It’s been two months since our trip to Aspen, and things have been utterly blissful. Our home has come together slowly but beautifully, since I’m still working. Xander knows how much my work means to me, so after asking me only once if I’d like to quit and stay home during my pregnancy—my response being an emphatic no—he hasn’t brought it up again. I’m not quite sure what I’ll do after our little one arrives, but for right now, I’m content working while I’m pregnant.

I did, however, get a job at a different fertility clinic. Both Xander and I decided it would be best if I quit working for Dr. Curtis, and I made sure to gather all of my hidden cameras before my last day. As far as I knew, Jacqueline hadn’t confronted Dr. Curtis about the surveillance footage Xander had access to. She hadn’t come into the clinic since that last day, when I’d given her and Xander the fake results to his semen analysis. 

She had, however, been threatening my keeper, and for that, I was not happy. But even as my rage built toward her, putting thoughts of painful revenge inside my head for upsetting my love, I tried to keep myself calm. I had to protect our baby growing within me, make sure nothing happened to our little miracle, so I couldn’t let something as insignificant as that wretched woman give me undue stress.

At first, the threats were about him telling me the truth. He ignored the texts for a while, but finally, I told him to respond, letting her know I knew everything about our beginning and that we were still happily together. I figured if she didn’t have that ammunition, then she would give up and sign the divorce papers Xander’s lawyer had sent her. 

But alas.

Her harassment continued, with promises of destroying my keeper’s reputation. With her father being the dean of Xander’s campus, those threats put fear inside my heart. His reputation meant everything to him. It’s what fueled his vengeful plan toward Jacqueline and my father in the first place. 

But then Xander calmed that fear by reminding me—and Jacqueline—of the surveillance footage of her fucking another man. And so things have been pretty quiet this past week. 

I got off at noon today; the new clinic I work for is only open half a day on Fridays. It’s been really nice, because it gives me a little more time to do housework before Xander gets home from teaching his Friday classes. He usually arrives around 5:00 p.m.

Glancing at the clock on the kitchen wall, I see it’s 1:26 p.m. I need to run to the grocery store to pick up a couple of ingredients I forgot for dinner. Damn pregnancy brain. I swear, even when I write myself a list, I’ll just end up forgetting it at home. With that thought, I shove my new list into my handbag, grab my keys from the hook on the wall in the foyer, put in the code to our security system Xander insisted on having installed, and hurry out the door, locking it behind me. 

I’m a little winded as I walk the aisles of the grocery store. Only last week did I have to move into actual maternity jeans. I had nausea off and on during my first trimester. I could only keep down a couple different starchy foods for a while, and I haven’t quite gotten all of my strength back yet.

I look into my shopping cart, mentally checking off everything on my list as I read each item. Seeing I’ve got everything I need to make our favorite baked potato soup for dinner, I make my way to the register. 

Bending down to grab a king size package of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups—the very first craving I ever had with our little one, and something I continue to need every night for dessert—I glance over my shoulder, getting the distinct feeling someone is watching me. Figuring someone is just in line behind me, I’m surprised to discover no one is there. 

Thinking nothing of it, I begin loading all of my items onto the conveyor belt, and when I’m finished, I wheel the cart to the end of the register for the teenager to fill after bagging all my groceries. I grab onto the side of the cash wrap, feeling a little dizzy for the tiny bit of exertion, a couple of spots showing up in my vision. 

“You all right, ma’am?” the cashier asks worriedly.

“I’m fine.” I smile. “It’ll pass. Just a little dizzy. The joys of pregnancy.”

“Oh, I totally remember that. Congratulations,” she tells me, and I see her warm smile as my vision clears. 

Nearby, I hear something glass shatter, making me jump. And then soon after, a woman’s voice comes over the store’s intercom. “Clean up at Register 6, please. Clean up at Register 6.”

My eyes automatically look up, seeing I’m at Register 4, before the cashier steals my attention. “That’ll be $46.21.” And when I go to swipe my card, she reminds me, “Insert the chip, dear.”

I chuckle. “Thanks. I still forget to do that after years of swiping.”

“You’re not the only one. I can’t tell you how many times a day I say that,” she says kindly. She rips off the receipt from her register and hands it to me. “You have a good evening. Get home and put your feet up. Make your hubby cook tonight. You deserve it.”

I don’t correct her about being married. Instead, I give her a grin and tell her to have a good night as well, pushing my cart toward the automatic doors. I quickly put everything into my trunk and roll my buggy into the closest cart return, getting that same weird feeling of being watched as I hurry back to my car. I glance out my window as I lock my doors the instant I sit down in the driver seat, but I see no one.

Maybe I’m just overly tired. I might do what the cashier suggested and just take a nap when I get back home. But I’ll set an alarm to wake me up in time to cook Xander dinner. It’s one of my many joys in life now, receiving his praise over every meal I cook for him in our amazing kitchen. As my belly grows rounder, Xander has grown softer, unwilling to dole out punishments. And for once, I don’t mind. Having our baby inside me has turned on a light in me, casting out my love of the darkness and replacing shadowy corners with sunbeams. I work hard to earn the gifts and pleasure he spoils me with, the thought of purposely doing something wrong in order to earn a punishment never crossing my mind anymore. Maybe it’s just instinct, wanting to protect our child. At first, I was worried Xander would grow bored with our sweet yet passionate lovemaking and would miss our more brutal fucking. But every time I see him watching me as I undress, I can tell our baby’s light has filled him too. 

Pulling up to the gate at the head of our neighborhood, I reach into my cup holder for my card. There’s no one in the brick security hut at this time of day during the workweek, so I roll down my window and wave my card at the sensor. The gate slowly rolls open, letting me through. Hearing an engine rev behind me, I glance in my rearview mirror to see someone speed through before the gate closes. A common occurrence when there’s no security guard on duty. Even I’ve done it a couple times before, in too much of a hurry to wait for the gate to close before I can scan my card to wait for it to roll back open once again. 

My attention returns in front of me, and I slow down when I see there are children playing on the sidewalk up ahead. I give them a wide berth as they wave at me when I pass by. I still haven’t made an effort to get to know anyone in the neighborhood, but everyone is always super friendly, waving at each other on their jogs, pleasant exchanges if you happen to be outside doing yard work at the same time. It might be nice to make some friends who are close by, especially with a baby on the way. I remember my mom being really close to some of our neighbors who also had kids. People she could rely on when she needed any kind of help, or even just to come over for nice conversations on our back porch while we children played in the yard. I have so many fond memories of looking up to find her laughing with one of her mom friends. 

God, I miss that laugh.

Pulling into our driveway, I don’t park in the garage, remembering Xander wants to start getting some of his tools organized in the new cabinets we had installed when he gets home from work today. I smile, remembering how excited he was when we went to the hardware store last weekend to pick out everything he wanted. He had a small toolkit when he lived in his condo, but now he can spread out and have any equipment his heart desires. 

I gather the few bags out of my trunk, make my way up the front steps, and let myself into the house, punching in our code before the security system goes off. I kick the door closed, and take all of the bags into the kitchen. Glancing at the clock, I see it’s now 3:07. Just enough time to put the groceries away and catch a decent nap before I need to wake up to fix dinner and have it ready by the time Xander gets home at five. 

Heading into the foyer, I stop at the bottom of the staircase, shaking my head at the metal suit of armor standing guard at the steps. I bend down and pick up the staff that had fallen once again across the bottom stair, putting it back in place and making a mental note to remind Xander to use his new tools to fix it. But then I chuckle, knowing my pregnancy brain will probably forget yet again.

Holding onto the banister, I lumber up the stairs, making my way down the hallway until I finally collapse onto our king-sized bed. I don’t even bother getting under the covers. My eyes close and I immediately fall asleep.

B-b-b-beep! B-b-b-beep! B-b-b-beep!

I feel around my body, my eyes still closed, trying to grab a hold of my phone to turn off the alarm. But I can’t find it. Growling in frustration, I open my lids to peer around my still-made bed, my cell nowhere in sight. That’s when I remember—I never set an alarm before I laid down. So what is that annoying sound?

It takes me only another moment to realize it’s the security alarm going off. Since it’s linked to our smoke detectors, my first thought is that I left something cooking in the kitchen that’s now smoking up the first floor. But I remember I didn’t start cooking when I got home from the grocery shopping. I came up here to take a nap instead. So what the hell is going on?

I roll out of bed, rubbing my eyes, and then walk out of the bedroom, heading down the hall toward the stairs. I’ve taken two steps down the staircase when I notice the light is on in the nursery. What the hell? I know for a fact I didn’t leave the light on. My keeper taught me many things back when I wasn’t neat and tidy, and one of those things was to always turn the lights off when leaving a room.

The incessant beeping continues, tugging half of me down the steps to go turn off the alarm, but the other half of me is being pulled toward my baby’s room. Is Xander home early? Surely it can’t be him allowing the alarm to continue to sound. 

I slowly take the two steps back up onto the landing, rounding the banister to creep toward the nursery. Peeking inside, my heart plummets to my stomach.

“Ah, there’s Sleeping Beauty.” 

Her voice sends a chill down my spine. 

As she sits in my rocking chair, her long, thin legs crossed as she dangles a stiletto from her toes, Jacqueline takes a drag from her cigarette. She blows the smoke up toward the ceiling, and it swirls around the smoke detector before dissipating. My eye twitches seeing and smelling this vile woman defiling Xander’s and my little one’s room. How dare she?

Suddenly, I find my voice. “Get out of my home, Jacqueline.”

She purses her red lips and then shakes her head. “No, I think I’ll stay for a while. Have a little chat. Just us girls.” She takes another pull from her cigarette. “You really should be more careful about locking your doors when you’re home alone.”

I step farther into the room until I can rest my back against the crib, continuing to face her head on. “What do you want? Why won’t you leave us alone? You don’t even love Xander,” I ask, my voice steady, even though I’m trembling on the inside with a mix of rage and trepidation.

“Silly girl,” she says, her eyes lowering to my stomach. My arms automatically cover it. “Who cares about love? Love doesn’t get you anything. It’s his power.”

My brow furrows. 

She looks delighted at my confusion, throwing her blonde head back and laughing. “Surely you don’t think all the nice, expensive things Xander buys for you come from a professor’s salary? The fucker drives a Tesla for God’s sake.”

I never cared about anything but the man. My thoughts never wandered in the direction of Xander’s money. He was a professor at a very prominent school. I knew public school teachers didn’t make much, but I always figured a college professor made a decent amount. I know my dad did. We were always well off, and I know my mom’s fertility treatments were super expensive, and they never blinked an eye at paying the cost. Of course, my dad never splurged on anything like a Tesla.

Her face grows bored while I stay silent, and she rolls her eyes. “He was a trust fund kid. His parents died when he was a teenager, and they left him their whole fortune. Millions of dollars. The stipulation was he had to earn a master’s degree before the funds were transferred to him.”

Her words don’t have the effect on me I’m sure she was hoping for. Xander is a millionaire. Okay. So what? It’s not like he was hiding it from me. He spoiled me every chance he got, buying me this incredible house, everything I could possibly want inside it, gave me gift after gift, filling the lit cubbies in our closet with designer handbags and expensive shoes. 

No, her words don’t make me angry at my keeper for not telling me about his trust fund. They make me even prouder to call Xander my love. The money would’ve been transferred long ago, and yet he still continued to teach at the college. He was passionate about his job, taught in a way that made his students passionate about his subject as well. No one ever had anything bad to say about Professor Stine’s class, except for the fact he was very strict when it came to term papers. Everything else said about him was voiced with excitement and interest.

She must see her information doesn’t have the outcome she was wanting, because her face morphs into a mask of pure rage. “Love doesn’t get you anything!” she repeats in a screech. “I left Xander to be with your asshole father for love. But that fucker broke up with me, spouting some bullshit about it not being fair to me because he was still in love with your stupid dead mother!”

With those words, the piece of my heart my father had broken locks back into its proper place. But I only have a moment to enjoy the feeling. With my back to the crib, I have nowhere to go as she comes at me. And before I can even lift my arms from around my stomach to protect myself, she jerks the Scottie-shaped lamp off of the side table and out of the wall and brings it down on my head. 

Everything goes black.

I’m at the end of a lesson on fallopian tubes when my cell starts going off in my pocket. I have it on silent, but the vibration is long and continuous, unlike the patterns I have set for texts and phone calls. 

Immediately, my heart thunders, knowing something is wrong as I pull my phone out and see it’s the security system’s app going off. As I slide my finger across the bottom to open it, nausea fills my gut as a clipart illustration of a flame fills the screen.

“You okay, Professor Stine?” a student calls from the theatre-style seating.

“Class dismissed,” I murmur, rushing over to my desk, grabbing my briefcase, and running out the door. 

My phone goes off again as I jump in my car, and I answer over the Bluetooth, “This is Stine.”

“This is Garrett with Parkside Security. The smoke detector in the room you nicknamed ‘Nursery’ set off the alarm, sir. Is this a false alarm, or would you like us to call the fire department?” he asks.

Realizing it’ll take me at least ten minutes to get home and not knowing what is going on, I give him the go-ahead. “Yes, send them,” I reply, trying my best to keep calm as I speed down the highway. 

“Fire department has been notified. Is there anyone currently in the home? We tried calling the other two phone numbers on the account, the home phone and one belonging to…” He drags out the word like he’s searching for something. “Lizith Morrison. But neither call connected.”

My hands grow clammy around my steering wheel. Oh God. Where are you, little bird?

“Lizith should be home. I saw her come home from the grocery store on our surveillance cameras about an hour ago.” The cameras! God, I’m obviously not thinking clearly or I would’ve just looked to see if she’s safe.

“All right, sir. Just drive safely. The fire department will be there shortly,” Garrett says, but I ignore his suggestion, reaching for my cell and pulling up the surveillance camera app. 

“Mother fuck!” I shout, absently hearing Garrett’s voice fill my car as an all-out rage fills my very soul. “Contact the police. Lizith is being attacked! She’s fucking pregnant!” I watch helplessly as the black-and-white image of Jacqueline smashing a lamp on my bird’s head fills the screen. Like a man possessed, my foot slams the pedal to the floorboard, using my car for what it was designed to do. To get me somewhere fast.

I vaguely absorb Garrett informing me the police are on their way as I make it to our gated community. I come to a stop and roll down my window, when what I really feel like doing is smashing through the godforsaken wrought iron fence. I wave my card at the sensor, and then I pound my fists against the steering wheel as I watch the gate slide open at an agonizingly slow pace.

When it’s barely wide enough to fit my car through, I stomp my foot down once again, and the Tesla shoots forward like a bullet. I pay no mind to the enraged people on the sidewalk, shaking their fists at me and yelling for me to slow down. The only thing I care about is getting to my little bird before Jacqueline hurts her even worse than she already has.

I don’t even bother turning the car off as I screech into our driveway and bolt out, running as fast as I can up the steps and through the front door. I slam against the wall of the stairway in my panic to get to Lizith, hearing something behind me. Thinking Jac might be trying to get away, I turn slightly as I continue up the stairs two at a time, but when I look over my shoulder, no one is there. I urge myself to calm down so I’ll be able to take care of Lizith when I get to her. I have to get to her, make sure she and our little one will be all right. 

When I enter the nursery, Lizith is lying in a heap on the floor, her head surrounded by a halo of blood on the otherwise pristine white carpet. I fall to my knees at her side, a strangled sound coming out of my chest as I reach to feel for her pulse. Tears instantly spring to my eyes as I feel it there, strong and steady. And with all of my knowledge of human anatomy, I know head wounds bleed profusely, but can also look much worse than they actually are. With her pulse beating against my fingers, I know she’ll be okay, and suddenly, nothing but the urge to kill consumes me.

I stand and turn toward the door, finding Jacqueline standing there with a knife from my kitchen. When she sees the look on my face—every muscle in my body tense, ready to attack—her expression changes from her usual ugly sneer to pure panic as she takes off running toward the stairs. 

I stalk after her, reaching to grab for her long, blonde ponytail trailing out behind her, but I miss, following her down the stairs as she runs as fast as she can in her high heels. 

And that’s when it happens. 

It’s as if the whole thing plays out in slow motion. 

She reaches the bottom step, ready to bolt toward the door just as the sound of sirens fills the foyer. But there, lying across the last stair, is the suit of armor’s staff I had never taken the time to fix. Her foot catches it before she sees it there, and she falls forward with a scream.

The front door bursts open right as a red puddle starts to expand out from under Jacqueline’s body. 

“Freeze! Police!” an officer orders, raising his gun to where I stand on the staircase as his eyes move from Jac’s sprawled figure on the floor up to me. 

I lift my hands in surrender, keeping my voice calm. “I’m Xander Stine. This is my house. My security company called you because my woman was being attacked. She’s upstairs, unconscious.”

He keeps his gun aimed at me as I see an ambulance pull up in front of the house. 

“Please, sir. I have surveillance cameras. You can watch the footage and see I did not touch this woman. She was the one attacking Lizith,” I urge.

Three EMTs hurry through the front door, forcing the policeman to move to the side. When they stop at Jacqueline, getting ready to care for her, I stop them. “No! She’s the assailant! My woman is upstairs unconscious from a head wound. You have to hurry. She’s pregnant!”

The EMTs glance from me to the officer, and I breathe out a sigh of relief as two of the three men jog up the stairs at his nod. The other stays, kneeling down at Jacqueline’s side before rolling her over.

The sight is absolutely horrifying. Blood gurgles from her mouth, the same color as she always wore on her lips like a sign of her future. From my distance, I see the knife sticking out of her chest as her bloody mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water. She reaches up toward the EMT, before her arm falls to the red-stained floor, her eyes never blinking again.