Chapter 2
Mark lunged to his feet, pacing frantically across the sunlit living room while glaring toward the empty hallway where Maya had vanished. His breath came in ragged, shallow gasps as the emergency dispatcher picked up on the other end of the line. The panic in his chest threatened to choke him, but pure adrenaline forced his voice into a sharp, commanding register.
"I need an ambulance!" Mark shouted aggressively into the phone, his eyes darting back to Clara, who was curled on the rug, whimpering softly in pain. "My sister-in-law just assaulted my pregnant wife, and I’m pressing charges!"
His forehead was slick with sweat, veins bulging visibly beneath his skin as he relayed their exact address and described Clara’s critical condition. The dispatcher’s voice buzzed tinily from the speaker, asking calm, methodical questions about bleeding and consciousness, questions that felt agonizingly slow to a man watching his world crumble. Mark answered sharply, demanding to know why the ambulance wasn't there yet, his anger at Maya seamlessly blending into a deep, consuming fear for his unborn child.
On the floor, Clara closed her eyes, trying to regulate her breathing just as the prenatal classes had taught her, but the physical shock was overwhelming. Every second ticked past like an eternity. Mark snapped the phone away from his ear just long enough to drop back down beside her, pressing a trembling hand to her cheek.
"They're dispatching units now, they're five minutes away, Clara. Stay with me," Mark pleaded, his voice cracking with vulnerability that contrasted sharply with his earlier fury.
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He didn't dare move her, remembering the basic rules of trauma care, but the helplessness was a physical weight crushing his chest. Across the room, the sunlight caught the spines of their favorite books—novels they had read together during quiet evenings before this nightmare began. Maya’s sudden violence hadn't emerged from a vacuum; it was the culmination of months of simmering resentment over a disputed family inheritance, an inheritance that Maya believed rightfully belonged to her alone. But physical assault crossed a line that could never, under any circumstances, be uncrossed.
Mark stood up again, pacing a tight circle around the coffee table, his phone gripped so tightly in his fist that his knuckles turned stark white. He shouted final navigation instructions into the device before ending the call, sliding the phone into his jacket pocket. Sirens began to wail in the distance, growing louder by the second, promising both rescue and the dawn of a grueling legal and emotional battle.
