Page 206 of Stand: Part One

“Yeah,” I murmured, my voice dropping low as I prepared for the worst. “I can see how much of a mistake that was now. A mistake that I didn’t go with her!”

Darren jolted forward, a snarl on his face as his arm began to rise. “Darren, stop!” Sid grabbed his arm to yank him back, but the attempt made Darren turn to grip Sid’s shirt and shove him against the wall. Wrenching the door open, Darren held Sid fast as he tried to hold on to Darren’s wrist, clinging to his plea. “You can’t hurt her! Not when she’s carrying your child!”

“Get the fuck out, Sid,” Darren snarled as he threw him through the doorway and slammed the door shut. When he turned back around, the dangerous look he gave me should have left me terrified, but I was too pissed off to care. “You were doing so well,” he commented, shaking his head. “I’m disappointed but not surprised.”

My brow rose. “Did you honestly expect me to weep with joy?”

“No. But a simple nod of acceptance would have been fine.”

I scoffed in disbelief. “You lied to me and tricked me into a false sense of security so you could be free to fucking impregnate me without any adversity. And you expect me to just accept that?!”

“Watch your mouth,” Darren warned, taking a menacing step toward me. “You knew this was coming. You knew what I wanted. And you know I will do whatever it takes to get what I want.”

“So you thought you’d just keep this little scheme all to yourself? Just blindside me out of nowhere when you finally succeeded? Why the hell wouldn’t you just tell me?”

Darren took another step forward, making me back up one. “Like you just said, avoiding adversity. I knew you would try to sabotage my efforts,” he answered, fury lacing his voice. “I chose an effective, less combative path.”

I screeched in disgust. “You mean you chose a cowardly path!”

His eyes blazed with a barely contained rage, and I was so ready to pull that final trigger. “It doesn’t matter what you think, Jaden. It never has. What’s done is done. Now accept it.”

Enraged, I immediately grabbed the closest thing within my reach and flung a book right at Darren’s head. He dodged it, but I kept throwing anything I could touch.

“You lying piece of shit!” A glass vase shattered against the wall as it flew past his shoulder, followed by a lamp that crashed into a picture frame on Sid’s desk. “I can’t believe you did this to me!”

Anger and panic like I’d never experienced before erupted inside me so violently, I had zero hope of containing it. The white-hot and blinding rage destroyed whatever perfect little wifely image I had created, and bore itself a monster.

He shifted his shoulder again, dodging most of the chess pieces I’d grabbed to fling at him. His eyes promised me regret if I didn’t stop, but that train left the brakes at the station.

“I suggest you calm down before you hurt yourself and our baby,” he warned as he took the brunt of the coasters I snatched from somewhere.

“Arhh! Shut up!” I screamed, covering my ears with my hands, hating every word he said.

I didn’t know what made me do it, but all reason went right out the window as I reached down and grabbed my butterfly knife that I often kept hidden in my bra. I had it flipped open and soaring through the air before I could even think about it.

As Darren lunged for me, the blade pierced right into his thigh, mere inches from his femoral artery. He paused mid-stride as he looked down at the knife now sticking out of his leg.

His jaw clenched as he sighed through his nose, barely even grunting as he yanked the knife out and chucked it on the floor. When his dark eyes met mine, deep-seated dread tore through my stomach.

He charged at me, stepping right into my kick aimed at his abdomen, taking the brunt of it without a single flinch, and nearly knocking me off balance as he bulldozed into me. When I swayed backward to catch myself, Darren reached out to snatch both of my wrists and yanked me to his chest.

“Get off me!” I screamed, jerking at his iron grip. “Get the fuck off me?—”

“Enough!” he bellowed, causing me to instantly stiffen, my eyes refusing to look up at him. “You knew this day was coming. This should not be a surprise. Accept it and move on.”

I pushed against his chest, hoping to break free of his hold, but he wouldn’t budge, not a single muscle. And the harder I fought to get away, the harder it was to hold back the tears of betrayal that ran down my face.

“You could have told me the truth! Instead, you hid it from me the whole time! You’re nothing but a fucking cowardice snake!”

Darren then rearranged both my wrists into one hand and wrapped the other around my jaw, squeezing far too tightly.

“Careful, my little wife. You may be carrying my child, but that doesn’t exempt you from the consequences of disrespect. This is supposed to be a happy moment for us?—”

“This was never going to be a happy moment for us,” I growled, rage grating my voice.

His features darkened. “Why? Because it makes it harder for you to try to leave me now? Is that what you’re still hung up about? That last flicker of hope gone?”

“I don’t want to bring a child into your world just so you can torture it into a monster like YOU!”