Locked in the Glass Sunroom

s locked inside the sweltering

d in the cool air on the other side, sipping ice

escape, my husband-a ruthless

floor, faking tears and claiming

t or my frantic pleas for a doctor, Dominic d

sweat this fev

a scorching roar and lo

on the concrete floor. I lost my baby, and my body w

ood, the truth finally pierc

my family. He never loved me; he only wanted to steal my empire and replac

pped my fingers into my blood and

and the door was blown off its hinges. My brot

pte

ly

heat pressed down on the taut skin of my belly, eight months stretched. My h

a story for the one man in the city whose name was a synonym for retribution-a story about poison. And the worst part was not the lie itself. It was that I knew,

ale was t

dozen morticians, a whisper in the city's alleys that could make a s

his particular brand of cruelty was a tool for his tra

mist

tone, a dry, stinging sensation that

world into a wavering mirage. My palms, pressed flat against the glass,

d tight from

de, a figure suspended in the co

she held, a slow, perfect tear. She brought it to her lips

curved into a

e, a widening of the eyes, that had first

the clumsy grasp of a subordinate

for her protection, had i

hogany table, treating her with the cloying

ority was being wielded

periphery as a dull wa

t my ribs-not the familiar flutter, but a frantic

ded w

ded s

bleached expanse o

re to be seen; Sophie had se

ted limbs a final, convulsive strength. I clawed a heavy, sharp-edged piece of granite from the packed earth. With a sound tha

e boom followed by the sound of a thousand tiny, glitter

o cross the threshold, through

open the arch of my foot. The pa

met my skin, a shock so profound

pray of ice and water. Her mouth opened, but the sound that came out was

oors at the far end of the hall were thrown ope

d him before he appeared, a striding silh

d the faint, metallic tang of spent cordite. There had been a time when that scent had made me feel protected. Now, it only reminded me of the day I had found a burne

a small, hard muscle worked itself just

the room: the glittering debris, the overturned chair, and the small,

his gaze set

refully arranged posture of collapse. Her face was buried in her hands, and her shoulders began to hea

ve of my sudden, inexplicable rage-of a door locked by my own hand,

throat, to tell him she had engineered this entire scen

remained fixed on th

re a piece of furniture, hi

surgeon's delicacy over her arms for wounds that were not there,

ibs, and the refrigerated air I had craved m

hed out and my fingers closed on

t as a dry rasp.

e and turne

thing in his face to read. No anger, no co

mble. The pressure was immense, his fingers finding the soft f

not led, but hauled, my bare feet stumbling to keep pac

lized it was my own voice, babbling about

as a low, flat thing. "This en

e a slap. Sophie was not a guest in my home. But then again, neither wa

stairs, and he pulled me onward toward

the quiet room,' where business associates who had bec

d and dead, carrying the faint,

to place his hand flat a

, but with the clumsy, jarring impact of dead weight, my arm

d myself to my knees and reached a

ight, his head inclined slightly as he looked down, his ex

using his shoulder, began to swing it s

e that followed, I heard something far more terrifying than the echo of steel: the first, faint whisper of a truth I had spent two years refusing to name. My husband had never lov