I spent my wedding night alone because my husband’s grandmother said every groom in their family had to sleep beside “the matriarch” before joining his bride. My husband told me not to make a scene. By morning, I was done being polite. I opened the door and found him unconscious beside her, with an unfamiliar stain on the sheet and a tiny puncture mark on his arm. That was when the story stopped looking like a disgusting tradition and started looking like something much darker.

I stared at Leo, completely shattered by the sheer magnitude of his monstrous betrayal.

He had played the role of the tragic outcast perfectly, manipulating my fear to deliver me straight to the slaughter.

He forcefully shoved me through the doors into the freezing, brightly lit operating theater.

The surgeons stopped their morbid work and backed away from the tables at the sight of the gun.

Eleanor turned her decaying, gray face toward me and smiled a truly demonic, toothless smile.

She wheezed a pathetic laugh, praising Leo for finally proving his loyalty to the Pemberton bloodline.

Arthur stepped out of the shadows of the room, looking incredibly proud of his eldest, twisted son.

He told me to get on the empty surgical table, promising that the extraction of my child would be completely painless.

I refused to move, gripping the heavy black ledger tightly inside my coat pocket.

I looked over at Julian, tears of absolute despair streaming down my face.

His eyes were closed, and his chest was barely rising beneath the heavy leather restraints holding him down.

Eleanor mocked my tears, stating that Julian was always too weak to survive the burden of this family's glorious legacy.

She explained that my unborn child’s stem cells, combined with Julian’s spinal fluid, would grant her another decade of perfect youth.

I screamed that she was a monster and that the world would eventually uncover this slaughterhouse.

Arthur laughed loudly, raising a syringe filled with a thick, cloudy sedative meant for me.

He took a confident step forward, ready to force me onto the cold metal table.

Suddenly, a loud, metallic click echoed through the silent operating room.

Julian’s eyes snapped wide open, blazing with a terrifying, fierce lucidity.

He had not been paralyzed for the last five hours.

With a sudden, violent surge of immense strength, Julian ripped his right arm completely out of the heavy leather restraint.

He had secretly severed the thick strap using a scalpel he had stolen from a careless nurse.

Before Arthur could react, Julian lunged off the table and drove the stolen scalpel directly into his father's shoulder.

Arthur screamed in sheer agony, dropping the syringe as he collapsed onto the slippery tile floor.

Julian pulled the intravenous tubes out of his own spine and stood between me and Leo’s loaded gun.

When my newborn 'passed away,' my mother-in-law leaned in and said

My Husband Left Me Alone in My Car While I Was in Labor

“You’re Dead When We Get Home,” He Snapped

He looked back at me, a fierce, determined smile breaking across his pale face.

He whispered that he had faked his paralysis just to find out exactly where they were hiding the evidence.

Chapter 8 - The Betrayal