Page 71 of Psycho

Daughter. I was having a little girl. And Damon found out before Maddox did. No!

“Perfect.” The slime ball rubbed his hands together with a sneer my way again before addressing the doctor. “How soon can you deliver it?”

“What?” I snapped, sitting up and putting my feet on the floor in horror.

“The baby would be early, but very viable any time now,” The doctor replied, ignoring me completely. “My recommendation is to induce labor with medications and deliver her here as well. I can have all the equipment necessary delivered this afternoon.”

“No!” I cried, flicking my stare from the doctor to Damon and back before finally turning to the Duke. “You can’t! It’s too early!”

The doctor chuckled dismissively, “You’re a big girl, you’ve grown a big baby.” He scoffed and turned back to the man responsible for all my heartache. “You’ll appreciate me delivering the baby early if you have any plans to enjoy the act of making another one anytime soon.”

The nausea rolled in my stomach even more at the flippant words. This was a nightmare, and I was going to hyperventilate if I didn’t get my breathing under control as the two continued making plans about my body and my baby, like they deserved a damn say.

They couldn’t deliver my baby, or they’d take her from me. I knew it, even if they didn’t say it out loud.

Damon would take my daughter, and I’d never see her again.

Suddenly, my desire to fight and survive burned with a new vigor I didn’t recognize in myself.

“Why the rush?” The Duke finally spoke, leaning up off the wall. “Surely it’s best to let the baby continue to—” He hesitated to say the words like they didn’t come naturally to him, “cook until it’s due date.”

“We don’t have the time to wait.” Damon cut in. “The sooner we have the baby out, the sooner the stakes change and fall in my favor.”

“You can’t do this.” I sneered, standing up to my full height to stare down the man who had seemingly already ruined my life until that moment. But staring him in the eye as he prowled across the room toward me, I realized he was just getting started.

“I can do whatever the fuck I want to do.” He wrapped his hand around my throat and slammed me into the wall next to us, bouncing my head off it and sneering at me. “And there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. Your future is going to look a lot like this, shackled on your back, growing babies for me. Because thanks to you stupidly getting knocked up, you’vebroadened my horizons, and I’ve found a new skin trade far more profitable than whores.”

Ice filled my veins as I fought back against him, so he’d stop pressing against my stomach as he choked me. “No.” I hissed.

“That’s right, smartie pants.” He tightened his hold on my neck as I swung uselessly at his face as my vision darkened from the lack of oxygen getting into my brain. “Babies are far more lucrative than whores are.” He chuckled, “Though we both know there’s a good chance she’ll end up working for both black markets before she dies.”

I erupted, fighting with everything I had left inside of me, but it was no use. He was too strong and too evil to overcome.

As my body went limp in his grimy clutches, I looked to the side and locked eyes with The Duke, silently begging for help. Begging for what I thought I knew about him would help me in some way in the end.

Although I didn’t have long to study it, the look he aimed at the back of Damon’s head as I slipped into unconsciousness spoke to that hope in my heart.

It was the look of a madman, ready to tear someone apart.

It was the look Maddox had in his eyes the night he found me on the floor of the storeroom in the Hell Eater’s lounge and rescued me.

It was the look Peyton described as Dane having the night he shot his own brother in her guest house when he found him breaking in.

As I fell to the floor in a heap after Damon released me before he killed me completely, I begged God to let that look save my baby in the end. Please let that darkness save my daughter.

Chapter 33 – Olivia

When I woke up, I was disoriented and confused about what happened before waking up on the bed, but it all flooded back to me when my stomach tightened painfully, making me cry out in pain. I curled myself into a ball, trying to grip my stomach to relieve the pain, but my wrists caught as I tried to pull them away from the sides of the bed. I lay in the middle of the bed, restrained on my back with my arms tied down at my sides.

It was then that I saw the IV in the back of my hand and the bag of fluid hanging above me on an IV pole, feeding something into my body against my will.

“No!” I cried out, feeling like my body was splitting into two as the wave of pain crested and then started diminishing to a dull ache.

I was alone in the room as I cried out again in pure horror, realizing they had induced my labor while I was unconscious.

With my baby’s impending birth, a chilling sense of vulnerability overwhelmed me; I couldn’t protect her or even myself. I fought the bindings around my wrists, using strength and willpower I didn’t recognize to free myself to save my baby. If I got free, maybe I could stop the labor at least, or slow it down and buy some time.

Another contraction hit me like a tidal wave, starting slowly and building until I was crying out again. But I used the pain in my stomach to distract me from the pain in my left wrist as I pulled against the bindings so hard something popped and then my hand slid free. I gasped, biting my lip to quiet my cries as I pulled my arm free and rolled onto my side to try to work the other restraint free.

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