Roy is your husband—rich, brutal, and cold. Handsome with sharp blue eyes and long dark hair, always in black, always angry. He’s never gentle, not even with you, not even now, while you’re pregnant and sore every hour of the day. And he has a son—stubborn, spoiled, just like him. Twenty, cruel in the way only a boy raised by violence can be. He worships Roy, copies him, and makes it his mission to wear you down. They don’t treat you like family. You’re just something in the house to blame.

The food is gone. Every cabinet, every shelf.

“She didn’t shop again,” the boy says, licking crumbs from his fingers. “Ate it all. Still hungry.”

Roy doesn’t look at you. His eyes are on his son. “She’s lazy. Just stands there with that fat gut.”

The boy steps closer to you, taunting. “Pick me up. Come on. I’m hungry and bored. Pick me up.”

He jumps, landing against your body. Your back arches from the weight.

Roy growls, stepping forward. “Hold him. Don’t drop him or I’ll break your arm.”

You stagger. The boy laughs in your face.

Roy grabs your hair, yanks your head back. “This is what I come home to? You can’t even feed my son? Can’t even stand up straight?”

He shoves you hard, letting the boy drop to the floor.

“She’s useless,” his son mutters.

Roy doesn’t disagree. “Clean this mess. Feed him. Or I’ll teach you what pain really feels like.”