PART 2
“Why didn’t you tell me, Clara?” Marcus wept, pressing his forehead against her uninjured thigh, his voice barely a whisper so the sound wouldn’t carry. “Why did you let her do this to you? Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you scream?”
Clara choked on a violent sob, her fingers clamped on his shirt collar with desperate, white-knuckled strength.
“She said…” Clara gasped, her chest heaving as she fought for air. “She came over every morning after you left for work… She said if I told you a single word, she would wait until you were at the store… and she would push me down the concrete stairs in the courtyard.”
Marcus stopped breathing.
“She said she would kill our baby, Marcus,” Clara wept, her tears soaking his shirt. “She brought your father’s old heavy clothes iron into the bedroom. She hit my legs with it when I tried to stand up… and then she plugged it in, heated it, and pressed it against my ankles. She told me if I made a sound, she’d press it to my stomach next. She said… she said you would always choose her over me. She said everyone would think I was crazy, and that she’d have me committed so she could take our child!”
The sheer, profound evil of it hit Marcus like a freight train. His blood turned to pure, impenetrable ice.
His mother hadn’t been protecting him. She had been torturing his pregnant wife in their own home, holding his unborn child hostage while turning his own trust into a weapon.
Marcus rose slowly. The confusion in his eyes was gone, replaced by a dark, terrifying calm.
Brenda stood near the front door, reaching for her purse, her composure finally starting to crack under her son’s gaze. “Marcus, listen to me… she’s lying! She did that to herself! She’s unhinged—”
Marcus didn’t yell. He walked calmly to the front door, reached past her, locked the deadbolt, and slid the key into his pocket.
Then he took out his phone and dialed 911.
“Yes, I need an immediate paramedic unit and police officers at my address,” Marcus said, his voice flat and steady, his eyes fixed on his mother. “My mother, Brenda Vance, has severely assaulted and tortured my seven-month-pregnant wife. She is in the apartment right now.”
Brenda’s jaw dropped. “Marcus! Are you insane?! I’m your mother!”
“You are a monster,” Marcus whispered. “And you are never going to touch my family again.”
