Chapter 1 - THE FROZEN PATIOWord Count Goal: ~800 words
“If you truly want to remain my wife,” Diego said quietly, tightening his grip around my bare arm until his fingers left pale indents on my ice-cold skin, “you’re going to learn to obey me. Pregnant or not.”
The temperature outside our secluded mountain retreat had plunged to twenty-six degrees. Frost glittered like shattered glass across the manicured lawn, and my baby—seven months along and growing heavier by the day—had been kicking violently against my ribs for nearly an hour.
“Diego, please,” I gasped, my breath blossoming into white clouds in the freezing midnight air. “Just let me inside. I can’t breathe.”
His expression didn't change. His dark eyes remained hollow, devoid of the warmth that had swept me off my feet two short years ago.
That afternoon, during what was supposed to be an intimate family dinner, Diego had placed a thick stack of legal documents in front of me while his mother, Brenna, looked on with a satisfied smirk. Diego had casually referred to them as “routine administrative papers for the estate,” but as my eyes skimmed the fine print buried on the very first page, my stomach dropped. The documents transferred full voting rights and ownership over the tech conglomerate shares my father had gifted me before our marriage directly into Diego’s personal holding company.
“A good wife trusts her husband,” Brenna had snapped, setting her wine glass down with a sharp click against the mahogany table. “You got pregnant, and suddenly you think you're untouchable in this family, Maya.”
“I’m having my attorney review them first,” I had replied, sliding the papers back across the table.
Diego had simply smiled in front of the caterers and guests, resting his hand gently over mine. “Of course, darling. Whatever makes you comfortable.”
But hours later, after the final guest’s taillights vanished down the winding mountain drive, the smile vanished. He locked the heavy oak front doors, grabbed me by the wrist, and dragged me out through the rear terrace doors toward the custom outdoor stone shower beside the dark, frozen pool.
“You humiliated me in my own home,” he whispered, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles twitched.
“I protected what belongs to me,” I spat back, trembling from the cold.
His eyes hardened into pure flint. “Still arguing?”
He reached out and turned the heavy brass valve on the wall.
Freezing mountain well-water exploded against the slate stone.
“No, Diego!” I screamed, but before I could pull away, he shoved me brutally backward beneath the roaring deluge.
The icy water hit my skin so violently that my lungs instantly seized. My heavy wool sweater absorbed the water, turning into a freezing, leaden weight that dragged me toward the floor. I wrapped both arms tightly around my rounded belly, bowing my spine to shield my unborn child from the crushing force of the spray.
My wet shoes slipped against the slick stone.
I crashed heavily onto my knees, my breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps.
“Help me!” I sobbed, looking up at him. “Diego, please!”
Diego simply crossed his arms over his chest, stepping back to avoid the stray splash. “Stop the drama, Maya. A little cold water never killed anyone. You’ll stand up when you’re ready to sign.”
Then, a vicious, tearing pain radiated through my lower abdomen.
My baby kicked frantically, a chaotic response to the sudden shock of extreme hypothermia. My fingers were turning a dangerous shade of blue, my vision darkening around the edges as I desperately tried to push myself up from the freezing puddle.
What Diego didn't know was that my father, Alvin Sterling—founder of Sterling Global Security—had personally paid for the mountain retreat’s entire multi-million-dollar security overhaul months ago when he learned my pregnancy was high-risk.
Thermal monitoring.
Fall sensors embedded in the slate flooring.
Biometric telemetry.
And the discreet platinum bracelet locked onto my left wrist was not a piece of jewelry—it was a high-grade medical monitor connected directly to Alvin’s private emergency dispatch center.
At exactly 11:43 PM, the system registered my plunging skin temperature, my sky-rocketing heart rate, and the sudden kinetic impact of my fall.
A bright, crimson warning light suddenly began flashing furiously on my wrist.
Diego stared down at it, frowning. His arrogant face flickered with a sudden edge of doubt. “What the hell is that?”
I tried to answer him, to tell him what he had just done, but my frozen lips refused to form words. My body surrendered, collapsing sideways onto the freezing slate as the high-definition security cameras mounted on the eaves above us suddenly rotated in unison, their mechanical lenses zooming in directly on us.
The telemetry system escalated to critical red.
Forty miles away, in a glass-walled skyscraper in downtown Denver, my father’s phone vibrated violently across a mahogany boardroom table.
May you like
Alvin Sterling answered it, glanced at the real-time biometric feed, and brought up the live video.
And there, in crystal-clear high definition, was his seven-months-pregnant daughter lying unconscious beneath freezing water... while her husband stood over her, casually watching her freeze.
