A VENGEANCE AS CRUEL AS HIS LOVE

~ Jennifer POV ~ A positive pregnancy test is meant to be a blessing in a childless marriage, a moment of celebration. For me, it was a trap. The white plastic stick I had begged to show a single line stared back at me with two bright red ones, confirming that I was pregnant and that my life had just become far more dangerous. I stared at my reflection in the gold-rimmed mirror, the pregnancy test trembling in my grip like a live wire. My skin was ashen from weeks of silent sickness, my eyes hollow with dread. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not with Stanley. Stanley had warned me never to get pregnant; he didn’t want children. Still, I couldn’t understand how it had happened. A hard knock on the door made me jump, my heart slamming against my ribs. It was Stanley. I glanced at the wall clock, and it was 8pm. He was home too early. This is unlike him. He doesn't even come home most times, and when he eventually does, it was by 12 midnight, he was always drunk, reeking of alcohol and perfume from different whores. His shadow fell across the bathroom doorway as he forced the door opened. "Jennifer? Why are you hiding in here? And why didn't you touch your food? Is my money going to waste again?" He asked the questions almost the same time I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. His eyes narrowed. "Have you lost your tongue along with your appetite?” He yelled and grabbed my hair roughly, forcing me to speak. The maltreatment from Stanley was a regular punctuation in the sentences of our marriage: a slap for a cold dinner, a shove for a mumbled reply, a backhand for looking at him a second too long. So when his rough hand grabbed my hair and wrenched my head, my first emotion wasn't surprise but a weary, bone-deep resignation. Another night, another transgression I hadn't even known I’d committed. “A liability!” he continued. “You think I go out to break my back every day so you can hide in here and waste my food? And what the hell is this, Jennifer?” he said, pointing to the little white plastic in my hand as if the answers would fall out. It was the pregnancy test. The one with two bold red lines I’d been staring at for an hour before he forced his way in. I had forgotten to hide it. I was supposed to find another way, a safer way to tell him. Maybe over his favorite meal, with soft music playing. A foolish, romantic fantasy. There was no safe way with Stanley. “What the hell is that?” he screamed. “Stanley, am pregnant. But I can explain…” “You allowed this to happen?!” he shouted, the sound tearing through the quiet night. His hand was back in my hair, pulling, yanking me half out of the room. “I warned you! I warned you to be careful! Pregnant? How inconvenient." "Inconvenient?" I forced his hand away from my hair and screamed back in tears, “Stanley, it's our child." "Our child?" He took a step closer . "There is no 'our' in this, Jennifer. This is me, and there is you. And this… this is a complication. My timeline for the European expansion is this year. I cannot have you swollen and emotional, unable to host, becoming a… distraction." Tears pricked my eyes, but I willed them away. Crying was a victory for him. "It's not a distraction. It's a baby. Your heir.” He slammed the tumbler down on the marble floor; the sound echoed like a gunshot. "I decide what my legacy is! Not you! Not some… accidental pregnancy. You will get rid of it. We’ll schedule the procedure discreetly in Switzerland." "No." I yelle. It was the most powerful thing I’d ever said to him. His eyes widened in genuine shock. I had never directly refused him before. His hand shot out and gripped my upper arm, his fingers digging into the flesh. "What did you say to me?" "I said no," I repeated. "I'm keeping my baby.” "Your baby?" he asked in an uncomfortable manner. "You have nothing that is yours! This apartment, the clothes on your back, the food you eat; it's all mine! You are mine!" He shoved me, and I stumbled back, my hip connecting sharply with the edge of our luxurious mirror. A gasp of pain escaped me. "Please, Stanley," I pleaded, my hand making a covering over my stomach, a useless shield. "Don't you 'please' me," he spat, advancing again. "You will do as you're told. You will get back in line." He grabbed me again, and I twisted away, a surge of adrenaline giving me immediate speed. It was the wrong move. His face transformed into something truly monstrous. He didn't just slap me this time. He squeezed his fist into a rounded shape, and with a brutal, professional punch, he drove it into my side. The air left my lungs in a rush. I crumpled to the cold, hard floor, curling up in pain, which was lower and deeper. A hot, sickening cramp made its way into my abdomen. "Get up," he commanded. "Stop being dramatic." But I couldn't. The world was tilting, narrowing to a point of excruciating agony in my core. A wet warmth spread between my legs. I looked down, and the world stopped. The back of my white robe was stained with a deep, terrible red color. "No," I whispered the word like a prayer and a curse. "No, no, no." Stanley followed my gaze. For a single, horrifying second, I saw a flicker of something in his eyes, not remorse, but the startled calculation of a man assessing damages. "See what you made me do?" he said. "Clean yourself up. I'll call Dr. Evans. He’s discreet." Stanley stepped over the growing pool of blood, pulling out his phone, already distancing himself from the horror scene. "David," he said, "There's been an accident at the house. Jennifer fell. She's had a miscarriage. There's a lot of blood. Send your team. And get Dr. Evans here. Now.” My life crumpled before me. As I lay on the floor in a pool of my own blood and lost future, the taste of blood in my mouth was like a bitter pill I had never tasted. As the door clicked shut, something in me broke not into smaller pieces, but into something harder and sharper. The pain was still there, piercing into my head like a cold snake coiled in my stomach, but it was now joined by a new, fierce emotion: a burning, all-consuming hatred. But it wasn't in my spirit; it was the last chain holding me captive. The love I’d once foolishly harbored, the fear, the hope, it all drained away with the life of my child, leaving behind a cold, hard, empty vessel, ready to be filled with purpose: “Revenge.”