“Laura, do it! Sign the release! Let them take the stem cells! You can have another baby with someone else! Save my life, Laura!”
I slowly turned my head to look down at Diego.
The man I had slept beside for eight years. The man whose betrayal had once driven me to weep on my bathroom floor in the dark.
Looking at him now, kneeling in the dirt, begging me to sacrifice his own unborn child to save his pathetic skin from the monster he had served, I felt no anger.
I felt only a pure, sovereign, and incandescent clarity.
“You really don’t understand, do you, Diego?” I spoke softly.
Diego blinked through his tears, confused and shivering: “Understand what…?”
“You thought you were a clever predator who found an easy woman to exploit,” I said.
I looked from Diego to Arthur Caldwell:
“You thought you were bringing a helpless, pregnant victim to Berth Four tonight to surrender her child.”
