Aubrey's POV
Daniel laughs.
The sound is the hollow, scraping noise like he has been waiting for confirmation of a suspicion he hoped was paranoia. The pregnancy test box drops from his fingers and lands on the carpet with a soft thud that seems impossibly loud in the silence that follows.
"I knew it," he says, and the laughter dies as quickly as it arrived. "I fucking knew it! You get a little taste of the real world, and suddenly you think you're worth something?"
The words land directly at the foundation of everything I have been trying to rebuild. My self-confidence is a house of cards balanced on a single breath, and Daniel has always known which card to pull.
You are worth something. You are worth everything.
Finn's voice moves through me, and I cling to the memory of his hands framing my face, his mouth against mine, the certainty in his eyes when he said he would tear the world apart to keep me safe.
I trust that memory more than I trust my own sanity right now.
More than I trust the voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like Daniel's, the one that whispers I deserve exactly this.
"I have been thinking about this for a long time," I say, and my voice comes out measured, careful. I know better than to match his energy. I know what happens when I raise my voice. "This marriage has not been working for either of us."
"Oh, you've been thinking." He mimics my tone, his lip curling. "You've been fucking thinking. That's rich, Aubrey. That is really fucking rich coming from the woman who couldn't balance a checkbook without my help for years."
I do not respond to that. I keep my breathing even and my posture neutral, even though every muscle in my body is screaming at me to run.
Do not provoke him. Do not give him a reason.
"I am not trying to fight with you," I say. "I am trying to have a conversation about our future. We can do this civilly, Daniel. We can figure it out together, work out a custody arrangement that makes sense for—"
"Custody." The word stops him mid-motion. His bloodshot eyes narrow as he studies my face. "You're keeping the baby, then. Even though you're leaving me."
"The baby is not a bargaining chip."
"No." He takes a step toward me, and I feel my weight shift automatically onto the balls of my feet. "No, it's not. But you are."
The silence that follows his words is thick with menace. I watch him watch me, and I recognize the exact moment when his brain makes a connection I was hoping it would miss.
"Who is he?" Daniel's voice drops low, almost conversational. "The guy you've been fucking behind my back. Who is he?"
The terror must show on my face because his expression transforms into something triumphant and terrible. He sees the truth written across my features.
The guilt, the fear, the desperate wish that I had hidden it better.
"There it is." He laughs again, but this laugh is different. This laugh has teeth. "I can see it all over you, Aubrey. You pathetic lying whore… You've been spreading your legs for someone else while carrying my child, haven't you?"
"Daniel, please listen to me…"
"Who is it?" He stands up in one fluid motion, and I take an involuntary step backward. "Is it someone from that office? One of those suits you work with? Did you let him bend you over a desk while I sat here like a fucking idiot?"
I am already moving backward to the kitchen, my body operating on instinct while my mind races through every possible outcome.
I know what comes next. I have lived through variations of this scene enough times to recognize the trajectory. First comes the shouting, the accusations that escalate until his voice cracks with rage.
Then comes the grabbing—fingers digging into arms, into shoulders, into whatever flesh is closest. Then comes the shaking, the slamming, the world reduced to the space between his hands and the nearest hard surface.
"I asked you a question, bitch." He is following me now, his footsteps heavy on the linoleum as we enter the kitchen. "Who. Is. He."
"There is no one." I circle the small table in the center of the room, keeping the surface between us. "I just want out, Daniel. That is all this is. I am exhausted and unhappy and I cannot do this anymore."
He moves left. I move right. The table is a flimsy barrier, but it is all I have.
"Bullshit." His hand slams down on the wood, and a salt shaker topples over, spilling white granules across the surface. "You expect me to believe that you suddenly grew a spine? That you woke up this morning and decided you were too good for me?"
"I am not saying I am too good for anyone…"
"Someone put this idea in your head!" He lunges right, and I barely manage to dodge left, my hip catching the corner of the counter. Pain flares hot and immediate. "Someone has been making you think you can survive without me!"
‘You will never have to see him again. Not once. Not ever.’
Finn's promise echoes through me, but Finn is not here.
Finn is forty floors up in a glass tower, and I am circling a kitchen table while the man I married calculates the fastest route to my throat.
"Daniel, please." I am begging now, and I hate the sound of my own voice. "We can talk about this tomorrow when we have both had time to calm down. I should not have brought it up tonight, I know that now—" He feints left and reverses, and this time he is faster than I anticipated.
His fingers close around my wrist, and I cry out before I can stop myself.
"You think you can just leave me?" He is pulling me toward him, and I am fighting, my free hand scrabbling against his chest, his arms, anything. "You think I am going to let some other man raise my child?"
I wrench myself free and run.
The living room is five steps away, the front door beyond that, and for one desperate second I think I am going to make it. Then his arm hooks around my waist and I am airborne, my feet leaving the ground before I slam backward into the refrigerator.
The impact drives the breath from my lungs. Before I can recover, his hand is around my throat, and the pressure is immediate and absolute.
"You are not going anywhere." His face is inches from mine, his breath hot and sour with beer. "You are my wife. That baby is mine. And you are going to stay in this apartment until I decide otherwise."
I cannot breathe. The edges of my vision are going dark, and there is a roaring in my ears that drowns out everything else. My hands claw at his wrist, but his grip only tightens.
This is how I die.
In a kitchen that smells like rotting meat, with a man who promised to take care of me.
Then my left hand, flailing against the counter beside the fridge, touches something cold and metallic. The scissors.
I do not think when my fingers close around the handle and I drive the blades into his shoulder with every ounce of strength I have left.
Daniel screams and releases me. I collapse against the refrigerator, gasping, my vision swimming with spots. He is staggering backward, clutching his shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers.
"You crazy bitch!" His voice follows me as I sprint down the narrow hallway toward the bedroom. "You think this is over? I will kill you for this, Aubrey! Do you hear me? I will fucking kill you!"
My lungs burn as I throw myself through the doorway, his threats reverberating off the apartment walls behind me. The bedroom door slams shut behind me, and my fingers fumble with the lock until I hear the click.