My Fire Captain Husband Locked Me In To Attend Her Birthday Chapter 04

My Fire Captain Husband Locked Me In To Attend Her Birthday Chapter 04

On my third day in the hospital, the doctor finally agreed to discharge me for at-home recovery.

He told me my leg was fractured, my abdomen had soft tissue damage, I’d inhaled significant smoke, and I needed at least another week of observation.

I didn’t nod. I just asked, low, “Can I walk right now?”

He studied me for a long moment, then closed my chart with a clipped tone. “You can sign yourself out, but if anything goes wrong once you leave, it’s on you.”

“Fine.”

Lenore showed up with a stack of freshly printed documents. Divorce agreement, asset division checklist, draft complaint. She set them in my lap, her eyes dropping to the cast on my leg. She held back for about three seconds and then didn’t.

“Willa, are you absolutely sure? Give it two more days, you look like hell.”

“I can’t wait.” I cut her off.

My voice still came out shredded from the smoke.

“The HOA called. The fire scene’s been documented, residents are allowed back in to retrieve personal items. If I wait any longer, the cleanup crew starts gutting everything, and my things are going to be even harder to find.”

Lenore frowned. “You really think there’s anything left worth saving?”

I looked down at the papers in my lap and my fingers tightened.

The fire started in the kitchen. When it peaked that night, it gutted the kitchen, the living room, and the guest room.

Walls were blackened, curtains and furniture burned down to their frames, floors warped and soaked through with water.

But the fire department got it under control fast enough that the master bedroom never fully caught. Smoke got in, sure. But most of what was in the closets should have survived.

My ID, my social security card, the deed to the house.

And the wooden box my mother left me.

Everything she’d wanted me to keep. The one thing I’d never been able to let anything happen to.

Plus, every original document I needed for the divorce filing was in that room.

If I waited, I might never get any of it back.

“One trip.” I lifted my head and looked at Lenore. “In and out.”

Lenore held my gaze for a beat, then exhaled and helped me into the car.

Once we were moving, she kept one eye on the road and said, quietly, “I already talked to the property manager. The super’s got a spare key. I’m going in with you. You’re not doing this alone.”

I murmured something in response and turned toward the window.

The sky was a flat, bruised gray. Leaves skittered across the sidewalk. The sun wasn’t strong, but my eyes still burned, like the smoke had left splinters behind that never worked themselves out.

I’d spent so long putting that house together. The color of the couch, the shape of the dining table, the trim on the curtains, the warm lamp in the entryway. Every dish in the kitchen. I chose every piece myself.

I thought I was building a home.

I learned later it was just a house I’d paid for, furnished with my own money and my own labor, that someone else would move into the second I wasn’t there.

I wasn’t going back now to go home.

I was going back to pull out what was still mine before everything rotted past saving.

By the time we parked, my leg was already throbbing.

Lenore got out first and came around to help me. The hallway still smelled faintly of smoke. Safety notices from the HOA were taped to the walls.

A few trash bags of debris sat by the elevator. The air was damp and heavy and wrong.

I climbed the stairs slowly. Every step pulled at something inside me, abdomen, back, like stitches tearing one by one.

Lenore muttered under her breath, “That bastard better hope I never get my hands on him.”

I didn’t answer.

At the door, she slid the key from the super into the lock and turned it.

The door swung open.

What hit me wasn’t just the lingering stench of smoke. It was the thick, stale reek of alcohol.

My pulse jumped.

Lenore stiffened. Her arm went up instinctively in front of me.

The living room was worse than I’d imagined.

Soot-blackened streaks stained the walls. The ceiling near the kitchen had bubbled and split from the heat. The floor was covered in dried, dirty watermarks from the fire hoses.

And right there, in the house that nearly killed me, the coffee table was cluttered with empty beer bottles, takeout containers, an ashtray.

Someone’s wrap, stockings, and a pair of red-bottom heels glittered on the couch.

Like someone had turned my burned-down house into a party spot.

My fingers curled around my crutches until my knuckles went white.

Lenore’s face hardened. She muttered, “She actually moved in?”

I didn’t answer. I braced myself against the wall and walked toward the master bedroom.

The door was ajar. Soft breathing came from inside.

I pushed it open, and my whole body locked up.

There, in my bed, wrapped in my comforter, was Tessa.

She was wearing my nightgown. Her hair spilled across my pillows. A half-finished glass of milk and an unopened box of gourmet fruit sat on my nightstand.

She looked exactly like the woman of the house. Like a cherished, pregnant wife being doted on.

And I stood in the doorway in my brace, pale as bone, still carrying the smell of antiseptic and smoke, looking like a trespasser in my own home.

She must have heard me. Her eyes opened slowly.

She blinked once, then let her hand drift down to rest on her perfectly flat stomach. A lazy smile spread across her face. “Oh, Willa. You’re out of the hospital.”

Her tone was light. Like she was greeting an uninvited guest.

“You really should’ve called ahead. Dom’s not here today, no one’s around to make you soup.”

Lenore surged forward. “You’ve got some nerve…”

I threw out a hand to stop her, but my eyes stayed locked on Tessa.

She sat up, making a show of pulling the comforter up to her shoulders. The motion revealed bruises along her collarbone, red and obvious. Men’s clothes were scattered at the foot of the bed. I didn’t need to guess whose.

She followed my gaze and her smile widened.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Her voice dropped soft and vicious. “Dom came back last night. Said he didn’t want me sleeping alone.”

Something tore through my chest, hot and raw.

Last night. I jumped from a window and lay bleeding on the pavement while he was at Tessa’s birthday party. And now, after I crawled out of that fire with half my life still missing, he’d put her in my bed.

I stared at her, voice scraped to nothing. “Get up.”

Tessa tilted her head like she hadn’t heard me.

That was when I saw it. The pale yellow blanket beneath her. 　　My baby’s blanket. The one I’d bought for our future child.

It was stained with wine and dotted with dried patches of vomit.

My expression went cold. “Get up!”

Tessa glanced down at the blanket and laughed. “It’s just a blanket, Willa. What are you so wound up about?”

I crossed the room and ripped it out from under her, clutching it to my chest. The fabric was filthy, ruined. A cigarette burn had seared a hole through one corner.

Tessa nearly tumbled off the bed. Her expression flickered into something ugly. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

I turned to leave, blanket in my arms.

She scrambled up and blocked my path, her voice sinking low and cruel. “You seriously think you still matter? Dom doesn’t love you anymore. End of story.”

“While you were in the hospital, he took me out to dinner. Took me shopping. Spent every night with me. While you were lying in a hospital bed miscarrying, he was out buying me breakfast. So tell me, Willa. What exactly are you?”

Lenore already had her phone up, recording. 　　“Keep going,” she said, ice-cold. “Don’t stop now. I want every word on record.”

Tessa spotted the camera, and something shifted behind her eyes. She slapped herself across the face, hard, twice, and collapsed to the floor. The tears came instantly.

“Willa, I said I was sorry! Why did you hit me?”

“I wasn’t trying to sleep in your bed, I swear…”

The front door slammed open.

Dominic.

He was still in his turnout gear, sweat streaking his forehead straight off a call. He took one look at Tessa on the floor, face wet, and lunged.

“Tessa!”

He hauled her up and she grabbed his sleeve, sobbing. “Dom, don’t blame her, it was my fault, I shouldn’t have touched her things…”

Lenore spoke fast. “I’ve got the whole thing on video, she just…”

“Shut up!”

Dominic didn’t even glance at her. He turned and backhanded me across the face.

The crack of it sent me crashing into the dresser. Pain detonated through my fractured arm. The blanket tumbled to the floor.

Lenore’s voice went ragged. “Dominic! Are you insane? She just got out of the hospital!”

Dominic didn’t look at her. His eyes burned into me and his teeth were bared. “Apologize to Tessa.”

I braced myself against the dresser and straightened up. I could taste blood. “You want me to apologize. To her.”

“Yeah.” His stare didn’t waver. “I’ll give you till three. Three…”

I bent down, grabbed the divorce papers off the floor, shook them open, and held them out.

“Dominic. Sign.”

He snatched them from my hand and tore them in half. 　　“I told you. I’m not signing.”

“Then I’ll see you in court.”

I picked up my bag and walked toward the door.

I made it three steps before a hot, knifing pain ripped through my abdomen and my vision whited out.

Cold sweat slicked my back. 　　“Willa!”

Lenore caught me as my leg buckled. I went down hard.

The last thing I heard before I blacked out was her screaming.

“Call 911! She’s hemorrhaging!”