Chapter 1 - You Can Make More Babies
“You can make more babies,” Brianna said, and drove her fist into my pregnant stomach.
I was eight months along with twins.
I couldn't get my shoes on without help, and my sister-in-law had just knocked the air out of me over a password.
The glass in my hand hit the tile and burst into glittering pieces.
I caught the kitchen island before my knees gave out.
Above the doorway, the little security camera Ryan had installed blinked blue.
Brianna didn't notice.
“Give me the password, Emma.”
“The account isn't mine.”
“Don't insult me.”
My husband had put $150,000 into a trust for our unborn children, Sophie and Lucas, before flying to a construction project in Singapore.
It was meant for doctors, childcare, college, and the kind of safe childhood neither Ryan nor I had enjoyed.
His sister called it family money.
I called it our children's future.
“You don't understand what happens if I don't pay,” she said.
“Then call someone who owes you money.”
Pain tightened beneath my ribs.
A warm trickle ran down my legs.
Brianna looked at the floor, and for one beautiful second I thought she would finally help me.
Instead, she snatched up my phone.
“You fell,” she said, wiping the screen with her sleeve.
“Call an ambulance.”
“If you tell Ryan I was here, you'll destroy his family.”
She left me beside the broken glass.
The front door slammed, rattling the framed ultrasound hanging beside it.
I pulled a chair toward me by one wooden leg and scraped it across the floor until Mrs. Alvarez heard from the side entrance.
“Emma?” she called.
Her expression changed when she saw me.
She dialed 911 before asking what happened.
I gripped her wrist and said, “There are two babies.”
“I know, sweetheart. I've got you.”
When the paramedics wheeled me past the kitchen, I looked up at the camera once more.
May you like
Its blue light had gone dark.
And I couldn't remember whether Ryan had told his mother how to turn it off.
