Page 100 of Fighting Fate
“Just put the knife away…please. Please, Peter, you’re scaring me.” He shakes his head, twisting the knife deeper so that I can feel it pierce through the fabric. “Was it you?”
“Me?”
“Did you break into the flat?”
A humoured chuckle pushes from his lips as he looks at me with amusement. “I’ve got keys, remember? I didn’t break in.”
“You didn’t?”
“I just had to make it look that way. It was only meant to spook you away from him since the letters didn’t do it…I hoped they would…”
“You threatened my baby…”
With a growl, his face morphs into a stony expression. “His. Not yours. I saw the letter from the clinic, and I thought you were going to get rid of it. But you didn’t!”
The knife slashes in front of me, and I close my hand around the top of the extinguisher. It’s heavy, but it’s all I’ve got.
“You should have,” he sneers, closing his eyes as if he can’t bear to look at me.
When he trails the knife down to my belly button, I yank on the extinguisher as hard as I can so that it swings free, out of my grasp, slamming into his side.
As he stumbles backwards, the knife dropping out of his hold, I turn for the stairs. I’m taking them down as fast as I can without toppling over in my high heels. It’s not fast enough, and when I round the corner to the toilets, I’m tugged back by my hair.
My scream echoes and echoes as Peter grips my throat and throws me into the wall. Instinct has me wrapping my arms around my belly as he slashes the knife between us, and I kick at him. His chokehold makes it impossible to do anything else.
It’s a losing fight. The harder I try to protect myself, the foggier my head becomes. I’m certain I’m done as my vision frays and my lungs burn. I’m sure this is it as I use the last of my strength to grab at Peter’s hand between us, pushing it away with every gasp I have left in me.
I push and push until Peter crashes into the opposite wall. I have nothing left in me as I collapse into a heap on the floor. My bloodied hands desperately clutch at my belly and my throat while I try to focus on the blur in front of me.
Rory.
He found me.
All the relief in the world isn’t enough to help me back onto my feet. My body is dead. Every move I make is agony. All I can do is lie in my heap and watch as Rory pins Peter to the wall by his throat. His fist pummels into him endlessly. There’s nothing I can do or say as I curl up into a ball and close my eyes.
* * *
The monitors are beeping loudlyas I watch Jake suture my hands. He’s in his zone, and I’m in mine, wondering how the hell everything’s ended like this. It’s all a mess. I’m here, Rory’s been arrested, and the baby is in distress. Everything has fallen apart epically from one moment to the next.
“Scarring will be minimal,” he tells me while wrapping my hand in gauze. “You might not actually have any if it all heals nicely. But it means that you have to be careful…take it easy…”
A sob rips up my throat, sputtering from my lips with my nod. All the tears I’ve been desperately holding in burst into hot cascades over my face, getting heavier as the baby monitor becomes manic again.
“Hey,” he snaps at me, coming closer so that his face is in mine. “You need to stop this now. Do you hear me?” When I nod, he turns the sound from the monitors all the way down until the room is silent. “Dorian is handling the police, and you’ve got me, Quincy, and the best doctors in this country looking after you and the baby. But you need to help us too.”
It takes me a moment to work up the courage to speak. My throat is tight and raw from the internal bruising and swelling.
“I’m trying…but I just—” It’s impossible to relax. It’s impossible for me not to worry about Rory. It’s impossible for me to lie here and pretend that my entire world isn’t falling apart.
“Look at me,” Jake murmurs, his crooked finger tilting my chin so that our eyes meet. “It’s simple, Willow. You can worry about everything outside this room that’s out of your control, or you can focus on you and keeping that little boy inside for as long as you can. He’s twenty-eight weeks…he’s not ready to be out here.”
The exhaustion keeps mounting, and the headache pounds harder. I know he’s right. Everyone is cleaning up the mess I made. Maybe it’s karma for being so selfish and stupid…getting involved with a married man…
“This is my punishment.”
Jake scoffs, standing from the stool beside the bed to pour me a small glass of water. “Don’t be so fucking idiotic. The man is a cold-hearted, calculated psychopath.”
“I thought he loved me once. Worse…I thought I loved him. I’m an idiot.”