Chapter 2 - THE SKY CAME FOR ME
The first helicopter came so low that the ocean flattened beneath it.
Victoria’s face changed instantly.
One second, she was laughing over her shoulder at me.
The next, she was staring at the black military helicopter cutting across the bay as if death itself had just received her address.
The tow rope between our jet skis went slack.
“Victoria!” Julian screamed from the dock.
She turned toward him.
That was her second mistake.
Her first had been thinking I was helpless.
The pain in my stomach sharpened so violently that everything around me blurred. I bent forward against the strap holding me to the jet ski, trying to protect my baby even though I could barely feel my legs.
Blood mixed with seawater beneath me.
“Dad,” I whispered into the watch.
“I’m here.”
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
I knew that voice.
I had heard it when I was fourteen and a tornado had torn through the town where we were visiting relatives. I had heard it when a man carrying a knife once tried to break into our home.
My father became quiet when he was furious.
“Stay conscious, Genevieve.”
“I’m trying.”
“Look at the helicopter.”
I lifted my head.
A rescue swimmer was already descending.
Behind him, two Coast Guard vessels were closing in from opposite sides of the bay.
Victoria suddenly slammed the throttle.
Her jet ski lurched forward.
The rope tightened.
My body snapped backward.
I screamed.
Then the helicopter loudspeaker thundered across the water.
“CUT YOUR ENGINE IMMEDIATELY!”
Victoria kept going.
“VICTORIA!” Julian shouted again.
Even from the water, I could see him waving his arms frantically.
Not because he cared whether I lived.
Because he understood what the helicopters meant.
Witnesses.
Evidence.
Consequences.
Victoria looked back at me.
There was no laughter anymore.
Only panic.
Then she did something I would never forget.
She reached down for the release hook connecting my jet ski to hers.
She was going to cut me loose.
Not to save me.
To let the current carry me away.
I watched her fingers close around the latch.
Then a Coast Guard boat cut across her path.
Victoria jerked the handlebars.
Her jet ski flipped.
She hit the water hard.
I barely registered it.
The rescue swimmer landed beside me.
“Ma’am! Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Are you pregnant?”
“Nine months.”
His eyes dropped to the blood.
His entire expression changed.
“We need medical extraction now!”
Another wave hit.
I cried out.
Something inside me tightened with terrifying force.
The rescuer steadied my shoulders.
“Don’t move. We’re cutting you free.”
“The baby.”
“We’ve got you both.”
I wanted to believe him.
But my baby had stopped moving.
That terrified me more than the blood.
More than Victoria.
More than Julian.
“Please,” I whispered. “I can’t feel her.”
The rescuer spoke into his radio.
Within seconds, everything accelerated.
Hands cut through the restraints.
A medical harness went around me.
The sky swallowed me.
As they lifted me toward the helicopter, I looked toward the resort.
Julian stood on the dock surrounded by armed Coast Guard personnel.
His scotch glass was gone.
His expensive white shirt was whipping violently in the rotor wash.
And for the first time since I had known him, Julian Vance looked small.
Our eyes met across the distance.
His mouth moved.
I couldn’t hear him.
But I knew what he was saying.
Genevieve.
I turned my face away.
Inside the helicopter, a medic placed monitors against my stomach.
“Fetal heart rate is dropping.”
My world stopped.
“No.”
“We’re diverting directly to the hospital.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yes. But we need to move.”
Another contraction tore through me.
I screamed into the oxygen mask.
The medic squeezed my hand.
“Stay with me.”
I stared at the ceiling.
I remembered the first time Julian touched my stomach when I was twelve weeks pregnant.
He had cried.
Actually cried.
He had pressed his forehead against me and whispered, “I’m going to be better than my father.”
How could the same man stand on a dock and watch his child bleed into the ocean?
The answer hurt worse than the contractions.
Maybe that man had never existed.
Maybe I had loved a performance.
My father’s voice came through the medic’s headset.
“Admiral Sterling is requesting status.”
The medic answered.
“Patient conscious. Active bleeding. Fetal distress. Possible placental abruption.”
I knew enough to understand those words.
My pulse spiked.
“Genevieve.”
My father’s voice came through the speaker.
“I’m here.”
“I’m scared.”
There was a pause.
Then the four-star admiral disappeared.
My father answered instead.
“So am I, sweetheart.”
I started crying.
“You said you’d never lie to me.”
“I’m not. I’m scared. But I’m coming.”
The helicopter banked toward land.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t let Julian leave.”
His answer came without hesitation.
“He won’t.”
The hospital landing pad appeared beneath us less than ten minutes later.
Doctors were waiting.
They rushed me inside.
Questions flew around me.
How far along?
Thirty-eight weeks and five days.
Any medical conditions?
High-risk pregnancy. Previous placental bleeding.
Medications?
Prenatal vitamins.
My mind caught on the word.
Vitamins.
The capsules Julian had given me.
“I was drugged.”
The room suddenly changed.
“What?”
“My husband gave me capsules before this happened. I thought they were prenatal vitamins.”
A doctor looked at the nurse.
“Full toxicology panel. Now.”
My blood turned cold.
I had thought the drugging was simply to get me unconscious.
But what if it had done something else?
Another contraction hit.
Then the monitor alarm changed.
The obstetrician looked sharply at the screen.
“We’re losing fetal heart rate.”
I grabbed her wrist.
“Save my baby.”
“We’re doing an emergency C-section.”
They pushed me through double doors.
Lights passed overhead.
One.
Two.
Three.
I thought of my daughter’s nursery at home.
Yellow walls.
White curtains.
A stuffed rabbit my father had bought despite pretending he thought stuffed animals were ridiculous.
I had named her privately months ago.
Amelia Grace Vance.
But as I lay beneath operating room lights knowing her father had almost killed us, that last name suddenly felt like poison.
“Genevieve?”
The anesthesiologist leaned over me.
“We’re going to take care of you.”
My eyes closed.
The last thing I remembered was whispering,
“Please let her cry.”
When consciousness returned, I heard nothing.
My heart shattered before my eyes even opened.
Then—
A small cry.
Thin.
Angry.
Alive.
My eyes flew open.
My mother was standing beside the bed.
Eleanor Sterling never cried in public.
She was crying now.
“Mom?”
“She’s alive.”
I broke.
My mother leaned down and held me while the room blurred behind tears.
“She’s alive?”
“She’s perfect.”
“Where?”
“NICU for observation. But she’s breathing on her own.”
I pressed both hands over my face.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then I remembered.
“Julian.”
My mother went very still.
“Your father is handling him.”
That was not reassuring.
“What happened?”
“Victoria survived. Broken collarbone. Concussion.”
“And Julian?”
“Detained.”
“Arrested?”
“Not yet.”
I looked at her.
“Why not?”
“Because,” my mother said quietly, “your father wants them to explain something first.”
She placed a clear evidence bag on the bedside table.
Inside were two capsules.
They looked identical to the ones Julian had given me.
“The hospital toxicology report found a powerful sedative in your bloodstream.”
My stomach twisted.
“But there’s more.”
She placed another sheet beside the bag.
I read the laboratory findings twice.
Then a third time.
My throat closed.
The capsules contained not only a sedative.
They contained a medication known to increase bleeding risk.
“Oh my God.”
My mother’s voice hardened.
“That wasn’t a prank, Genevieve.”
I stared at the pills.
“It was attempted murder.”
“Yes.”
The door opened.
My father walked in.
Admiral Hector Sterling had spent four decades making dangerous men uncomfortable.
I had never seen him look the way he did now.
He kissed my forehead first.
Then he sat beside me.
“Tell me everything.”
So I did.
The investors.
Victoria.
Julian humiliating me.
The capsules.
The restraints.
The tow rope.
The binoculars.
The laughing.
When I finished, my father stared at the floor for several seconds.
“Dad?”
He looked at me.
“Julian says Victoria planned everything.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course he does.”
“He claims he thought you were sedated because you had agreed to take an anxiety medication.”
“He watched me bleed.”
“I know.”
“He watched.”
My father took my hand.
“There’s something else you need to see.”
He unlocked his phone.
Security footage appeared.
It showed the dock twenty minutes before I woke on the jet ski.
Julian and Victoria were standing beside the water.
Victoria handed him a small packet.
Julian opened it.
Inside were plastic restraints.
He looked toward the resort.
Then he helped her place them on the jet ski.
My breath left me.
There was no ambiguity.
No misunderstanding.
No excuse.
My husband had participated.
Then the video changed.
Another camera angle.
Julian leaned toward Victoria.
The audio was faint.
But clear enough.
“If she loses the baby, she’ll finally stop controlling everything.”
Victoria smiled.
“And if she doesn’t?”
Julian looked directly toward the ocean.
“Then we scare her until she signs.”
I stared at the screen.
“Signs what?”
My father’s expression darkened.
“That,” he said, “is what we’re going to find out.”
Outside the hospital room, someone began shouting.
A man.
Julian.
“Genevieve! Genevieve, please!”
My entire body froze.
Security guards restrained him in the hallway.
“I need to speak to my wife!”
My father stood.
Julian saw him.
Confusion crossed his face.
Then recognition.
The color drained from his skin.
“Admiral Sterling?”
My father walked slowly toward the doorway.
Julian stared from him to me.
Then back again.
“You know my wife?”
My father stopped six feet away.
“No.”
His voice was colder than the ocean had been.
“I know my daughter.”
Julian’s face collapsed.
And in that moment, he finally understood.
May you like
The woman he had tried to break had never been powerless.
He had simply never bothered to learn who she really was.
