I had always hated them. I hated the way Liam Sterling looked at my daughter like she was a shiny accessory to his curated lifestyle rather than a human being. I hated his mother, Eleanor, who looked at Chloe like she was dirt tracked in on a designer rug. But Chloe loved him. Or, at least, she was too deeply conditioned and afraid to leave him. Especially now. Chloe was five months pregnant.
When I finally saw the flashing red and blue lights cutting through the pre-dawn gloom, illuminating the heavy sheets of rain, I slammed on the brakes. My truck skidded to a halt on the gravel shoulder.
The bus stop was nothing more than a bleak concrete slab with a rusted metal shelter, located miles from the nearest residential neighborhood. It was a desolate place for ghosts and drifters, not a place you would ever find a young, pregnant woman from a wealthy, gated estate.
I jumped out of the truck, leaving the door wide open and the engine running. The freezing rain soaked through my flannel shirt instantly.
“Ma’am! Stay back!” an officer shouted, stepping into my path with his hand raised.
I didn’t even look at him. I shoved past his arm and ducked under the yellow crime scene tape.
And then I saw her.
Chloe was curled into a tight, protective fetal position on the muddy concrete. She looked like a discarded, broken doll. Her beautiful blonde hair was heavily matted with dark mud. Her face… I brought a trembling hand to my mouth to stifle a guttural scream that threatened to physically tear my throat apart. Chloe’s face was horribly swollen, a landscape of purple and black. Her left eye was completely swollen shut. She was shivering violently, her teeth chattering so hard I could hear it over the storm.
But the most horrifying part was her clothes. She was wearing nothing but a thin, torn silk nightgown, soaked through and clinging to her battered frame. And her hands—both of her small, delicate hands—were wrapped protectively over the distinct swell of her pregnant belly.
“Chloe!” I threw myself onto the freezing mud, crawling the last few feet, ignoring the sharp rocks tearing at my knees.
Her one good eye fluttered open. She looked at me, but there was no recognition at first—only raw, primal, animalistic fear. She flinched violently, raising a bruised arm to protect her face, a reflex that broke my heart into a million jagged pieces.
“It’s me, baby. It’s Mom,” I sobbed, hovering over her, utterly terrified to touch her and cause her more agony. “Oh, God. Chloe, who did this to you?”
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