Chapter 3
Adrian's eyes locked on mine—bloodshot, furious.
"Adrian," I choked out, "save our baby!"
He was already moving. He slammed into the bodyguards, tore them off me, and ripped the induction needle from my vein.
"Get off her!" His roar shook the hall.
He hauled me up and crushed me against his chest, one arm cinched around my waist like a shield. Air finally punched back into my lungs.
Then he saw my wrists—raw, bruised, restraint marks burning red.
His jaw tightened. "It's okay, Claire," he said low, palm steady on my back. "I'm here."
Leaning against him, I finally let myself break down on the sob.
Last night, I'd been too scared to sleep. That damned orchid had sat in my mind like a curse. I'd only sent him four words—[Babe, I miss you.]
He'd been overseas. Two more weeks on the schedule, but he came anyway.
When my breathing finally steadied, Adrian's head snapped up. The warmth vanished.
He turned on the Hawthornes like a blade. "What the hell is wrong with you people? You call her family—and you pin her to the floor like this?"
Margaret's face didn't move. Conrad's cane stayed planted.
Adrian's gaze snapped to my mother.
"And you." Disbelief hit harder than the shouting. "You're her mother. Her MOTHER. You watched them hold her down and you—said nothing?"
No one argued. No one defended themselves.
They only stared at him with that same too-calm look, like they were waiting for the next step in a ritual.
Adrian didn't care. He tightened his grip, lifted me, and walked for the door.
We were getting out. Relief hit so hard I nearly went limp in his arms. Once we were out that door, my baby would live.
"Adrian."
Margaret's voice sliced through the silence, soft, certain.
"Look at the Crimson Orchid. It's turned to sludge."
Adrian didn't slow. "I don't give a damn about your fucking flower. Claire and my child are all that matter."
"Your child?"
Conrad's cane thudded once.
His voice was cold as steel. "Adrian, you know better than anyone whose baby Claire is carrying. Don't you?"
My mind flashed white.
Cheating. That was his play? Smear me so the murder feels clean?
I twisted in Adrian's arms, rage shaking through me—
Conrad cut in, measured, inevitable. "Go look. That orchid has warned our family for generations."
Then, the verdict: "Ending this pregnancy is for your own good. And for this family."
Adrian's arms went rigid.
He stopped. And his head started to turn.
Terror flashed through me so fast it burned.
No. One look had broken my mother. I couldn't let it take him too.
"Adrian, don't!" I slapped my hands over his eyes. "Please. This baby is yours. Don't listen—don't look—"
Too late.
He caught my wrists and pulled my hands away, slow and relentless.
His gaze slid past me and locked onto the glass case—onto the black, reeking sludge.
Something in him went blank.
"Adrian, it's just a flower." I begged, grabbing his face. "Get me out. Please—"
He didn't answer. He just lowered me to the carpet like I was a burden.
The man who had burst in ready to kill for me was gone. In its place was the same hollow stillness sitting on every other face in the room.
"Claire." His voice came out rough. "We have to end this. There's no other choice."
My chest caved.
I seized his collar. "Have you lost your mind? Listen to yourself."
He wouldn't meet my eyes. "We can't keep this child."
The slap cracked through the hall.
I hit him hard enough to snap his face sideways.
Then I snatched the amniocentesis report and slammed it against his chest, my voice tearing apart.
"This is your child. Look at it. The baby is healthy. How can you stand with these lunatics and kill your own child over a rotting plant?"
He didn't even lift the paper, letting it slide off and flutter to the floor.
"The report doesn't matter," he said flatly. "Once the flower turns black, the child can't be kept."
For a second, all I could do was laugh.
"Adrian," I whispered, "this is our third baby."
He went still.
I looked straight at him, shaking.
"The first two times, your parents strapped me down while you were away. They took them from me. Just like today."
Shock hit his face like a punch.
"I was afraid to tell you," I said, every word cutting on the way out. "Afraid of what it would do to you. Afraid you'd tear your family apart. So I bled through it alone."
My voice broke. "And now I know what a fool I was."
"Your whole family is monstrous."
Adrian stared at me—
But before he could say a word, pain knifed through my abdomen.
I doubled over with a strangled gasp.
The little they'd managed to inject was enough. The drug had started working.
Heat spilled down my thigh.
Blood struck the carpet—bright, sudden, too much.
My baby.
The cramps buckled me, but the room hurt worse.
Margaret exhaled first. Then Conrad.
My mother's face… relaxed. Even Adrian, frozen in horror a heartbeat ago, went still, like the blood had confirmed something he'd already chosen to believe.
On the table, the orchid's sludge stopped quivering in the glass.
Relief moved through them. Only I was on the floor, bleeding out around a child I couldn't save.
Hands grabbed me. The world tilted.
Cold table. Metal clink. Legs forced apart.
I fought, but my body was already failing.
And through the haze, through the tearing cramps, I felt it—the tiny life being scraped away from me, piece by piece.
By the time darkness swallowed the ceiling, my last clear thought wasn't grief.
It was hate.
When I came to, it was deep night.
Guest room. Clean sheets. Clean air. Like my child hadn't just been erased.
The cramps were still there—low and brutal, a reminder carved into muscle.
Adrian was asleep by the bed, head dropped against the mattress like he deserved peace.
The sight of him turned my stomach.
I couldn't stay in this house one more second.
I slid out of bed and staggered to the door, one hand dragging along the wall.
The hall lights were dim. The manor was silent.
Then, as I passed the staircase to the attic, a wave of rot rolled over me.
That smell.
The Crimson Orchid.
It lit something savage in me. That cursed plant had taken three of my babies.
It had turned my mother into a stranger and my husband into a puppet.
I didn't even think. I moved.
Step by step, half-dizzy, I climbed the attic stairs with one thought pounding in my skull:
I'll burn it to ash.
At the top, I shoved the door open—
No flower.
No glass case.
Instead, I saw what was in that room—and my blood turned to ice.
In that instant, I finally understood why Conrad and Margaret obeyed it… why my mother broke… why even Adrian stopped.
