Chapter 3

Joel’s laugh followed me out before the door shut.

“How many times are you going to play this game, Pauline? Tomorrow you’ll be back here begging me to let you in.”

I called a car from the curb. When it arrived, the driver stowed my suitcase and asked where I was headed.

I gave him the address of the private women’s hospital downtown. It had a maternity wing staffed by pack healers through the night.

We’d barely turned the corner when Joel texted.

Get back here tonight and apologize to Lily. If you’re not home by morning, I’m canceling your card.

I read it once. Then I blocked his number, went through my messaging apps, and removed him from every account where he could reach me.

The city lights slid across the window. For a few blocks, I could see my reflection clearly enough to make out the red line across my throat.

Five years earlier, after Joel’s first business folded, two men he owed money to cornered him in an alley. He was already on the ground when I found him. One of the men raised a bat to bring it down on his head. I stepped between them.

I remember Joel cradling the back of my head afterward. Blood ran down my temples and onto his sleeves. He kept trying to wipe it away with his thumb. He was crying so hard he had to say my name twice before he could get the rest out.

“I swear you’ll never have to suffer because of me again, Pauline. I’m going to give you the best of everything.”

His next business took off. By then he could buy almost anything he wanted. I’d just watched him offer Lillian anything she liked at tomorrow’s auction.

I laid a hand over my belly. The ache from the dressing room had faded, but I kept my palm there until we reached the hospital.

I’m sorry, baby. I can’t bring you into this world just to watch you suffer in it.

At the hospital, I handed the signed form to the night nurse. She checked me in and showed me to a bench outside the procedure rooms. I had the first appointment in the morning.

My phone buzzed.

A charge on the card Joel had given me as an authorized user. Then another. A handbag from a boutique that stayed open late for private clients. Jewelry from the shop he’d once taken me to when he wanted me to stop asking where he’d spent the night.

The amounts kept climbing. Less than an hour ago, Joel had promised Lillian anything she wanted at the auction. Apparently, neither of them had felt like waiting.

He’d threatened to cancel my card in the morning. I knew what he wanted now. He wanted me to unblock his number and ask him to make her stop.

I opened the banking app and reported the card lost.

The alerts stopped.

Before dawn, Dr. Finch came down the hall with my chart. Two weeks earlier, she’d explained the risks and held the appointment and recovery suite while I decided.

“Ms. Sullivan.” She sat beside me on the bench. “Are you still sure?”

“Yes.”

“You’re six months along. We talked about how difficult the induction could be, and what the scans might mean for a future pregnancy. I can’t promise you’ll be able to carry another child.”

She waited. She’d given me the same silence two weeks ago, and I’d used it to ask whether I could have another day to think.

“I’ve made my decision,” I said.

Dr. Finch opened the chart to my consent form. At the bottom, Joel’s signature ran across the box marked Family Acknowledgment.

“Admissions will verify his acknowledgment for the pack record,” she said. “Then I’ll come back and get you.”

A nurse came around the corner before she could stand.

“Dr. Finch, there’s a problem in the private wing. Lillian Fox says she’s in pain. We offered her a room, but she’s insisting on the largest suite.”

The nurse glanced at me.

“It’s the one we reserved for Ms. Sullivan.”

I heard Joel before I saw him. He was telling someone to get out of his way.

He came down the corridor with an arm around Lillian and his bodyguards behind him. She was walking easily. When she spotted me, her eyes lit up.

“Oh, Joel. Look who’s here.”

She put both hands over her belly and leaned into his side.

“I feel awful about last night, Pauline. I think I caught a chill, and the baby hasn’t settled down since. Joel absolutely refused to let me stay home.”

She looked past me at Dr. Finch.

“I heard you booked the best suite. You wouldn’t mind letting me have it, would you? Just this once.”

Joel didn’t ask what I was doing on a bench outside the procedure rooms before dawn. His eyes went to the suitcase at my feet.

“You really know how to run, don’t you, Pauline?” he said. “What’s next? Hiding from me in a hospital?”