Help me find???
Chapter 1
I'm the Hayes family's real daughter. The one they finally found. The one they brought home.
The day my water broke, everyone in that hospital room heard my adopted sister Stella's thoughts.
[Should I tell them? That Clara's baby is cursed — fathered by countless guys she screwed.]
Disgust flashed across my husband's face. He turned to the doctor and told him to keep me out of the delivery room.
My water pooled across the floor beneath me. My knees hit the cold tiles, and I sobbed.
"Julian, please — let me in. Our baby will die."
I was fully dilated. My child's head was already crowning.
[I dreamed about this. That little bastard was meant to ruin me — and Clara timed this delivery on purpose, knowing he'd hurt me!]
Julian Vance's face darkened. He snapped out an order, and hands grabbed me and pinned me down.
Then he pressed his hands between my legs and forced my baby back inside me.
The sound that tore out of me didn't even sound human.
"No!"
"Please — just let me have my baby!"
He wiped the sweat from my forehead, almost tenderly. But his voice was like ice.
"No one gets to hurt Stella. Not even your child."
Each contraction tore through me like my body was splitting open. My vision blurred, and somewhere inside the haze, one truth cut through everything — I had loved this man for twenty years, and he had never loved me back.
I let the tears fall. I was done fighting for a marriage that didn't exist.
...
"Julian, please — this is your child!"
I was sobbing so hard I could barely speak. Blood soaked the sheets and slipped down onto the tile.
Sweat mixed with tears on my face. My wrists were tied to the headboard behind me, the skin rubbed raw and bleeding.
I searched every doctor's face. Every nurse's. I begged them with my eyes. One by one, they looked away.
My mother was there for the birth. Something crossed her face — maybe guilt. Maybe pity.
[Poor Clara. But if that little bastard is born, he won't stop at destroying me — he'll drag both the Vance and Hayes families down with him. He'll grow up and steal everything they own.]
Stella Thorne's thoughts rang through the room again. My father had almost softened. Then his face went cold.
"No one told you to spread your legs and get knocked up by some bastard, Clara."
He turned his back on me. Something in my chest just died. For good.
Julian's jaw tightened. He looked at the doctor.
"Get the pills. Force them down her throat. I want that thing dead before it comes out."
Every drop of blood in my veins went cold. I shook my head, frantically.
"Julian, please don't—"
Another contraction hit. I bit down on my lower lip until it bled. My baby kept fighting his way out, and every push split me open from the inside.
The doctor snapped on a pair of fresh gloves and approached the bed with the pills.
"No — no, no—"
"Ah!"
Nurses dragged me back against the mattress and pried my jaw open. Hands forced my baby's head back inside while they shoved the medicine down my throat.
I screamed until my voice broke, but nobody stopped. The bitter, chalky taste of dissolved pills went down my throat. They clamped my jaw shut and made me swallow.
My whole body convulsed, my fingers locked around the headboard rail.
The baby thrashed inside me, desperate, trying to find a way out. He was furious — tiny fists slamming against the walls of my belly.
Pain exploded through me. My vision went white. I clawed at the wall behind the headboard until my fingertips were shredded and raw.
"Julian! Save me — just let me have him—"
Blood kept pouring from between my legs, steady and unstoppable.
"He's your flesh and blood!"
Julian didn't even turn around.
"Julian, I want that limited-edition purse. Will you get it for me?"
Stella was draped over my husband's arm, pouting.
"A purse? I already got you that Northshore Estate you wanted."
He sounded annoyed — but in that helpless way men sound when they're too in love to say no. My parents didn't spare me a glance. Stella had swallowed their whole world.
Something acidic rose in my throat, and in that moment, I let go of the last thread of hope.
When I was seven, Julian had eyes for no one but me. He'd empty his piggy bank to buy me anything that made me smile.
He got into fights — real fights, bloody knuckles and everything — because someone was cruel to me. He'd stood in front of me and said it like a vow.
"Clara, I'm gonna protect you for the rest of my life."
My father used to hunt down rare gems from all over the world just to watch my face light up. My mother — a woman who had never even stepped foot in a kitchen — taught herself to cook because I was a picky eater.
I thought I was the luckiest girl alive. That belief was the only thing that kept me alive through twenty years in captivity. Every single day, I was desperate to come home.
But when I finally came back, someone else had already stepped into my life. A girl with my eyes, my smile, my place. And they didn't need me anymore. They only needed Stella.
"Stella's used to your room now, so you'll be in the guest room."
"You don't know anything about jewelry. It'd be wasted on you. Besides, it looks better on Stella."
I told myself it would all get better. That things would go back to the way they were.
Now I knew how wrong I'd been.
Tears slid from the corners of my eyes. The room blurred into nothing.
"Mr. Vance, the pills aren't working. The baby's crowning. His head's almost out."
The doctor's voice strained. And in that exact instant—
Crash.
A piece of equipment fell off the tray and sliced the back of Stella's hand.
[He's not even born yet and he's already hurting me. That little bastard — Clara's trying to kill me!]
Stella's thoughts exploded through the room. Julian went still. When he spoke, his voice went flat and cold.
"Wrap it. Head to toe. Seal off every inch of that baby until he suffocates."