Chapter 3

I grabbed Helen's arm, my voice trembling with desperation.

I pleaded, "Can you call the cops for me? I just want to reach my real parents. I promise you won't get in trouble. Just name your price. I'll give you anything."

She hesitated, clearly torn.

But right then, the driver burst in with two female bodyguards.

He barked, "Helen, hurry up and get her ready to go back to Quinn Estate. You know it's never worth crossing Mr. Quinn."

I was too weak to protest, and they just dumped me into a wheelchair and hauled me back to Quinn Estate.

When we entered, Matthew was standing behind Sharon, his arms wrapped around her as they watered the flowers together.

Sharon glanced over at me and dropped the watering can in shock.

She asked, "Cynthia, what are you clutching? Is that... an urn?"

"Matthew, I heard that babies who die before they're born become restless spirits. They'll stay with their moms, haunting people and hurting them. It's totally creepy. Do you think it could come after us or our baby?"

As she spoke, she turned and grabbed onto Matthew's sleeve.

Matthew ruffled her hair affectionately.

He teased, "You're always getting spooked but still obsessed with horror movies. Stop imagining things. There's no such thing as restless baby spirits in the real world."

Then his face darkened, and his voice turned cold.

He snapped, "Helen, why does Cynthia have that? Sharon's just gotten pregnant. She can't be freaked out right now. Get that thing out of here, and make sure it's nowhere near her."

Helen jumped, startled, and reached out for the urn.

I clung to it, my whole body trembling with fury, fixing Matthew with a furious stare.

I cried, "This is your child too!

"If you hate me, then come at me instead. The baby never did anything wrong. You killed it, and now you want to destroy even its remains?"

I screamed myself hoarse, so hard that my head was spinning.

Matthew pressed his lips into a thin, hard line.

His eyes flickered for a moment, then his gaze turned frosty, like shards of ice.

He said, "Cynthia, I don't want to hear a single word from you. If you want to blame someone, blame fate for putting that child in your womb."

With that, he waved his hand at the bodyguards.

They moved in and tried to rip the urn from my hands.

I held onto it like my life depended on it, my fingernails digging so deep into the carved lines that they broke the skin and started bleeding.

They wrenched it from my arms with brute force, sending both me and the urn crashing hard to the floor.

The ashes burst out, instantly swept away by the wind, vanishing into thin air.

A violent, twisting pain tore through my belly, blood spreading out beneath me once more. The pain was so bad that it brought tears to my eyes.

I dreamed of Audrey holding a little baby girl in her arms, smiling at me and saying everything was okay with them.

Turns out, I'd been carrying a baby girl all this time.

Finally, I saw her. Now she and Audrey were together, just like Audrey had always wanted.

*****

I woke up two days later.

Helen was still by my side.

But then, unexpectedly, she handed me a phone.

She urged. "Quick, call your parents. I found their numbers in your contacts."

I grabbed the phone and dialed right away.

Before I could even get a word out, my parents were both talking at once, bombarding me with questions and concern.

My heart was racing, and I could barely hold back my tears as I tried to speak.

I choked out. "Can you come get me? Matthew's got bodyguards everywhere. I'm trapped in here."

They didn't ask a single question. They just acted.

Dad said, "I'm sending a helicopter and a security team to pick you up. We're coming to get you now.

"With your mom and me backing you, there's nothing to be afraid of. The Quinn family's wealth is nothing to us, and if it comes down to a fight, we'll crush them with numbers.

"If Matthew lays a finger on you, I'll take his whole hand."

Hearing his words filled me with the strength I needed to fight back.

But after all these years with the Quinn family, I'm not some helpless victim. I'd still got some fight left in me.

Audrey had insisted Matthew marry me because she knew I was way more capable than him. She wanted me to prop him up, making sure he didn't screw things up.

If things hadn't gone down so fast and out of nowhere, there's no way Matthew could've crushed me like this.

I said, "Dad, having you and Mom behind me means everything. And every bit of pain they caused me—I'm going to make them pay for it myself."