Chapter 2 - The Lie Before the Blood
“What if someone else had been here?”
The thought lasted less than a second.
But it was long enough to shame me for the rest of my life.
Clara made a small sound.
Not a word.
Not even my name.
Just a thin, broken breath that cut through the dark bedroom and shattered the lie inside my head.
“Clara.”
The tulips slipped from my hand.
They landed on the floor beside the broken wedding portrait, white petals scattering across the blood-streaked hardwood.
I crossed the room in two steps.
When I reached her, I saw the truth.
Her nightgown was twisted backward because someone had grabbed her from behind. Her shoulder was bruised. One side of her face was red and swollen. Blood ran down her leg and darkened the hem of the silk.
But there was no other man.
No affair.
No betrayal.
Only my pregnant wife, shaking violently, trying to stay awake.
“Ethan,” she whispered.
I dropped to my knees beside her.
“I’m here.”
Her eyes struggled to focus on me.
“You came home.”
“Yes. I’m here. I’m here, sweetheart.”
Her fingers reached for my sleeve, then slipped.
“I tried to call.”
My stomach dropped.
“Where is your phone?”
She looked toward the floor.
Near the bed, half-hidden beneath shattered glass, was Clara’s phone.
The screen was cracked.
I picked it up carefully.
There were seventeen missed calls to me.
None had reached my phone.
There were messages she had tried to send.
Please call me.
Your mother is here. She won’t leave.
Ethan, something is wrong.
The final message had never been completed.
She said you know about—
My blood turned cold.
“Who did this?” I asked.
Clara closed her eyes.
“Your mother.”
For a moment, the room disappeared.
I heard nothing except rain against the windows and Clara’s shallow breathing.
Then she gasped and clutched her stomach.
Fear ripped through me.
“Our baby.”
“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “I fell. I tried to get up, but—”
“Don’t move.”
I pulled out my phone and called Dr. Moretti, the private physician who had been overseeing Clara’s pregnancy.
“Get to the penthouse,” I said. “Now. Bring an ambulance team. Clara is bleeding.”
His voice turned sharp. “How far along is she?”
“Seven months.”
“Keep her lying on her left side. Do not let her stand. I’m on my way.”
I ended the call and pressed my hand over Clara’s.
“Look at me.”
She tried.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
The words broke me.
“For what?”
“I made your mother angry.”
“No.”
“She said I was destroying the family.”
“No.”
“She said you were already tired of me.”
I bent over her, pressing my forehead to hers.
“Clara, listen to me. Nothing she said is true.”
Her tears slid down her cheeks.
“I didn’t believe her at first. But then she showed me messages.”
“What messages?”
“She showed me photographs of you with another woman in New York.”
My jaw tightened.
“There was no other woman.”
“I know that now,” she said faintly. “I think I knew it then. But she said you were coming home tomorrow night, and she said she would make sure I was gone before then.”
My heart stopped.
“Gone where?”
Clara flinched at the question.
“She said you would never believe me if I told you.”
The bedroom door opened.
My head of security, Marco, rushed in with two guards behind him.
He stopped when he saw Clara.
“Boss.”
“Lock down the building,” I said. “No one leaves. Get every camera feed from the last twenty-four hours. Find my mother.”
Marco’s face tightened.
“She left the building forty minutes ago.”
“Find her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Also find out why Clara’s calls never reached me.”
Marco looked at the broken phone in my hand.
“I’ll trace everything.”
Clara gripped my fingers.
“Ethan, I’m scared.”
I looked at her.
This woman had spent months enduring my mother’s veiled insults, her cruel comments, and her relentless suspicion. Clara had smiled through it because she loved me. Because she did not want to be the reason I fought with my family.
And I had allowed my mother’s words to enter my mind.
I had looked at blood on the floor and, for one sickening second, wondered whether my wife had betrayed me.
“I know,” I said. “But you are not alone anymore.”
The elevator doors opened down the hallway.
Dr. Moretti entered with two paramedics and a portable medical team.
They worked quickly.
“Blood pressure is low.”
“Fetal heartbeat?”
“Present, but elevated.”
“Possible placental injury.”
I stood against the wall while they lifted Clara onto a stretcher.
She reached for me.
“Don’t let her near the baby.”
My chest tightened.
“I won’t.”
The paramedics rolled Clara toward the elevator.
As I followed, I looked once more at the ruined bedroom.
The shattered portrait.
The flowers on the floor.
The streaks of blood showing exactly how far Clara had crawled before she could not move anymore.
And suddenly, something caught my eye.
A small object beneath the dresser.
I crouched and picked it up.
It was a pearl earring.
My mother’s.
She wore a matching pair to every family dinner.
I closed my hand around it.
Then I looked toward Marco.
“Find her,” I said again.
This time, my voice was not loud.
It did not need to be.
May you like
“Before I do.”
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