Chapter 4 - The Threat of Power
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Mrs. Eleanor stepped up beside her son, folding her arms neatly across her chest. She glanced down at the growing pool of blood on her pristine floor with mild annoyance, as if I had spilled a glass of wine.
“If she loses that baby, it’s because she can’t take care of herself,” Eleanor remarked casually. “Weak stock always fails.”
Another vicious, agonizing cramp folded me double. I groaned, curling into a protective ball around my belly, attempting to crawl toward the shattered remains of my phone. Carter moved quickly, stepping directly in front of me to block my path with his leather dress shoes.
“Listen to me very carefully, Sarah,” he hissed, bending down so his face was inches from mine. “My uncle is a senior prosecutor in the D.A.’s office. I’m a practicing, rising partner at a top law firm in D.C. You’re a nobody. If you try to blow this up, I will turn it on you so fast your head will spin. You’re not going to win a damn thing.”
For two long years, I had swallowed their cruelty. I had endured Carter’s explosive temper, served their elaborate dinners, eaten their leftovers, and silently listened while they mocked my blue-collar family. I had kept quiet because I desperately wanted a normal, quiet family of my own—and because I had purposefully refused to build my life around my father’s massive shadow.
My father had always kept a low profile around my friends and husband, dressing in faded denim, driving a dingy pickup, and acting like a simple, retired country man when he visited us. Carter and Eleanor assumed he was an uneducated redneck from rural Virginia.
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But in that moment, with blood soaking my clothes and my unborn son fighting for his life, my father’s old words echoed clearly in my mind:
“You never flaunt real power, sweetheart. You use it only when there is no other way out.”
