Chapter 2
Maeve’s vision swam with bright, dizzying flashes of color. The agonizing pain in her abdomen was a sharp, terrifying blade, but the maternal instinct to survive overrode her shock. She could hear Rex shifting his heavy boots on the hardwood, preparing to follow his wife’s vicious command.
"Stay away from me!" Maeve screamed, her American accent tearing through the kitchen as she scrambled sideways along the granite counter.
Her hand blindly searched the stovetop until her fingers curled around the heavy, iron handle of a large cast-iron skillet. With a surge of adrenaline, Maeve hoisted the heavy black pan into the air, holding it up defensively between herself and her father-in-law. Her breath came in short, jagged gasps, her fair skin now entirely drained of its rosy warmth.
Suddenly, hurried footsteps echoed from the adjacent home office. Jonas Ellison, thirty-six years old, burst into the bright kitchen. He was dressed in a tailored button-down shirt and trousers, his expensive wristwatch catching the sunlight. His fair face was slick with a sheen of nervous sweat.
"Jonas!" Maeve sobbed, her eyes locking onto her husband. "Jonas, help me! Your father just hit me!"
Instead of rushing to his wife, Jonas stepped directly between Maeve and the archway that led to the front door, effectively cutting off her only route of escape. He looked at Rex, then at Pamela, and finally down at Maeve. But his eyes did not focus on her tear-stained face or her clutching hands over her swollen belly. He stared directly at the cast-iron skillet she was wielding.
"What is going on in here?" Jonas demanded, his voice entirely devoid of the protective fury a husband should possess.
"She is having one of her hysterical fits, Jonas," Pamela lied effortlessly, adjusting her pearl earrings. "She tried to attack your father with that pan."
"Jonas, he punched my stomach!" Maeve shrieked, her voice cracking with terror. "The baby! Please!"
Jonas took a cowardly, tense step forward. He refused to meet Maeve's eyes, looking only at the heavy iron in her hands. He was a man who cared only for appearances and the financial bailout his parents had promised him.
"Maeve, put it down," Jonas said, his tone cowardly and tense. "You’re making this worse."
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"Are you insane?" Maeve wept, her knuckles white around the skillet handle. "He is trying to kill our child!"
"Nobody is trying to kill anyone," Jonas snapped, stepping closer, holding his hands out as if calming a rabid animal. "Just put the pan down, sign the trust documents like my mother asked, and we can all calm down. You are overreacting."
