Chapter 3
825 Words
The doorbell cut through the silence.
"My darling grandson! Grandma's here to see you!"
The front door swung open from outside. Someone had a spare key. Ryan's mother, Helen Shaw, swept in carrying bags of local produce, her whole face lit up.
"Zoe, sweetheart, I brought some free-range chicken from the countryside. You need to keep your strength up..."
Her voice died the instant she took in the living room. She stared at the shredded papers scattered across the floor.
She looked at Ryan, half-naked and wrapped in nothing but a towel. Then she looked at Ava: disheveled, a vivid red handprint blazing on her cheek.
"What... what is going on here?" Helen managed.
Ava's eyes filled with tears on the spot. She crumpled to her knees at Helen's feet with a sob.
"Helen!"
She threw her arms around the woman's legs, tears streaming.
"Zoe's trying to throw us out. She wants Ryan to leave with nothing!
"But... but I'm carrying Ryan's baby!"
I turned to look at Ryan.
He dropped his gaze, refusing to meet my eyes. His hands twisted the edge of the towel, knuckles white.
Helen snapped to attention. She shoved me aside and folded herself around Ava.
"You haven't given us so much as a grandchild in years, and Ava is carrying a boy. We paid to have it confirmed!"
"Mom. What are you saying?"
I pressed a hand to my belly and looked at this woman, the same woman who had once fussed over me like I was precious. When I miscarried, she had clasped my hands and wept until she could barely breathe, calling me the greatest gift the Shaw family had ever received.
Now her eyes held nothing but the barely-there swell of Ava's stomach.
"Am I wrong? Look at yourself, Zoe Lynn. You look like a madwoman!
"Ava is younger than you. Ava can give us children. You've been hogging what you haven't earned, and you're going to stand in the way of my son finding someone who can give him an heir?"
Ava nestled against Helen and flashed me a pointed, deliberate look.
"Zoe, I know this hurts. But the baby is innocent.
"Ryan only did this for the family. Just let us be. And when the little one arrives, maybe the baby can call you Auntie?"
"Ava. Shut up."
I was shaking so hard I could barely form words. I pointed at the door.
"Ryan. Are you a man or not? How are you just standing there listening to this?"
Ryan stared at the floor, his voice barely audible.
"Honey, Mom's only trying to help. Maybe you could... sign the papers first? I'll give you fifty thousand dollars to make it right."
"Fifty thousand dollars?"
The absurdity of it almost made me laugh. The tears came anyway.
"I sold my parents' house for 2 million dollars. The company has turned at least 5 million dollars in profit these past two years. And you're offering me fifty thousand?"
"Don't push your luck, Zoe!"
Helen lunged forward, screaming, and drove both hands into my shoulders.
"That money was my son's blood and sweat. What does any of it have to do with you? You little jinx! You already cost me one grandchild, and now you want to steal my son's hard-earned fortune?"
The shove sent me stumbling. The small of my back slammed into the corner of the dining table with a sharp, vicious c***k, and a bolt of white-hot pain tore through my abdomen.
"Ryan... help me..."
Cold sweat broke across my skin. I grabbed the edge of the table. Ryan instinctively moved toward me, but Helen caught his arm and yanked him back.
"Leave her! She's always performing. She even faked that miscarriage to drain your bank account!"
Ava chimed in from behind her.
"Ryan, look at that performance. She should've gone into acting.
"We need to get out of here before she pins this on us and says we made her lose the baby."
I was in too much pain to speak. I fumbled through my bag and found the voice recorder, the one I'd quietly switched on back at the restaurant to collect evidence. I pressed play.
Ryan's own voice filled the apartment:
It was her! She threw herself at me. She was drunk, she came onto me! I pushed her off, I swear I pushed her off!
"You... you recorded me?"
Ryan went white. His eyes widened with something close to terror.
"You set me up, you vicious b***h. You set me up!"
Helen panicked. She lunged toward me.
"Get it! Take it from her now! We can't let this witch ruin my son's reputation!"
I curled myself around the recorder, my whole body folding inward.
"Ryan. You take one step closer and I send this straight to your company group chat."
Ryan stood frozen, his face cycling through expressions he couldn't control. Finally, he set his jaw.
"You forced me, Zoe."
- Writer
