wouldn’t look for them, in the middle of nowhere, which was their first mistake. They’d be correct in a sense, but we were smarter. I was itching to barge in there; I knew we’d have to bypass their personal security first. The bloodlust was thrumming in my body, wanting to be sated.
We split up, covering different points of the building and going our separate ways with plans to meet shortly inside, making sure there was no possible exit and those two couldn’t escape.
