Chapter 3

The guest room was freezing by midnight.

Wind slipped through the cracked window as I pulled the blanket over my eight-month belly.

Then a sharp cramp twisted through my abdomen.

I held my breath until it passed.

A second wave came minutes later, stronger than the first.

Earlier that evening, I received a notification from our household account.

My access had been restricted.

Then another notification appeared on my phone.

Household rent charge: $500.

Sebastian had charged me for staying in the home we owned together.

All personal expenses would now be my responsibility.

I photographed the notification and sent it to my divorce lawyer.

He is cutting me off financially while I am eight months pregnant. Please add this to the evidence.

Another cramp struck.

I grabbed my phone and called Sebastian.

“What is it?” he answered impatiently.

“Sebastian, my stomach hurts.”

Arabella laughed softly in the background.

His voice hardened. “Genevieve, not tonight.”

“I think something is wrong.”

“You were angry about the money. Now you’re doing this?”

“I’m not trying to argue.”

“Then stop calling whenever you want my attention. If you’re sick, call a taxi.”

He hung up.

Another contraction tore through me. I gripped the sheets and called again.

“What now?”

“Sebastian, please. This is different.”

“You said that already.”

A sudden warmth spread beneath me.

I looked down at the soaked sheets.

My water had broken.

“I think the baby is coming.”

Silence.

For one second, I thought he finally understood.

Then he said, “If you need a hospital, call one.”

The line went dead.

Something inside me went quiet.

Not the pain.

Not the fear.

The last part of me still waiting for my husband.

I called emergency services.

“I’m eight months pregnant,” I whispered. “My water broke.”

Minutes later, two paramedics rushed into the guest room.

“We need to move now.”

As they lifted me onto the stretcher, I saw myself in the cracked mirror.

Pale. Trembling. Completely alone.

They carried me downstairs. Music and laughter poured through the closed master-bedroom door, swallowing the sound of the stretcher wheels.

Sebastian never came out.

Inside the ambulance, I opened the divorce agreement my lawyer had prepared.

Then I pressed Send.

Upstairs, Sebastian’s phone lit up.

He opened the message and stared at the title.

Divorce Agreement.

Instead of fear, a faint smile crossed his face.

“She really thinks she can leave me?”

He didn’t know I was inside an ambulance.

He didn’t hear the paramedic call the hospital.

“Prepare the neonatal team.”

I had asked my husband for help twice.

He had refused me twice.

The divorce agreement was the third message I sent that night.

It was the only one that didn’t require an answer.