1
CELEBRATORY SABOTAGE
The tears on my face had long dried up, their salty paths tight on my skin as I stared up at the ceiling.Rubbing my tired eyes, the length of chains attached to each of my wrists rattled noisily, their chilling sounds a reminder of my new prison.
Or old prison, I should say.
Darren had all four of my limbs chained to our bed, the lengths long enough to allow me to toss and turn in the misery he’d promised me.
I was now into the third and final day of my “acceptance period” with literally no books, no company, no Camaro, no Sloane, no forms of entertainment to console me while I “adjust” to the idea of motherhood.
Just me and the damn ceiling.
The only time I was allowed out of the chains was to use the bathroom or work out twice a day, followed by a shower.Not exercising was apparently bad for the baby, so that was not only allowed but strictly enforced.
You know what else is bad for the baby?Stress.A hateful mother.And a lying, murdering psychopath for a father.
At least Darren had been thoughtful enough to place a decent-sized trash can next to the bed so I could conveniently lean over and vomit my lunch up every day.
I was still plagued with the occasional nausea, so I supposed that sleeping most of the day away was a good way to escape the discomfort and pass the time.Except, according to Darren, sleeping interfered with the time he wanted me to spend visualizing our child and the “happiness” motherhood would bring me.
It made me want to vomit all over again.
How could any woman be happy about raising a child they knew would suffer unimaginable cruelty for a significant portion of their childhood?
Once or twice, I considered strangling myself with one of the chains to spare both of us the horrors of the future.But, of course, Darren had already thought of that and made sure the chains weren’t long enough for such an attempt.God forbid he allow death to interfere with his plans for this happy family he was envisioning.
I still hadn’t warmed up to him for three and a half years, yet he thought a child would magically change everything overnight.
Moron.
Darren was right about one thing, though.I had known this was coming.Known this whole time and dreaded the inevitability.I just hoped for another miracle that would continue to delay or prevent the whole damn thing—like someone shooting him in the balls or something.
Then the bastard deliberately made me believe in the hope I’d been longing for with that fake implant replacement, making me stupidly think I had more time than I really did.But naturally, it was just another illusion.
And now that my long-held nightmare was finally here, the cage Darren had built around my life had just become ten times smaller.Just like he wanted.
My world felt so much tighter now that I could barely breathe in it.
After he left the infirmary that day, I’d been so enraged by his deception that I somehow managed to pick myself up off the floor and stormed into our room to find the one thing I knew I could still use to slice his heart open.
But true to his character, Darren would never let me see him bleed.
He’d barely reacted at first, but the act of instantly throwing the letter into the fire was more than just a means of protecting his empire.He was protecting himself so he could continue living in that sweet, fluffy cloud of denial.
No way would he believe he was making a mistake, especially when it came to his wife.He was her god, after all.Nothing could thwart his plans for the future, not even the past.
He wasn’t his father.I wasn’t his mother.And the circumstances were not the same.Not in his eyes.No way would history be allowed to repeat itself.
Like Darren had said, it had only been three and a half years.I still had plenty of time before I eventually caught up to Diana’s brand of crazed desperation.
But hadn’t I already reached that level of desperation?Diana was no longer the only one to start a war for her own benefit.My ass had started two at the same damn time.And Darren was still winning!
I was quickly running out of resources to exploit, and now that Diana’s actions had been exposed, I had very little gain to show for it.At least for now.
But the more I thought about it, the more I knew revealing that letter had been irrational at the time.It was strictly an emotional reaction, catered more toward revenge than any measurable amount of leverage.
I probably should have waited for a more calculated and opportunistic moment, but it had seemed almost poetic at the time.