His arms were around me before I collapsed. "Get the car!" he barked at his men.

Everything blurred.

The last thing I saw was Bryant’s face—his mask of control replaced by something I had never seen before.

Panic.

Fear.

Regret.

When I woke up, the hospital room was dim. My body felt weak, empty.

Bryant sat beside my bed, his face pale, his eyes red. He had been crying.

My throat was dry, my voice hoarse. "Bryant… what happened?"

His hands clenched into fists. He took a deep breath, but it shook.

And then, he shattered.

"The baby," he choked out, his voice barely above a whisper. "The baby… didn’t make it."

For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

Tears welled in his eyes, pure devastation etched into his face. His shoulders trembled, his grip tightening on the edge of the bed as if he was holding himself together by a thread.

"I—I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice breaking. "I couldn't… I couldn't do anything."

I woke up to the soft rustling of sheets, my fingers instinctively reaching out, only to grasp the emptiness beside me. Bryant was gone.

In his place stood Nurse Angela, her warm eyes filled with something I couldn't quite decipher. Pity? Concern? I pushed myself up, my voice rasping from disuse. "Where is he?"

She hesitated before shaking her head. "I don’t know."

Something about her expression told me she was lying, but I didn’t press. Maybe I was too drained, too disoriented to care.

Days passed, and I was discharged from the hospital. But instead of returning to the vast halls of the mansion, Bryant had me locked in the basement. It was dark, damp, and windowless, the silence broken only by the occasional footsteps of the guards outside.

At first, I thought I’d be left to rot there, but then Angela started visiting me. She came in secret, always checking over her shoulder before slipping inside with a tray of food or a blanket. She was the only person who spoke to me, the only one who treated me like a human being.

One night, as she placed a cup of tea in front of me, her voice dropped to a whisper. "I have a way to get you out."

I stared at her, stunned.

"I took the keys from one of the guards," she explained. "I... I seduced him and slipped something in his drink."

I swallowed hard. "Angela, if Bryant finds out—"

"He won’t," she interrupted. "But we don’t have much time. You need to go now."