Chapter 93: Dodged A Bullet

Chapter 93: Dodged A Bullet

Ivy

Solomon just hit Julia. And Anton didn’t seem the least bit surprised nor concerned.

He did not even look mildly inconvenienced. He stood there with his arms loosely at his sides, expression blank, as if this was simply another Tuesday in the Teague household.

I got my arms under Julia’s and helped her stand. She was lighter than she should have been. Her cheek was already swelling.

When she finally straightened, Maddie was staring at Solomon like she had never seen him before.

“You hit your own son’s mother?” Maddie’s voice shook. “What kind of man are you?”

Solomon said nothing.

I still could not fully believe what I had just witnessed. Part of me kept waiting for someone to say it was a mistake, a misunderstanding, a bad joke. But no one did.

The hallway remained quiet except for the distant beeping of machines and the soft sound of Julia’s uneven breathing.

I had never once considered that a woman like Julia—elegant, soft-spoken, always composed—could have lived through domestic abuse. I had looked at her and seen only grace.

I had never looked closely enough to see the survival underneath it.

Julia pressed her palm to her cheek. Somehow she still managed a small, broken smile.

“In front of everyone,” she said, voice cracking, “you still don’t bother to hide what a monster you are. You never changed. And you will never change.”

Solomon’s teeth showed.

“Signing those divorce papers will always be the best thing I ever did for myself,” Julia continued. “You will never be half the man Marcel is. You’re a beast, Solomon. A spineless, cowardly one.”

He lunged.

Poppy moved faster than I did. She stepped between them and shoved Solomon backward with both hands, using every bit of strength she had.

“Enough!” she shouted. “What sort of man are you, Mr. Teague?”

“Get out!” Solomon’s voice bounced off the walls. “All of you. Get out of our lives. My son does not need any of you. Mark my words, Julia. Once Leo is awake and healthy, I will take him somewhere far away where you will have to beg to see your own son’s face.”

Julia’s face twisted with years of stored pain.

“You took him away from me!” she screamed. “You. It was you, Solomon. You whispered things into his ears. You deceived him into believing I was a bad mother. That I abandoned him. Meanwhile I was just trying to survive you. Why didn’t you tell your son the whole truth?”

Solomon glanced down the empty VIP corridor as if checking for witnesses. “Shut up, Julia. And take those girls with you. Marcel’s daughters are not wanted here—”

“Why didn’t you tell Leo that you used to hit me?” Julia’s voice rose higher. “Every day, Solomon! You abused me all the time! Even when I was pregnant with Leo!”

Silence fell like a physical weight.

My heart cracked open for her. In that moment my respect for Julia became something deeper than admiration. It became reverence.

How does a person live through that kind of trauma and still have any grace left to give? How does she still stand here protecting other people when the man who broke her is standing three feet away?

Solomon’s face darkened.

“Get out, Julia,” he barked. “Go back to your peasant husband and that hovel you both live in—”

“Gladly,” she hissed. “Gladly, Solomon. I would rather spend the rest of my life in that hovel if it means I get to live it with Marcel. You will never be half the man he is. You know why? Real men don’t hit women. Only weaklings do—”

Everything happened too fast.

One second Julia was speaking. The next, Solomon had shoved both Poppy and me hard enough that we hit the floor.

Then his hand connected with Julia’s face again—harder this time. The sound was loud and wet. She went down.

He did not stop there. It didn't end.

While she lay on the ground, bleeding from a fresh cut on her lip, he began kicking her in the abdomen and everywhere else.

I was frozen. Completely frozen. My body refused to move even though my mind was screaming.

This could not be real. We were in a hospital. There were cameras. There were staff. There was security. Someone had to be seeing this. Someone had to stop it. Someone had to intervene.

But no one did.

Anton watched with the same empty, bored expression as before. He had seen this enough times that it no longer registered as wrong.

He had become desensitized to the sound of a woman being beaten in a hallway.

It took several long, useless seconds before Poppy and I managed to move. We scrambled up and threw ourselves at Solomon, trying to push him away from Julia’s unmoving body.

“Stop it!” My voice came out high and cracked with terror. “Stop!”

In the middle of the chaos I caught sight of Maddie. She had backed far away. Both of her arms were locked tightly around her stomach, around the baby. She was trembling so hard I could see it from where I stood.

Poppy and I were nothing against him. Our hands and bodies barely slowed him down. He kept kicking wherever his foot could land.

Poppy was sobbing openly now, hitting his back and shoulders with her fists. “Stop it! She’s not moving! Stop!”

Something in the words finally reached him. He stepped back several paces, blinking like a man coming out of a trance. He looked down at Julia’s still form as if surprised to find her there.

Panic took over Poppy immediately. She dropped to her knees and began tapping Julia’s face, trying to wake her.

“Julia. Julia, please—”

Julia did not respond. Blood ran from her nose and the corner of her mouth. Her face was already swelling. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as I prayed harder than I had ever prayed for anything.

Please be alive. Please still be breathing. Please.

Poppy’s hands shook so badly she almost dropped her phone while dialing.

“Dad,” she sobbed the second the call connected. “It’s Julia. Solomon hit her—”

Anton moved faster than any of us expected.

He snatched the phone out of Poppy’s hand, ended the call, and then crouched over Julia. He pressed two fingers near her nostrils, waited a second, then straightened.

“She’s breathing,” he said to Solomon. “She’s alive. No need to panic.”

He turned to Poppy with the same flat tone he might use to discuss the weather. “No calls. She’ll be fine. The doctors will check on her.”

“Give me back my phone, you freak!” Poppy’s voice broke. “I’m going to tell my dad. The two of you are not going to get away with this.”

A few minutes later—minutes that felt like hours—nurses finally appeared. They quietly lifted Julia onto a stretcher with the calmness of people who had seen this scene one too many times and wheeled her away.

The hallway suddenly felt much larger and much colder without her in it.

I stood there pinching the soft skin on the inside of my wrist, trying to force myself to believe this was real.

Then I turned to Solomon.

“You hit Julia,” I whispered. The words were almost too quiet for even me to hear.

He looked at me like I was an insect he had already decided to crush.

“Get out if you don’t want to be next,” he said. “My son will never have anything to do with you. This nonsense ends now.”

I did not move. My mind was racing too fast.

“Pick your things up from my house and disappear from Leo’s life,” he continued. “You do not want to go up against me, Ivy Lennon.”

Lennon. My last name, spoken like a threat.

I stared at him and felt something cold settle in my chest. It pressed harder and harder, waiting for me to acknowledge it.

It was not only Leo.

It had always been Solomon. He was the beginning of this cycle. The origin of the rage, the violence, the animalistic tendencies.

Questions started stacking on top of each other so quickly I could barely keep up.

Did Leo know?

Did he know his father used to beat his mother every day—even while she was pregnant with him?

Was any of this connected to Estella’s death? Had that been the final catalyst that made Julia leave?

And the question that scared me most… Where did that leave me? Did I just watch my future unfold?

If Solomon could do this to Julia in a public hospital hallway with witnesses standing feet away, why had I ever assumed Leo would be different?

Leo was his father’s image. He fired under Solomon’s guidance. He idolized the man.

From where I stood, it was not hard to imagine that Julia had once been a young woman standing exactly where I was standing now—falling for a Teague man who seemed like everything, only to discover the darkness underneath.

I imagined it started like this. Arm grips that were a little too tight. Rage that was so terrifying it froze you to the bone. Just like Leo.

I thought about the way Leo had looked at me the night I gave him everything. I thought about the careful way he had held me. I thought about the promises he had whispered against my skin.

Then I thought about the apartment he had looked at with Maddie. The pregnancy. The way he had somehow known about Andy. The cardiac arrest. The closed hospital door I was not allowed behind.

I did not know which truth was worse.

Had I ruined my chance with the man I had fallen in love with…

…or had I just narrowly dodged a bullet by discovering the truth about the Teagues before it was too late?