Iron. That was the first thing I tasted. Not fear, not bile, but the distinct, rusted tang of iron flooding the back of my throat before my brain could even register the physics of the impact. It wasn’t a crime of passion; there was no heat in it. It was a calculated, kinetic dismissal, executed with the cold precision of a demolition expert bringing down a condemned building.
I found myself splayed across the kitchen floor of our sprawling, twenty-million-dollar estate. My left cheek was pressed against the Carrara marble, the stone so aggressively cold it felt like it was burning the skin right off my face.
“I told you not to check my phone, Isabella.”
Julian’s voice didn’t boom. It didn’t crack with rage. It sounded distant, muffled, as if he were speaking to me from the summit of a mountain I was too weak to climb.
I tried to push myself up, but a sharp, lacerating agony ribboned through my side, stealing my breath. I was seven months pregnant. Inside me, two innocent lives—my twins—were thrashing in a panic that mirrored my own. Instinct bypassed logic; I curled into a fetal ball, wrapping my bruised arms around my distended belly, acting as a desperate human shield while hot, saline tears mixed with the blood smearing the pristine white floor.
