Chapter 112: The Upper Hand

ASTRID’S POV

I aborted the child.

The doctor had fought me on it before he finally gave in. He didn’t want to hand over the medication without a fight.

"You shouldn’t abort the little pup. He’s innocent," he said, looking at me like I was supposed to feel something.

Good doctor. Noble even. My husband didn’t know ... and maybe if he did, he would have begged me to keep it. But Ethan had also made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t ready for a child yet. We were still in our enjoyment phase. Living for each other, not for someone smaller.

"Doctor, will you help me take care of the pup?" I asked him flatly. Since he wanted to play the good person so badly.

"That’s not what I mean, Ms. Astrid," he replied, flustered.

"Exactly, doc. So get this thing out of me." I held his gaze without blinking.

"Does your husband consent to this?" he asked.

"Are you doing your job or not? What’s your business? Get it out of me ... after all, he’s not your husband."

He had no choice after that.

Yes, I was a wicked person. I knew it. I had always known it. Someone who could look her sister’s mate in the eye and tell him to pull the trigger was not someone to take lightly. This pup hadn’t even come into the world yet ... so what I did wasn’t so different from closing a door before anyone walked through it.

The procedure was fast. Painless.

I felt no remorse afterward. No grief, no second-guessing. I wished I did ... if only to feel something close to normal. But I didn’t.

In fact, the moment it was done, I turned right back to the doctor and told him I needed a plan to make sure it never happened again. That was where the carelessness had started. I had gotten comfortable and slipped up, and now I’d paid for it in ways I refused to keep paying.

No little pup was going to tie me down. I would have thrown it into the river before letting that happen ... which wasn’t far from what I had just done.

The doctor produced a packet of contraceptive pills. I had used them before, but somehow Ethan’s body had overpowered every barrier I put up. The man didn’t even know the damage his genes could do.

"Thank you, doctor. For a job well done," I said, pulling myself together.

I covered my tracks carefully on the way out. No trails. Nothing that could lead back to me ... not even to my husband. Ethan was sharp, always had been. His instincts were what had caught me and Draven the first time around. But I was smarter. I always had been. I just needed to stay that way.

The next day at work, unease sat on me like a second skin.

I couldn’t pull my focus together no matter how hard I tried. Every hour that passed felt like borrowed time ... Thalia and the media guy could set their trap at any moment. Drop everything in one clean move and watch my life burn.

Bunch of bitches. They had made it their personal mission to dismantle everything I had built with precision and patience. Like it was what they were put on this earth to do.

I was not going to let that happen.

My mind was running too many threads at once. Negotiation wasn’t going to cut it anymore ... I had already pushed thirty million into Thalia’s hands and gotten nothing but silence and more threats in return. I needed a different angle. A sharper one.

Still, I pushed through the workday. I wasn’t going to let my boss Liam see the cracks. Things had been slipping lately, and this one felt like it could be the one that finally broke the surface.

After work, I improvised.

"I want to grab something from the pharmacy ... go ahead without me," I told Ethan. He had been waiting to walk out together the way we always did.

"I’ll come with you," he said immediately.

"No. Go home and start dinner." I kissed him before he could argue further.

"Really? Alright ... I’ll make your favorite," he said, already brightening.

We kissed goodbye and went our separate ways.

I wasn’t going anywhere near a pharmacy.

I drove to a route just off the street from the company and parked in the shadow of the buildings. I was waiting for the head of the media department. He always closed later than everyone else ... just the security guards left by the time he walked out. I figured he was running backups, storing footage, doing whatever it is people like him do when they have leverage they want to protect.

That night I was ready to meet him alone.

He appeared almost an hour after the building had emptied. I watched him come down his usual route ... the one that led toward the bus stop. It had just turned dark. Somewhere past seven.

I breathed in. Breathed out. Then I hit the rear lights and let them catch him as he passed.

He stopped and looked.

I stepped out of the car.

"Hey, Mrs. Astrid Allen," he said, casual and easy ... like we were old colleagues.

I didn’t even care to ask his name. But he knew mine, of course he did.

"Hey, media guy. I have a gentle appeal for you," I said.

"What is it, Mrs. Allen? Anything for you."

"I know you’re in coalition with Thalia. My husband’s ex."

"Who? I don’t know who you’re talking about," he said without missing a beat.

"There’s no need to lie. I already know the full picture ... what you’ve seen, what you’ve been holding onto." I kept my voice calm. No heat. No rush. "I’m not here for your confession. But nobody is going to come between me and my husband. Not Thalia, not you, not anyone. So you’re going to go back in there, delete that video, and erase every last copy ... or you take the fall for all of it."

I turned and walked back toward the car.

He stopped me with two words: "How much?"

I actually laughed. A short, cold sound.

"What the fuck? I am not paying two people at the same time. Go and ask Thalia for your cut from the money I already gave her, because you are not getting a single dime from me."

"She paid me," he said, dropping the act entirely now. "So I have to weigh my options and go with whoever offers more."

So. There it was. He was admitting everything now.

We were all criminals in that alley. Just with different faces on.

"Oh, you want to weigh your options?"

I opened my suit jacket slowly and let him see the pistol sitting against my ribs.

His mouth fell open. He stepped back.

"Count that as one of your options," I said quietly. "You have twenty-four hours to pull that video down and send me proof. If you don’t, you become smoke. And nothing ... nothing ... will happen to me after." I held his eyes for a long moment. "Go and ask about me. Not Allen. Astrid. Astrid Ironheart."

I got back into the car and drove away.

It was the only play I had left to get the upper hand on Thalia. And if he chose wrong ... then he had made his choice, and I would make mine.