She shoved me with both hands, hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. My feet slipped on the tile and my body fell backward into the island. The impact sent a shock through my spine that exploded into white heat.
I hit the floor, my head bouncing against the tile. For a moment I could not process anything beyond the pain, and then I felt warmth spreading beneath me, soaking through fabric, unstoppable and terrifying.
Aaron rushed in with Paul trailing behind him.
“She slipped,” Judith said instantly. “Always clumsy.”
Aaron frowned at the blood as if it were an inconvenience. “Rebecca, what is this. Paul is here.”
Paul looked pale. “This looks serious. We should call emergency services.”
“No,” Aaron snapped. “Do you want the neighbors watching ambulances. Get up. Clean this. Then we will go somewhere discreet.”
“I am losing the baby,” I cried. “Please call for help.”
He grabbed my arm and pulled. Another wave of pain tore through me and I screamed.
When I reached for my phone, he ripped it from my hand and hurled it against the wall where it shattered.
“You will not ruin my career,” he said quietly. “You will apologize and stay quiet.”
Something in me went cold.
I stopped crying and looked at him carefully, seeing him clearly for the first time. “You should call my father,” I said.
He laughed. “The retired nobody you made up. Fine. What is his number.”
When the voice on the other end answered without preamble, the room changed. The man demanded identification, and when Aaron gave his name, confusion turned to fear.
When I spoke, my father recognized my voice instantly, and when I told him what had happened, the silence that followed felt heavier than the blood beneath me.
“This is Justice Raymond Stone,” my father said at last, his voice stripped of warmth. “You will not touch my daughter again.”