Price of Freedom

Valerie’s POV

I lifted my gaze from the glaring screen of my phone and looked at Rosa. The older woman hovered near the waiting room chairs, her hands trembling as she reached out to gently rub my shoulder.

"Valerie, there has to be some sort of mistake," Rosa stammered, her voice thick with panic. "Maisie is in pain. She is in shock from the injury. She must have just mistaken a stranger for her father."

Slowly, I pushed myself up to stand. My fingers clamped in a vice grip around the edges of my phone. There was no mistake. My private investigator did not deal in errors. The photograph burned a hole through my mind. It was absolute and undeniable. The image captured Gideon, my husband, walking down the sunlit pavement outside this very clinic. His face wore a look of pure, unfiltered delight as he affectionately carried a little boy in his arms. The woman walking shoulder to shoulder with him was Beatrice Finch.

"Mommy!"

A sharp, broken wail tore me from my racing thoughts. I spun around to see Maisie gripping her good arm, her small chest heaving with violent sobs.

"Does my daddy hate me?" she cried out.

The raw heartbreak in her tiny voice shattered whatever remaining composure I possessed. I rushed forward and dropped to my knees, carefully gathering her into my arms. My heart broke into jagged pieces for my suffering daughter. Tears threatened to spill over my own lashes, but I forced them back. I could not fall apart right now. I reached up and carefully wiped away the hot, wet trails streaming down her pale cheeks. Stretching my lips, I pasted on a fake, reassuring smile.

"That wasn't Daddy," I lied through my teeth, the words tasting like ash on my tongue.

Maisie sniffled loudly, her red-rimmed eyes searching mine. "B-But..."

I leaned in and pressed a long, gentle kiss to her damp cheek. "That wasn't Daddy, sweetheart. Daddy is just incredibly busy with work right now."

She stared at me, the tears pooling but no longer falling. "You're not lying to me?"

I shook my head smoothly. "I would never lie to you."

It was a necessary deception. The truth would destroy her completely. Eventually, exhaustion overtook the pain and the heartbreak. After what felt like hours of gentle rocking and humming empty lullabies in that sterile waiting room, my little girl finally cried herself to sleep right there in my arms. She drifted off, still desperately waiting for a father who blatantly refused to answer a single one of the frantic calls I made to him.

I knew exactly what he was busy with, and it had nothing to do with work. He was spending his time with Beatrice, his old flame. The undeniable truth echoed in my head. Beatrice was the only woman Gideon had ever truly loved.

I sat there in the quiet hum of the clinic, letting the bitter reality sink into my bones. Over the years, I had forced myself to look the other way. I tolerated his endless, painful string of superficial mistresses. I endured the scent of cheap perfume on his collars and the late nights. I did it because I stubbornly clung to a fragile glimmer of hope. It was a hope born from the early days, right after our one-night stand led to a forced marriage orchestrated by his father. After Maisie was born, things had shifted. He spent time with us. He named her. He learned how to hold her. The night we finally shared a bed again, I thought I had secured a real marriage. I thought the endless parade of mistresses posed no real threat to our family.

But Beatrice was a completely different entity. Looking at the sheer contentment radiating from Gideon's face in that photograph, the answer became clear. He never looked like that with me, and he never looked like that with his random flings. With crushing certainty, I realized that my daughter and I had already been entirely replaced.

Hours later, the apartment was shrouded in heavy darkness. I sat motionless on the living room couch, staring blankly ahead. The digital clock on the wall glowed a steady 3:00 AM.

The metallic click of the front door unlocking sliced through the silence. The heavy oak door swung open, and Gideon walked inside.

The harsh hallway light spilled over him before he shut the door, plunging us back into the dim glow of the streetlamps filtering through the blinds. He reeked of stale alcohol. His tailored suit jacket was missing. His dress shirt was sloppily unbuttoned halfway down his chest, the fabric wrinkled, and his dark hair was an absolute mess.

The visual contrast made bile rise in my throat. I had spent my entire day desperately trying to soothe his daughter's deeply broken heart, wiping her tears until my own eyes burned. And he? He was out happily playing family with his old love, drinking and celebrating his sweet reunion.

"You were so thrilled about your old love's return that you forgot your own daughter even existed, didn't you?" my voice cut through the dark, cold and sharp.

Gideon froze. He turned his head toward the couch, his posture stiffening. The scent of hard liquor grew stronger as he took a step forward. He fixed me with a cold, hawk-like glare, his bloodshot eyes narrowing in the shadows.

I refused to back down from that stare. I stood up, closing the distance between us.

"I see your new flavor of the week happens to be a familiar face," I mocked, my lips curling into a vicious sneer. I stepped right into his personal space, pushing his buttons with deliberate precision. "Was she good in bed, Gideon? Did she give you exactly what you wanted?"

The provocation worked instantly.

Gideon violently lunged at me across the room. His large, rough hand aggressively gripped my neck. The sudden force knocked the breath from my lungs as he shoved me backward.

"You don't know what the hell you're saying," he snarled, his face inches from mine. The smell of whiskey washed over my face. His grip tightened, exerting his raw, furious dominance. "How dare you compare Beatrice to those other meaningless women?"

Despite the burn of his hand on my throat, I absolutely refused to flinch. I stared right back into his dark, furious eyes, my own gaze blazing with unmasked hatred.

"Why shouldn't I compare them?" I demanded, my voice raspy but steady. "I am still your legal wife. What Beatrice is doing right now is absolutely no different from the actions of a common slut!"

His jaw locked. His chest heaved with ragged, angry breaths as the insult hit its mark. For a tense, terrifying second, his fingers tightened further. I held my ground, keeping my eyes locked on his, daring him to go further.

With a heavy, frustrated sigh, Gideon finally released his grip. He dropped his hand and took a step back, dragging his fingers roughly through his messy hair.

The physical altercation stripped away the very last of my illusions. The ghost of his hand lingered on my skin, solidifying my decision. I could not, and would not, subject Maisie to a lifetime of this cruel neglect. Her father clearly already had another child to dote on, a child born from the woman he actually wanted.

Moving with decisive purpose, I walked over to the coffee table. I grabbed the manila envelope I had prepared days ago. I pulled out the crisp, white divorce papers, marched right back to him, and threw them directly into his face.

The thick pages struck his chest and fluttered to the hardwood floor.

"Sign them," I ordered, my voice ringing with finality. I offered him a mocking smile. "You wouldn't want your precious Beatrice to be reduced to the status of a mere mistress, would you? Give her the title she deserves."

Gideon looked down at the scattered papers. His broad shoulders went rigid. Instead of bending down to read the documents or consider the terms, an explosive, stubborn rage erupted across his features.

He bent down, grabbed the stack of papers in two large fistfuls, and violently tore them to shreds right in front of my face. The sickening sound of ripping paper echoed in the quiet room as he let the torn pieces fall like snow around his expensive shoes.

"We are not getting divorced!" he roared loudly, his voice echoing off the walls. He jabbed a finger toward me. "I refuse to do something that will hurt Maisie. I won't ruin my daughter's life!"

The sheer, blinding hypocrisy of his statement snapped my very last thread of emotional control.

Before I could even process the movement, I raised my hand and slapped him incredibly hard across the face.

The sharp crack of my palm against his cheekbone was deafening. Gideon’s head snapped to the side.

"You think a divorce will hurt her?" I screamed, my chest heaving, the burning sting in my palm radiating up my arm. "Maisie was already hurt today! She was physically injured, and you were nowhere to be found!"

Gideon slowly turned his face back to me. The red mark from my hand glowed vividly on his skin. His dark eyes widened a fraction.

"I frantically called you over and over again!" I yelled, stepping forward to shove his chest. "I called you a dozen times while she was bleeding in that clinic, and you completely ignored every single one of them! Your own daughter was left crying out for her dad! She saw you outside that clinic, Gideon! She saw you with another child, and you abandoned her!"

The words seemed to pierce through his drunken haze. He blinked, the anger momentarily washing out of his expression, replaced by genuine shock.

"Maisie was hurt?" he repeated, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. A flash of genuine panic ignited in his bloodshot eyes. "Valerie, where is she?"

He stepped forward, raising his arms, and awkwardly attempted to pull me into a comforting hug.

I violently yanked myself free from his grasp, shoving his arms away with a look of pure disgust.

"Don't touch me!" I ordered furiously. "Do not pretend to be a good father now. You have other children to play daddy with! You are Maisie's biggest abuser, Gideon. You break her heart more than anyone else!"

"Valerie, that's not true..." he pleaded, reaching for me again, his hands shaking slightly.

I stepped out of his reach. I reached up and wiped away the furious tears that had betrayed my eyes. I looked at the man standing in front of me—the man I had once loved with everything I had. But now, looking at him, I felt nothing but a deadened, cold resolve.

"Just do exactly as I say and sign the papers," I stated, my tone devoid of any warmth. "If you genuinely love Maisie, you know I am right. Let us go."

Gideon stood frozen in the center of the ruined papers. He stared at me with his drunk, incredibly dangerous eyes. He completely refused to look away for even a single second, pinning me in place with his heavy gaze. The panic in his eyes receded, replaced by something dark, primal, and terrifying.

He slowly shook his head, rejecting my logic entirely. The movement was deliberate and chilling.

His voice dropped into a dark, terrifying tone that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as he delivered his final verdict.

"You will have to physically kill me first, Valerie," he declared, his words laced with a deadly promise. "Only then will you ever be free."