Chapter 3 ELLA'S POV
The bedroom door was left ajar — only three inches — but sound had a way of traveling through walls, seeping through floors, finding its way into the chest of anyone who stood still long enough to listen.
I could hear them talking. About the prank they'd pulled today. About whether Leo would survive.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
A four-year-old boy, dragged back from the edge of death — because of the selfishness and cruelty of the people living under this roof.
And the ones responsible were in there discussing the outcome like they were debating what to have for dinner. No fear. No remorse. Not even the faintest tremor of conscience.
I had never believed a person's heart could be this dark. Especially when the knife aimed at Leo had been held by his own father.
I pressed my nails into my palms and told myself, over and over, until the words felt like stone:
Once Leo is discharged, I'm ending this marriage. I'll file for divorce. No matter what they scheme, even if I walk away without a single cent in child support — I don't care. I'm taking Leo and I'm never coming back.
I steadied my breathing. Then I went upstairs to pack.
The door swung open before I reached it.
Vivian stepped out in a silk robe, hair loose and slightly disheveled. That careless, undone version of her was somehow more nauseating than her usual polished perfection. She looked at me, and there wasn't a flicker of surprise in her eyes — only a thin, private satisfaction, like a woman who had been waiting for exactly this moment.
"Still can't break the habit of lurking in hallways," she said, her voice edged with contempt. "Some things never change, I suppose."
I said nothing.
"He was just venting to me," she continued, tilting her head with a baiting smile. "About how unbearably dull it is, living with you. God, Ella — has no one ever told you that a woman should know how to keep things interesting?"
She paused, then added, almost as an afterthought: "Oh, and Justin mentioned — if Leo pulls through — he'll be given to me to raise." Her tone was breezy, offhand, the way someone might mention a change in weekend plans. "Honestly, it would make everything so much simpler. A different mother. A fresh start."
Something violent tore through me.
No. I would never let Leo be taken from me. If she got her hands on him — he would not survive it.
My hand moved before my mind could catch up, before every instinct trained toward endurance could hold me back. My palm connected with Vivian's cheek before I'd even decided to move.
The crack of it split the silence of the hallway like a gunshot.
One second of absolute stillness. The corridor seemed to hold its breath.
Then, slowly, Vivian raised her hand to her cheek. And smiled.
I understood immediately. She had planned for this. She had been waiting for me to be the one to strike first.
The sound had already reached Justin. He came out of the room and, without a word of warning, drove his foot hard into my back.
I fell. The impact with the floor at the base of the stairs sent a white-hot shock through my hip and shoulder. I pressed my palms to the ground and tried to push myself up — once, twice — and couldn't. I lay there, looking up at them.
"Touch her again," Justin said from the top of the stairs. His voice was unhurried, almost indifferent, but the threat in it was absolute. "And I'll have Leo pulled from that hospital and taken somewhere you will never find him."
I went rigid.
"Please." The word came out broken. "Please, don't—"
"Kneel," he said. "And hit yourself."
I bit down hard. Then, with what strength I had left, I dragged myself to my knees.
I raised my hand and struck my own face. Left cheek. Right cheek. Again. Again.
Because they wanted to watch. Because Leo was still in their hands, and I had nothing — no leverage, no ground to stand on, nothing to bargain with.
Vivian watched from the landing with cold, amused eyes. Justin stood behind me in silence. Neither of them spoke. They observed like people watching something cheap and predictable play out exactly as expected.
By the fifth or sixth strike, the pain had gone dull. What replaced it was a deep, bone-level chill — the kind that had become familiar in this house. The kind that came with surviving here.
"Stop."
Justin's voice.
"This is getting boring." He sounded almost thoughtful, weighing something trivial. "Viv is all well and good, but it's always the same. I want to try something different."
I looked up, not understanding.
His gaze dropped to me — flat, hollow, stripped of any human warmth. He wasn't looking at a wife. He was looking at a piece of furniture he hadn't decided what to do with yet.
"Come upstairs."
"Justin." The word came out of me in pieces. I stared at him, my voice barely holding together. "You can't — we're married. I am your wife —"
"Leo," he said.
Just that. One word, spoken lightly, like it weighed nothing.
It landed like a boulder.
I went still. Then, slowly, I got to my feet.
I had never been permitted inside the master bedroom. Not once. That space belonged to Justin, and my presence in it was an affront — a contamination of the air. The basement was where I was meant to exist.
I walked in now, hollowed out.
Vivian was already there, reclining against the headboard with an expression of lazy anticipation. She had positioned herself like an audience member settling in for a performance she already knew she would enjoy.
"Here." She held out a garment — red satin, barely there, more straps than fabric. She thrust it toward me without ceremony. "Put it on me."
I crossed the room. My hands trembled as I reached for the clasps and ties, moving carefully, trying not to make a single wrong move.
Then she drove her foot into my chest.
I stumbled backward, crashing into the bedpost before I caught myself, gasping, the pain radiating outward in waves.
"You hurt me." Her voice was aggrieved, theatrical, dripping with false indignation. "Do you even have a brain? Do you know how to do anything?"
"I didn't — I barely touched you, I didn't even—"
"Shut up." She rose from the bed, the languid ease gone, something sharper taking its place. She pulled open the nightstand drawer and took out a necklace.
My breath stopped.
"Why do you have that?"
It was my mother's necklace. A small gold cross on a delicate chain — the only thing left of her. On my worst nights, I had held it in the dark, running my thumb along the links, just to feel something solid.
"Want it back?" Vivian turned the chain in her fingers, watching me.
She moved to the window. It was open, and the evening air came through — cool and high and indifferent. She extended her arm outside, letting the cross dangle over nothing.
"Jump," she said pleasantly. "Jump, and I'll give it back to you." She let the word hang there, light and poisonous. "If you don't — you'll never see it again. And you'll never see Leo quietly again, either."
I stared at the cross swaying in the open air.
We were on the third floor. A fall from here could kill me. Or it could leave me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.
And if anything happened to me, there would be no one left to protect him.
My voice came out ragged, barely above a whisper. "Just give it back to me. I swear — I'll disappear. The moment Leo is discharged, I'll take him and go. You'll never have to look at either of us again. Please. Just give it back—"
I couldn't stop myself. I stepped toward her, reaching for the necklace.
She shoved me.
Both hands, full force, into my shoulder.
My fingers seized the window frame on instinct — gripping until my knuckles went white. Below me, the ground was a long way down, soft and blurred at the edges. The wind cut against my skin. Gravity pulled at me with patient, terrible certainty.
I had never understood the phrase hanging by a thread until this moment.
"Justin!" I stopped caring about dignity. My voice shook apart completely. "Justin, please — pull me up. Please. The moment Leo is out of the hospital, I will take him and leave. I swear on my life. I will never contact you again, never come near you, never — just please —"
He appeared at the window. He stood there, looking down at me, and his face held nothing. No alarm. No hesitation. Nothing at all.
"Do you know what you are to me?" His voice carried a faint, detached curiosity, the way someone might wonder about something mildly interesting. "You — and that child — are a stain on my life. A mistake made when I was young and stupid. A footnote. Something that should never have existed."
My left hand slipped.
One centimeter. The window frame sliding out from under my fingers.
Vivian crouched at the window ledge, studying my hands with an expression of quiet, focused interest — like someone deciding which thread to pull first.
She reached out and wrapped her fingers around my index finger.
Then she bent it back.
Slowly. Deliberately.
My grip gave way.
The window frame slipped from my hands.
