Chapter 1
Vanessa shoved eight-month-pregnant Khloe down the courthouse steps while Richard stood three feet away and watched.
Khloe’s body struck the marble.
Pain exploded through her back.
Her hands flew around her stomach.
“My baby!”
Her scream silenced everyone outside the courthouse.
A moment earlier, Khloe had been walking away from the hearing that would decide whether Richard could freeze their joint bank accounts during their divorce.
Now she was lying on the steps, unable to feel her baby move.
Vanessa stared down at her.
For one terrible second, satisfaction appeared in her eyes.
Then she looked at the gathering crowd and stepped backward.
“She slipped,” Vanessa said.
Khloe’s older brother, Harrison, charged through the courthouse doors.
He had heard the scream from the hallway.
When he saw his sister on the ground, something inside him snapped.
He ran straight toward Richard and punched him across the jaw.
Richard collapsed against the railing.
“You watched your mistress attack my sister?” Harrison shouted.
“I didn’t see anything!”
“You were looking right at her!”
Vanessa turned and tried to run.
Harrison caught her arm before she reached the sidewalk.
He pulled her back and forced her to face Khloe.
“She’s pregnant!”
“Let go of me!” Vanessa screamed. “She attacked me first!”
“That’s a lie,” an elderly man in the crowd said.
“I saw everything,” a woman added. “That woman pushed her with both hands.”
Richard got up and lunged at Harrison.
Harrison stepped between him and Khloe.
Richard swung first.
Harrison ducked and knocked him down again.
Courthouse officers rushed outside.
“Everyone on the ground!”
Harrison immediately raised his hands.
Vanessa began crying.
“He attacked us! Arrest him!”
But more than twenty witnesses were already speaking at once.
“She pushed the pregnant woman.”
“The husband did nothing.”
“He tried to help her escape.”
“There are cameras above the entrance.”
A paramedic knelt beside Khloe.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please save my baby.”
“When did you last feel movement?”
“Before I fell.”
The paramedic’s expression changed.
He called for a stretcher.
Blood appeared beneath Khloe’s pale blue dress.
Harrison saw it and nearly stopped breathing.
He knelt beside her and took her hand.
“You’re not alone,” he said. “I’m going with you.”
Across the steps, an officer handcuffed Vanessa.
Richard’s face went white.
“You can’t arrest her,” he said. “She’s done nothing.”
Khloe lifted her head.
“She pushed me.”
Vanessa stopped crying.
Her expression hardened.
“You’re going to regret saying that.”
An officer tightened the handcuffs.
“Threatening the victim in front of police is a bad decision.”
Another officer turned to Richard.
“Place your hands behind your back.”
“For what?”
“Assault, obstruction, and attempting to interfere with a witness.”
“I’m her husband!”
Harrison looked at him with disgust.
“You stopped being her husband when you chose your mistress over your wife and unborn child.”
Paramedics lifted Khloe onto the stretcher.
As they carried her toward the ambulance, she stared at Richard.
She waited for him to ask if the baby was alive.
He never did.
Instead, he looked at Vanessa.
“Don’t say anything until the lawyer arrives.”
That sentence destroyed the last piece of Khloe’s heart that still belonged to him.
Harrison climbed into the ambulance.
Khloe gripped his hand as another wave of pain tore through her body.
“They’ll never touch you again,” he promised.
The doors closed.
The siren began to scream.
Then the paramedic looked at the monitor and shouted toward the driver.
“Call the hospital. We may need an emergency delivery.”
Khloe began to shake.
“Is my baby dying?”
The paramedic did not answer.
May you like
He only reached for an oxygen mask.
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