Chapter 6
735 Words
Yara couldn't move. She stood rooted to the spot, every muscle locked.
The nightmare from eight years ago had never fully let go of her — even now, it visited her in sleep, showing her that formless, blood-soaked shape. What should have been her child. Hers and Ethan's.
And now he had said let go like it cost him nothing.
He was going to use their child's ashes as medicine.
Yara stood there suffocating for a moment — then screamed, her voice tearing out of her throat: "Ethan, don't!"
Ethan carried the pendant to the medicine pot, his voice as cold as stone. "Maybe this is a blessing in disguise, Yara. If it helps Ava's baby, who knows — maybe our little one will find their way back through her."
Before the words had finished leaving his mouth, he tipped the pendant over without hesitation and let the ashes fall.
"No!"
Yara's eyes burned red, a metallic taste flooding the back of her throat.
That was her child.
Her child had just... disappeared.
Her legs gave out. She sank to the floor, eyes locked on Ethan, unable to look away.
Ava got up from the bed and walked over, her face arranged into something that looked like concern. "Careful, the floor's cold. Don't catch a chill."
Then she leaned down and breathed into Yara's ear, her voice curved into a smile. "A child? Please. It was just a clump of flesh that never made it into the world."
"Getting pregnant isn't impressive. Carrying it to term — that's what matters."
"If Ethan still has feelings for an eight-year-old lump of dead tissue, wouldn't that be a little pathetic?"
The pain hit Yara so hard she nearly couldn't breathe. Her trembling hand reached behind her and closed around the grip of her gun.
She leveled it at Ava's stomach and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Ethan's reaction was instant — he shoved Yara aside and caught Ava in his arms.
"You've gone after Ava again and again, Yara. It's time you faced the consequences."
"Take her to the police station. Tell them to make sure she learns her lesson."
Inside the police precinct.
On the first day, they gave her leftover scraps. She threw the tray across the room. They held her head over a toilet and made her drink from it.
On the second day, they forced her into freezing water. When she fought back, they bound her with rope and threw her into an ice-cold pool.
Day after day it continued.
On the seventh day, someone pulled a burlap sack over her head and the beating began.
The first blow landed across her back and sent her crashing to the ground.
"Look where Mr. Ross's heart is these days. You dared cross Ms. Harper — you brought this on yourself."
The strikes kept coming, one after another, without mercy.
Yara's consciousness started to blur.
Through the haze, a face surfaced — Ethan at sixteen, eyes bright and fierce and full of the future. "When I'm head of the Ross family one day, I promise — no one will ever dare lay a hand on you."
Those words had been enough. For twelve years, she had carried them without a single complaint.
But he had probably forgotten them long ago.
Only she was still living in the past.
On the eighth day, Ethan came to collect her himself.
He took one look at the damage covering her body, and something brief and pained moved through his eyes. "You didn't have to go through any of this, Yara."
"Once Ava has the baby, we'll put the child in your name. Ava looks so much like you — this way, we can have a child that's part of both of us. Isn't that something?"
Yara couldn't find a single word worth giving him.
"Yara, I—"
His words were cut off by a sudden, jarring ringtone.
It was Ava. Her voice came through saturated with panic.
"Ethan — someone from Yara's team took me somewhere. I don't know where I am, I'm so scared..."
"It's so dark in here... Ah! Who are you people — don't touch me!"
Then a man's voice broke in, low and mocking. "Well, well. Isn't this Mr. Ross's new favorite? And she just walked right into our hands."
"Help me!"
The call went dead.
Ethan spun around and looked at Yara.
- Writer
