He looked immaculate compared to the horror on the floor. His crisp blue button-down shirt was barely wrinkled. He looked down at me and Noah with an expression of profound disgust, as if we were a pair of spilled drinks on an expensive rug.
Behind him, Vanessa hovered in the doorway, her hands pressed over her mouth, her eyes darting frantically around the room. “Daniel, we have to go! If she called them, they’re coming! Let’s just take the money and run!”
“Not until I get that phone,” Daniel growled. “If there’s a recording, the insurance won’t pay out. The whole point of this was the payout, Vanessa! I’m not leaving empty-handed.”
He knelt down, his expensive leather shoes stepping right into a puddle of Noah’s spilled bathwater. He reached out to grab my hair, pulling my head back brutally. I gasped, a cry of pain escaping my lips.
“Where is it?” he demanded, shaking my head. “Where did it roll?”
I looked past him, my fading vision focusing on my son. Noah wasn’t moving. His eyes were closed, his face dangerously pale, a thin line of white foam forming at the corner of his lips.
No. No, please. Take me, just let him live.
A surge of primal, maternal adrenaline flared through my dying nervous system. It overrode the paralysis. It overrode the pain.
With a guttural scream, I drove my fingernails into Daniel’s face, dragging them down his cheek. I felt his skin tear, warm blood instantly coating my fingers.
Daniel shrieked, letting go of my hair as he clutched his bleeding face. “You miserable whore!”
He backhanded me. The force of the blow cracked my head against the porcelain base of the sink. Sparks exploded in my eyes, and I collapsed onto my side, completely paralyzed this time. I could feel warm blood trickling from my temple, mingling with the cold water on the floor.
