“Let her suffer,” my husband sneered outside my delivery room. After 3 years of brutal abuse, I heard his mom whisper their final plan…

I wanted to vomit. But the contractions were coming too fast, ripping through my lower back like jagged glass.

They hooked me up to the monitors. The baby’s heart rate was strong, but I was struggling. The pain was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

“You’re only at 4 centimeters, honey,” the nurse told me kindly. “It’s going to be a while. Do you want the epidural?”

I nodded frantically, unable to speak through the agony.

“I’ll go page the anesthesiologist,” she said, squeezing my shoulder before stepping out of the room.

Mark let go of my hand the absolute second the door clicked shut behind the nurse. His expression instantly dropped from loving husband to dead-eyed irritation.

“Don’t embarrass me by screaming,” he hissed at me, grabbing his phone.

Eleanor stood by the window, her arms crossed. She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. It wasn’t just cold. It was calculated.

“Mark, come out to the hall for a second,” Eleanor said quietly. “We need to go over the paperwork.”

Mark rolled his eyes, but followed his mother out of the room.

The heavy wooden door didn’t latch all the way. It stayed open just a fraction of an inch.

Another contraction hit me, tearing a groan from my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut, gripping the metal bed rails until my knuckles turned white.

As the wave of pain slowly peaked and began to recede, the room went dead silent. The machines beeped rhythmically.

And then, I heard it.

The hallway was quiet, and through the tiny crack in the door, Eleanor’s voice drifted into my room. It was hushed, urgent, and completely devoid of humanity.

“I spoke to the lawyer an hour ago,” Eleanor whispered.

My breathing stopped. I strained to listen, ignoring the dull ache in my spine.

“And?” Mark asked, his voice low.

“It’s done,” Eleanor replied, her voice trembling with an unsettling excitement. “The papers are finalized. As long as she signs the consent forms when they bring her the epidural paperwork, she signs away everything. She won’t even read it. She’s in too much pain.”

Consent forms? What consent forms?

“Are you sure this will work, Mom?” Mark asked, pacing. I could hear his shoes squeaking against the linoleum floor. “If she realizes what it is…”

“She won’t,” Eleanor snapped. “The doctor is a friend of mine. He knows what to do. The second the baby is out, they will declare her mentally unfit. The psychiatric hold is already arranged. You’ll have full custody by tomorrow morning, and she’ll be locked in the psych ward for a 72-hour evaluation that I will make sure turns into a permanent stay.”

My heart slammed against my ribs. A cold sweat broke out over my entire body that had nothing to do with labor.

“And the baby?” Mark asked.

“The baby comes home with me,” Eleanor said, her tone final. “She will never see him again. We just need her to push him out, and then we are done with her forever.”

I lay perfectly still in the hospital bed.

The pain of the contractions vanished, replaced by an adrenaline surge so powerful it made my vision blur.

Three years of beatings. Three years of torture. And now, they were going to steal my baby and lock me in a psychiatric facility the moment I gave birth.

I heard footsteps approaching my door.

“Get back in there,” Eleanor hissed. “The anesthesiologist is coming. Make sure she signs that clipboard.”

The door handle began to turn.

CHAPTER 2

The door handle clicked.

It was the loudest sound I had ever heard in my entire life. It echoed in my ears like a gunshot, snapping me out of my state of frozen terror.

I had less than a second to react.

I threw my head back against the thin hospital pillow, squeezed my eyes shut, and let out a long, ragged moan. I arched my back, gripping the bed rails, doing everything in my power to look like a woman drowning in the agony of labor, oblivious to the world around her.

The door swung open.

“Here we go, sweetheart,” Mark’s voice floated into the room.

It was that sickeningly sweet, buttery tone he reserved specifically for an audience. The voice of the doting, terrified husband.

I opened my eyes to slits, panting heavily.

Mark was walking through the door, his hand resting gently on the lower back of a tall, balding man in a blue surgical scrub cap. The anesthesiologist.

Right behind them was Eleanor.

She glided into the room like a shadow, her face a mask of serene grandmotherly concern. But her eyes—cold, calculating, predatory—were fixed directly on the clipboard in the doctor’s hands.

“Dr. Miller is here to give you the epidural, Sarah,” Mark said, rushing to my bedside.

He grabbed my hand, squeezing it just a fraction too tight. It was a warning grip. Play along.

“Hello, Sarah,” Dr. Miller said kindly, pulling a stool up to the side of my bed. “I hear you’re in a bit of discomfort. We’re going to get that taken care of right now. I just need to go over the risks with you, and then we’ll need a few signatures.”

Another contraction was beginning to build at the base of my spine, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the violent thumping of my heart.

The signatures.

“Just standard stuff, right Doc?” Mark chuckled nervously, playing the part perfectly. “Consents, hospital waivers?”

“Exactly,” Dr. Miller said, adjusting his glasses. “Actually, the front desk sent up a supplementary packet. They said your admission paperwork was incomplete when you rushed in through the ER doors. So, we’ve just bundled it all together here. Epidural consent on top, hospital release and power of attorney forms for medical emergencies right beneath it.”

My blood turned to ice.

Power of attorney.

Medical emergencies.

“The second the baby is out, they will declare her mentally unfit.” Eleanor’s whispered words screamed in my head. “You’ll have full custody by tomorrow morning.”