Chapter 5 - Agony in the Dark
The darkness behind my closed eyelids was painted in streaks of blinding white pain as the baby descended further into my birth canal.
I was lying on my side, my nails clawing into the grout between the marble floor tiles, leaving bloody scrapes on the stone.
"Just breathe... please baby, just hold on for mommy," I whimpered into the cold air, my voice barely a cracked whisper.
I could feel the baby's head pressing against my cervix, an excruciating, tearing sensation that told me I was in active, transition-stage labor.
There was no doctor, no sterile instruments, no fetal monitor to ensure that my baby’s heart was still beating inside my womb.
I was thirty-four weeks pregnant, completely alone, and trapped behind a solid mahogany door with a deadbolt engaged.
Footsteps suddenly clicked down the private hallway outside, pausing directly on the other side of the bathroom door.
Hope surged through my chest like a shot of adrenaline, giving me the desperate strength to lift my head from the floor.
"Evan?" I cried out, my voice cracking with desperation. "Evan, please, the baby is coming right now! I need help!"
The small metal brass mail slot in the middle of the heavy door rattled open by an inch.
It was not Evan.
Victoria’s cold, ice-blue eyes peered through the narrow opening, showing not a shred of human empathy or grandmotherly love.
"Stop that disgusting screaming this instant, Claire," Victoria hissed through the narrow slit, her breath smelling of vintage red wine.
"You are embarrassing this entire family, and guests in the hallway can hear your vulgar animal noises through the vents."
"Victoria, I am crowning!" I wept hysterically, dragging myself closer to the door. "The baby will die if you don't unlock this door!"
"If that child is weak enough to die from a few minutes of waiting, then it doesn't deserve to carry the Bellacourt name," she whispered.
The sheer, monstrous evil of her words hit me like a physical blow to the chest, freezing the blood in my veins.
"You are a monster," I choked out, staring at her cold eyes through the brass slot.
"I am a woman who protects her family's legacy at all costs," Victoria retorted with chilling, sociopathic calm.
"You will lay there quietly until the governor finishes his speech at midnight, or I will ensure Evan divorces you without a single penny."
"You will never see your child, you will lose your government pension, and I will have you blacklisted across this entire state," she warned.
"My team knows where I am, Victoria," I whispered, holding back another agonizing scream as my hips parted.
Victoria let out a soft, mocking laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping over a tombstone.
"Your little tax-collector friends couldn't even get past my front security gates without an appointment, you pathetic little fool," she said.
"Now keep your mouth shut until I send the maid with some towels after the reception ends."
The brass slot slammed shut with a sharp metallic clatter, followed by the sound of her heels marching back toward the ballroom.
I collapsed back against the cold tiles, a scream of pure, primal agony tearing from my throat as the contraction reached its peak.
I reached down between my thighs with trembling, bloody hands, feeling the crowning head of my premature infant.
"No, no, no, not like this," I prayed to the ceiling, tears streaming into my ears as I prepared to deliver my own child in the dirt.
Suddenly, a low, earth-shaking rumble vibrated through the floorboards of the bathroom, rattling the silver pipes inside the walls.
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It wasn't the bass from the wedding orchestra.
It was the heavy, twin-engine roar of a Black Hawk tactical helicopter banking violently over the vineyard’s estate roof.
