Twelve Years Of Salvation, Six Months Of Betrayal Chapter 03

Twelve Years Of Salvation, Six Months Of Betrayal Chapter 03

The next day, I took time off work and started packing at home.

There wasn’t much. A few changes of clothes, some documents. That was all.

The doorbell rang.

I thought it was the courier with the divorce papers I’d requested. But when I opened the door, I froze.

Sophia was standing outside.

She was wearing a cream white cashmere coat and holding the little boy from the video.

My knuckles went white around the doorknob.

“Emily, aren’t you going to invite me in?”

The woman looked me up and down, her face smug.

“I figured I should come by in person since things got cut off on the video call. I wanted you to meet Lucas properly.”

She gave the boy a little nudge forward, showing him off like a prize.

“Lucas is about to start preschool, and James feels terrible that he doesn’t have a proper home.”

“He said Lucas is his first child, and he wants me and the baby to move in for good.”

Looking at that child with James’s face, my stomach lurched.

“Get out!”

I screamed, pointing toward the elevator, my eyes bloodshot.

“Take him and get out of my house!”

I tried to slam the door in her face, but Sophia shot her hand out and caught it, forcing it back open.

She leaned in close to my ear and lowered her voice to a mocking whisper.

“Emily, stop pretending you’re so high and mighty. You really think James loves you?”

“He told me himself he has to take sleeping pills every night just to stand lying next to you.”

“Just touching you reminds him of what happened to you back then.”

She stared into my eyes, stepping closer.

“He said you’re damaged. That he had to come to me to feel normal. That only a clean body like mine could actually turn him on.”

Something in me finally broke.

I’d spent twelve years trying to heal from what happened when I was sixteen.

And he’d turned it into something to joke about with his mistress.

“Don’t you dare bring that up!”

I shrieked, raised my hand, and slapped her across the face with everything I had.

The crack echoed in the hallway.

Sophia staggered, her forehead slamming into the edge of the cabinet.

Blood immediately streamed down her face.

The little boy started wailing in terror.

Sophia clutched her bleeding forehead and scrambled backward.

“You crazy bitch! You’re insane! This isn’t over!”

She grabbed the child and fled into the elevator.

I slid down the doorframe and sat on the floor, my eyes closed. I felt nothing at all.

I made my decision. I pulled the ultrasound photo from under the coffee table, the one I’d been so excited about for six months, and tore it into pieces.

The surprise I’d planned to give James now felt like a slap in my own face. A hot, stinging slap.

Half an hour later, the lawyer sent over the papers. I signed them and left the divorce agreement right in the middle of the coffee table.

A storm was raging outside. Rain pounded the windows as I grabbed my suitcase, ready to leave.

Then the front door crashed open. James kicked it in.

Before I could react, his face twisted with rage. He lunged at me and his hand clamped around my throat.

“Emily! Where the hell is Lucas?”