Chapter 5 - You Wanted Her Broken
In the kitchen, after Jack’s call to emergency dispatch, Eleanor tried to regain the room.
She always did.
“Jack,” she said, voice shaking. “I was trying to protect your child.”
He did not turn away from me.
“Emily, can you stand?”
“I don’t know.”
“Any pain?”
I swallowed.
“My back. I’m scared.”
“Contractions?”
“No.”
“Bleeding?”
“No.”
His jaw tightened with relief and fury at once.
He looked at the iron.
Then the papers.
Then his mother.
“You don’t speak again unless you’re answering officers.”
Eleanor’s mouth fell open.
“I am your mother.”
Jack turned.
“No. Right now, you are the person I found threatening my pregnant wife with a hot iron.”
She flinched.
Not from shame.
From the sentence.
Words have force when a man refuses to cushion them.
The dispatcher’s voice came through the phone.
“Sir, confirm the address.”
Jack gave it.
“Is the suspect still on scene?”
“Yes.”
“Is anyone injured?”
“My wife is eight months pregnant. She was threatened with a heated iron. She is conscious. No visible bleeding. Need medical evaluation.”
Hearing him say it made it real in a way terror had not.
Threatened with a heated iron.
Eight months pregnant.
Wife conscious.
Medical evaluation.
I started shaking.
Jack heard it before I did.
He crouched without taking his eyes fully off Eleanor.
One hand reached back for me.
“Em.”
I gripped his fingers.
“You’re alive.”
His face broke.
“I’m alive.”
“They said—”
“I know.”
“I believed it.”
“You were supposed to.”
That sentence made Eleanor’s eyes sharpen.
Jack stood again.
“You wanted her broken.”
Eleanor’s breathing became shallow.
“I wanted my grandson protected.”
“You wanted him transferred.”
“I wanted him raised properly.”
“With forged papers?”
She pointed toward me.
“She would have run back to whatever soft little family made her think she could raise a Mercer without us.”
Jack laughed once.
Cold.
“My wife is carrying my son while sitting on the floor because you came at her with an iron, and you are still worried she’s too soft?”
Eleanor’s face hardened.
“She turned you against me.”
“No,” Jack said. “You just made it impossible for me to keep pretending I didn’t know who you were.”
That sentence landed heavier than the call.
Because it was history.
Not shock.
Recognition.
Eleanor heard it too.
Her eyes filled, but this time the tears did not come on command.
“You don’t mean that.”
May you like
Jack said nothing.
The silence was worse.
