Chapter 12
Darkness wasn’t just the absence of light, it was the smell of damp burlap and the taste of salt.
Amara clawed at consciousness, her mind a fractured mirror. When she tried to gasp, her breath hit a wall of coarse fabric. A gag was knotted tight behind her jaw, forcing her tongue back and turning her panicked whimpers into hollow vibrations in her throat. The floor beneath her was cold, oil-slicked concrete that seeped through the sack, chilling her skin.
Then, the silence of the warehouse was punctured by a voice she would know anywhere.
“Oh, I’m so scared, Seb p>
The words were thick with a practiced tremor. Amara froze, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
“Mrs. Creed actually sent someone to hurt me,” Elara continued, her voice rising in a pitch-perfect imitation of a survivor. “They tied me… they beat me. If you hadn’t come to rescue me and capture one of the men, I wouldn’t be here right now p>
Through the weave of the sack, Amara saw the blurred, flickering shadow of Elara clinging to Seb. Every word was a serrated blade. The attacker in the bag wasn’t a mercenary sent by Mrs. Creed, it was Amara, the woman Seb was supposed to protect.
Amara thrashed, her bound limbs heavy and clumsy. She tried to scream his name, to tell him that the monster he’d just captured was the woman he loved. But as Seb’s footsteps grew closer, heavy with protective rage, she realized with a sickening jolt that Elara hadn’t just staged a kidnapping. She had staged an execution. And Seb was holding the sword.
The air in the sack grew hot and thin, stagnant with the scent of Amara’s own terror.
“Don’t worry,” Seb’s voice boomed, vibrating through the concrete floor and into Amara’s bones. It was a voice that used to promise her safety, now it sounded like a death knell. “I’ll make this right for you. So… this is the person Amara sent p>
Amara’s heart stopped. No, Seb. It’s me. I’m right here. She thrashed, the burlap scratching her cheeks, but her muffled cries were nothing more than pathetic grunts against the gag.
“Yes, Mr. Creed,” a cold, unfamiliar voice replied.
“Alright,” Seb snapped, his tone devoid of the mercy she knew he possessed. “Give them a good beating. I’ll make them pay for what they’ve done to Elara p>
The first blow landed like a thunderclap against her ribs. Amara’s vision exploded into white sparks. She couldn’t scream, the gag swallowed her agony, forcing the sound back into her lungs until they felt like they would burst.
The baby. The thought was a frantic, pulsing rhythm in her mind. At six weeks, her miracle was no larger than a sweet pea, but it was her entire world. It had taken years of tears, doctors, and shattered hopes to finally be told by the doctors that she was carrying a child.
Please, not the stomach. Not there, she begged silently, curling her body into a tight fetal ball, trying to shield her womb with her bound arms. You can’t hurt me. My baby is doing great. You’re my greatest blessing… please don’t leave me.
“Seb, I think we should let it go,” Elara’s voice drifted over the sound of another heavy thud against Amara’s shoulder. The hypocrisy was a poison. “After all, she was sent by Mrs. Creed. I don’t want to come between you and her p>
“They almost made you lose our baby,” Seb growled, his protective instinct twisted into a weapon against his own flesh and blood. “Keep going p>
The man obeyed. Each strike was a sickening squelch of fist against fabric and bone. Amara’s mind began to slip, the pain turning into a dull, terrifying roar. She was losing her grip on the world, her only thought a rhythmic prayer for the tiny life inside her. Stay. Please stay.
“Let’s go,” Elara said, her voice suddenly light, almost bored. “Let’s go home. I’m hungry p>
“Who’s hungry? You or the baby?” Seb’s voice softened instantly, turning into a playful, loving tease that felt like a hot iron pressed to Amara’s soul.
Amara felt a warm, terrifying dampness. She lay broken in the dirt, listening to the man she once loved turn to walk away with the woman he chose over their 10-year relationship.
The silence that followed Seb’s departure was heavy, broken only by the ragged, wet sound of Amara’s breathing.
Elara lingered for a fraction of a second, glancing back at the lumpy, stained sack. You’ve lost so much blood, Amara. It must be painful, she thought, a cold, jagged smile dancing in her eyes. You should just go to hell and take that brat with you.
But Amara wasn’t dead.
Adrenaline is a strange, violent fuel. Through the haze of agony and the sticky warmth pooling beneath her, Amara felt a singular, maternal rage. Her fingers, slick with her own blood, fumbled blindly at the knots. Every movement felt like glass grinding in her joints, but she didn’t stop.
The guard had stepped away to light a cigarette, his back turned, thinking his job was done. With a final, desperate tug, the rope gave way.
Amara clawed her way out of the burlap grave. She collapsed onto the concrete, her eyes immediately falling to the dark, crimson smear across the floor. The sight broke something inside her that could never be mended.
“You killed our baby,” she rasped.
The voice was thin, cracked, and trembling with a grief so profound it seemed to vibrate the very walls of the warehouse. It wasn’t the scream of a victim, it was the indictment of a ghost.
A few yards away, Seb froze.
That voice. It wasn’t the shrill, performative tremor of Elara. It was the voice that had whispered to him in the dark, the voice that sounded like home. His heart hammered against his ribs not with protective rage this time, but with a cold, paralyzing dread.
He turned sharply, his eyes widening as they landed on the broken figure swaying in the center of the room.