Sarah gasped, stumbling forward.
I fumbled for the volume button, pressing the phone to my ear just as Evelyn leaned in.
“Get up!” Evelyn’s voice crackled through the tiny speaker, a venomous hiss audible only to me amidst the boardroom chatter.
“I’m tired of looking at these dusty baseboards.”
Sarah whimpered, a breathless plea. “Evelyn, please… my stitches. I’m bleeding again.”
Evelyn didn’t even flinch. She snatched the two-week-old infant from the mattress, holding him awkwardly against her hip.
“Blood loss is no excuse for a dirty house,” she spat, pointing down at the floor. “Get up and scrub the floor.”
On the screen, Sarah’s knees buckled.
She collapsed back onto the pillows of the armchair, violently sobbing, both hands clutching her abdomen as the fresh trauma threatened to tear her internal sutures apart.
Something inside me snapped.
It wasn’t a loud break; it was the quiet, absolute severing of a lifelong bond.
The corporate professional evaporated, replaced entirely by a primal protector whose fight instinct had been ignited with a blinding, white-hot fury.
I stood up abruptly.
My heavy leather chair screeched violently against the hardwood floor, echoing like a gunshot in the sterile room.
The debate over the spreadsheets died instantly…
