CHAPTER 2

GAIA

“Madam please, you need to rest.”

I grabbed the IV in my hand and was about to pull it out when the door opened. It was the doctor. 

“Please, Mrs Quieten, you need to relax.”

My breathing was heavy now as I was trying to keep down the tears that were peeking in my eyes. 

“Doctor. Doctor, please tell me these men are lying. They're saying that something happened to my baby and I don't understand it. Why? What happened? I don't do drugs!"

“But the drugs were found in your system. You were so high that even your baby was so high. She didn't have the immune system or the strength to handle that. It's enough to kill her. I just wanted to inform you that the police will be coming by soon for questions.”

The police? So now I was a murderer? 

“Doctor, that won't be necessary.. walk with me please." 

Evan took the doctor and walked outside, leaving me there to soak in everything that I'd just heard. 

My baby was dead. 

Drugs were found in my system. 

The police were coming by for questioning because I was a murderer. 

My head dropped in my hand and I didn't bother to stop the tears now. I cried and cried until my head began to ache and the surgery scar on my stomach tore open. 

When I saw the blood, the doctors had to be called back to stitch me up again. I didn't care about it though. Right now, I felt numb and maybe the pain would make me feel something. 

Why me? Why did I have to be the one to go through all this? I wanted that baby, I would never do anything to compromise that. 

It was a miracle that I'd even gotten pregnant. Javon barely touched me and in the few times that he did, it didn't last very long. He was the only one who finished and that was it. 

He wanted an heir, not a child. 

I just sat there, thinking about what he was going to do to me when I got home until I ran out of water to cry. 

Which degrading words would he use this time? Where is he going to ask me to sleep? Would he tell the maids not to feed me once more? 

Even though he never laid his hands on me, nothing changed. He did not give a damn about me, did not care that my life was a living hell. 

 I was not the one he wanted but she was the one he desired. 

I was merely his family's fallback to keep them from being embarrassed. 

Speaking of Javon, I instantly remembered the voice on the phone when I was out of it. She had undoubtedly been referring to me. 

She said, "Boss," as I recall. Had she been speaking with Javon?

That makes sense, of course. Why would he want the baby dead though? He was the one who wanted an heir. 

It came to me all of a sudden. It was a girl. Because he did not want a daughter, he killed my child. 

He wanted an heir. Not a child. 

The rage that was beginning to boil inside of me was uncontrollable. I promise that he will pay for what he did. 

Javon Michael Quieten is going to pay for killing my child, even if it is the last thing I do. 

It had been almost a month since they'd kept me here. They said they couldn't let me go any earlier because if anything happened to me, they'd be held responsible. 

Not once in those weeks that I'd been there did he come to check on me. What had I been expecting though? I knew he was a heartless bastard so it shouldn't surprise me. 

Bella had been there by my side to help me get through it. Truthfully, I owed her my life. I didn't know what I would have done without her. 

She had been there for me when the nurses came in to let me hold her at least once before they took her away. She'd been there when they brought the portrait with her hand and footprints and I just bawled my eyes out there. 

My heart couldn't take it anymore. She was so beautiful. She looked just like me. 

My daughter. Ayrah. That's what I wanted to name her. But I'd been robbed of that opportunity. 

All because of what? Because she had been a girl. She was human too, she deserved to be loved too. 

The police didn't come anymore. I think that Evan taking the doctor out that day was to speak to him and do what he usually did- make problems go away. 

But I could swear that I didn't use drugs. I never have and I never will. Not when I'd seen what they did to Gemma. 

I counted down the days until I was let go from the hospital. Javon was going to feel my wrath. 

Bella had been the one to bring the divorce papers. At first, I didn't know how to feel about them but I thought about it again. 

I'd endured years of mistreatment from this man and I didn't do anything about it because I felt that we were married and I could make things work. 

How foolish I was. 

I saw the way my parents always made things work and I thought he'd grow to love me but I was so wrong. He had gone and done something that I would never forgive him for. Never. 

Evan had picked me up from the hospital and taken me home. 

“Where is he?” I asked him first as we sat in the car, the nervousness bubbling in my stomach. 

He looked at me through the mirror. 

“He’s at home."

I nodded and clutched the brown envelope that held my escape from this sad life. Today was the day I was going to have my life back.