Laura
Pain.
It wasn’t just the sharp, gut-wrenching agony radiating through my abdomen, or the throbbing sting in my back where I had crashed against the desk. It was deeper than that—an all-consuming, unbearable torment that clawed at my very existence.
I stared at the door David had just walked through, my vision blurring. He was gone. He really left.
I thought I would feel relief. I thought I would welcome it after years of enduring his suffocating love, his control, his obsession. Instead, there was only a hollow emptiness settling in my chest.
But I couldn’t dwell on that now. I was in too much pain.
Something was wrong.
A sickening warmth spread between my legs. When I looked down, I saw it—dark, crimson blood pooling beneath me, soaking through my dress, staining the floorboa
