HE SAVE ME

The pain shot up from my tailbone. I lay at the bottom of the grand staircase, a warm, sticky wetness spreading beneath me. My baby. My unborn child.

Footsteps thundered down the stairs. Jake, my husband, rushed past me without a glance. He went straight to my stepsister, Brooke, who was slumped against the wall, her face a mask of fake terror. "Brooke! Are you okay? Did she hurt you?" he asked, his voice filled with panic.

He cradled her in his arms, then turned to me, his eyes cold and full of hate. "Ava Riley," he spat, "If I hadn' t lost my memory, there' s no way I would have ever married you." The words hit me harder than the fall. Brooke, nestled in his arms, looked at me with a triumphant smirk. She whispered to Jake about finding property for an art gallery to "heal." He immediately pulled out his phone, without even looking at me, lying in a pool of my own blood.