Chapter 247 When the Body Says No
Genesis rocked back and forth on the bed, back pressed against the headboard, knees drawn to her chest. Tears fell silently down her cheeks, soaking the front of her nightgown. The room was dark except for the faint glow of the bedside lamp, but even that felt too bright.
Everything was too much.
Tomorrow she had to stand in front of a courtroom and tell strangers every ugly detail of the last fifteen years. The locked rooms. The starvation. The beatings, the assaults. The doctor’s office visits she could barely remember.
She didn’t even remember most of it.
But she would have to say it anyway.
She pressed her palms to her eyes, trying to stop the tears, but they kept coming. She was so tired. So fucking tired. The nightmares hadn’t stopped since the shooting, every night she saw Reeves leaning over her with that scalpel, whispering he was going to gut her and the baby the same way Kieran had “gutted” him but that was not all, she would relive days in the Caldwell Estate. She woke up gasping, hand on stomach, filled with fear.
She hadn’t told Kieran.
She couldn’t.
He was still recovering, still weak, tubes in his arm and chest bandaged. Every time she visited, she smiled, kissed him, told him she was fine. She played the strong wife, the one who could handle everything. Because if she told him the truth, that she was drowning, that the guilt of shooting him was eating her alive, that she was terrified she was going to lose their baby, he would try to carry it all. And he couldn’t. Not right now.
So she carried it alone.
Even in this huge house, surrounded by people who loved her, she felt completely, terrifyingly alone.
A sharp cramp twisted low in her stomach.
She winced, pressing a hand to the small swell. The pain had been coming and going for days, dull at first, then sharper. She remembered the doctor’s words from that first day, the one she’d tried so hard to forget:
“Subchorionic hematoma… larger than we’d prefer… modified bed rest… no stress… if the bleeding gets worse…”
She hadn’t rested.
She hadn’t stopped.
And now the pain was different. Deeper. Heavier.
She stood up too fast.
The room spun.
Black spots danced in her vision.
She grabbed the bedpost, breathing through her mouth, trying to steady herself.
The door to the bedroom opened.
Veronica stood there, coat half-off, eyes red and glassy, mascara streaked down her cheeks.
Genesis blinked hard. For a second she saw two Veronicas then they merged into one.
Her stomach dropped.
“What… are you doing here?” she asked, voice shaky and thin.
Veronica stepped inside, swaying slightly.
“I came to talk,” she slurred. “You think you can just throw me out like trash? After everything? I was there for him when you were nothing. I loved him when you were not in the picture. And now you think you can have it all?”
Genesis said nothing. She just stared, one hand still pressed to her stomach.
Veronica’s voice cracked. “He cheated on you, you know. Right after you got married. At Opal Noire. Three girls. He fucked them all night. He didn’t even remember the next day, but he did it. He chose them over you.”
Genesis felt the words hit, but they didn’t land the way Veronica wanted.
She already knew.
Kieran had told her months ago, guilty, on his knees. She’d forgiven him before he even finished speaking. It was the past. It was before he understood what she meant to him.
But right now, with the pain in her stomach getting worse and the room tilting, she didn’t have the energy to explain that.
Veronica took another step closer, tears falling freely.
“You don’t deserve him. You never did.”
Genesis opened her mouth to answer.
A wave of nausea hit her so hard she doubled over.
She cried out, a sharp, broken sound and felt something warm and wet between her legs.
She looked down.
Blood.
Bright red, soaking through the light fabric of her nightgown, dripping down her thighs.
“No…” The word tore out of her, raw and terrified. “No, no, no, my baby!”
She collapsed to her knees, hands clutching her stomach, screaming.
Veronica’s eyes went wide with shock.
“What the!”
She dropped to the floor beside her, hands hovering, unsure where to touch.
Genesis was sobbing even harder now, rocking, blood spreading on the floor beneath her.
“Please… please, my baby… I can’t lose my baby… not now… please…”
The door burst open.
Jaden and Rosie rushed in, faces pale.
Veronica screamed at them, voice cracking. “Call an ambulance! Now! She’s bleeding, oh God, she’s bleeding a lot!”
Genesis’s vision blurred.
The last thing she saw was Rosie on the phone, shouting for help, and Veronica’s tear-streaked face hovering over her.
Then everything went black.