He Kept Postponing Our Marriage for Her Crises… So I Ended It Myself Chapter 04
A python, as thick as my forearm, was sliding out from behind the boxes.
My mind went blank.
I screamed and stumbled back.
“Julian…”
I tried to bolt for the stairs, but my foot slipped, and I went down hard on the concrete.
Pain tore through my lower stomach, white-hot and blinding.
“Ah…”
I curled around my stomach, both hands pressed to my belly.
Something warm ran down my inner thigh. It pooled on the gray concrete beneath me.
“Julian! Help! There’s a snake! Oh God, there’s a snake down here! My stomach… the baby…”
I screamed it toward the stairs with everything I had.
Footsteps overhead. They stopped at the top of the stairs and didn’t come any farther.
“What the hell are you screaming about?”
His voice came down flat and empty, like I was a nuisance, not a person.
“There’s a snake! In the basement! I fell. I’m bleeding. Please, come down!”
Silence. A few seconds of it.
“Enough,” he snapped, sounding like he was scolding a child for throwing a tantrum. “One night in the basement and you can’t handle it?”
“Have you ever stopped to think about what Chloe’s life looks like now? She has the mind of a toddler. For the rest of her life.”
“She just fell asleep. You scream one more time, and I’ll throw you out on the street.”
The bleeding hadn’t stopped.
Fear sat on my chest. Despair right behind it.
“Julian, I’m really…”
“Since you’re so wide awake,” he cut in, voice hard, “let me give you something else to keep you up
tonight.”
“Arthur’s passport. His plane tickets. They’re on my desk right now.”
“You really thought he could get out of Baycrest without me knowing?”
My blood ran cold.
He already knew. Our plan to get out of Baycrest. Had he known the whole time?
After I married Julian, I refused to do what the Crawfords wanted. I refused to hand them the Sterling family’s business secrets.
Mrs. Crawford never forgave me for that.
Chloe, on the other hand?
She’d handed over everything, every piece of proof that Nathaniel’s father had been evading taxes, gift-wrapped for the Crawfords.
The Crawfords used it as leverage over the Brooks family for two solid years. They were thrilled
with Chloe.
Behind the scenes and in plain sight, they backed her. They pulled the strings for her, paving her way and dictating her every move.
Julian never believed me because Mrs. Crawford had gone to him herself.
She told him she’d been planning to match Chloe with him all along.
That I was the one who rigged the draw and pushed Chloe into a marriage with Nathaniel’s father.
She
spun the lie so well that nothing I said could undo it.
With the Crawfords behind her, Chloe could threaten divorce whenever she pleased, and the Brooks family didn’t dare say a word.
But I knew the Crawfords would never actually let the divorce go through.
Chloe’s marriage into the Brooks family was their leash. Cut that, and they’d lose all their leverage.
That was the only reason I’d tolerated Chloe circling my marriage for as long as I had.
I’d thought the baby and the wedding could change things.
If he would just choose me, really choose me, I could hold on.
But he couldn’t even give me that much. Not even the words.
The snake was still there, coiled in the corner, tongue flicking out, tasting the air.
I bit down on my lip and dragged myself across the floor, palms flat on the concrete, inching toward
the stairs.
“Julian, don’t touch him!” The words came out ragged, barely holding together. “Do whatever you want to me. I’m begging you, leave him out of this.”
Silence from above.
Then his voice drifted down, measured and flat.
“I already told you. Every time you pull a stunt this month, things get worse for Arthur. That’s on you. Your choice.”
The pain had swallowed my voice. I couldn’t even scream anymore.
I wanted to say it. I’m losing the baby. Please save me. It’s your baby too…
But the words jammed in my throat. All that came out was a breath. “Ba…”
“What?” Just irritation. Nothing else.
I didn’t have the strength to try again.
My lips moved, but nothing came out. There was only the taste of blood in my mouth and the iron smell of it all around me.
I lay on my side in a spreading pool of blood, and the edges of the world started going dark.
The python uncoiled from the corner and began sliding toward me.
