She smirked. “Touched a nerve? I’m sorry. I forgot you’re a little sensitive about being barren. But see, I’m everything you couldn’t be. He doesn't even flinch when he touches me.” Her fingers brushed her collarbone. “He groans. You? You were just a placeholder. The tech girl he had to tolerate until he found someone who could give him more than brainy tantrums and spreadsheets.”
She crouched, voice dripping with venom.
“You know what the real joke is?” she whispered. “I used to envy you. I hated how everyone compared us, even when my family had more money. More everything. But still—‘Why can’t you be more like Danica?’ ‘Why can’t you be smarter, Dulcie?’” Her lip curled. “All I ever heard. And now? Look at you. Alone. Filthy. Forgotten.”
She stood, brushing invisible dust from my robe.
“Thanks for the wardrobe, by the way. And the man. And the legacy. You can rot down here while I raise the next heir of Titanis... in your bed.”
She blew a kiss, then turned, her laughter slicing through the silence like glass.
When the echo finally faded, I stared at the shredded photo on the floor. My mother’s smile. My younger self.
My fingers curled over my belly again.
No.
She could wear my name. My robe. My mother’s necklace.
But she would never wear my legacy.
He could chain me down here, but he would never own what was growing inside me.
I stared at my reflection in the dusty metal door.
Where was she?
Where was Danica McKellar—heir to Titanis Global, the girl with the million-dollar mind and an empire in her blood?
I touched my belly. The only part of me still warm.
Three heartbeats. Not just mine. Three tiny reasons to survive.
He could take everything. But he would not take them.
***
I waited.
Days passed. I pretended to weaken. I let my body sag, eyes dull, steps wobble.
And when the guard came—tall, impatient, annoyed—I collapsed into him like a dying animal.
“W-water,” I whispered, barely audible.
He caught me.
Wrong move.
My fingers found the gun at his waist before he even realized I was conscious.
The cold metal felt like freedom.
Crack.
I slammed the butt of the pistol into his temple. He dropped. Hard. His keycard was in my hands before his body hit the ground.
I ran.
Not fast. My body was weak, but rage made me sharp. Silent. I knew this house. Every inch. Every creak. I slipped into Reagan’s office.
The bastard hadn’t changed a thing.