Chapter 2 - Abandoned in the Dark
atricia did not stop at taking my phone. While I sat on the nursery floor rocking my
gasping baby, her eyes fell upon my designer leather wallet resting on the changing table.
With practiced, elegant fingers, she unzipped it and pulled out my Centurion black card—the key to
my family's immense, multi-generational wealth. A card she had spent three years trying to get her
hands on.
"What are you doing?" I choked out, holding Noah closer to my chest. "Put that back."
"The wedding in Maui is tomorrow, Maya," Patricia said smoothly, slipping the card into her robe
pocket. "Evan has worked tirelessly at the firm. He needs a break from your exhausting chaos. I will
handle our travel and hotel expenses with our family resources. After all, what is yours is his."
"That is my money! You are stealing from me!" I gasped, but my voice was weak, my energy
focused entirely on trying to breathe rhythmically so Noah could mimic my heartbeat.
"It is a family trip, Maya. Do not be selfish," she said, her tone dripping with venom. "Evan, let's
go. The town car is waiting downstairs. Leave her to her rest."
Evan stood up, grabbed his duffel bag, and walked toward the door. He didn't look back at the
crib, nor did he look at me. He simply wanted to escape the heavy, suffocating atmosphere of a home
The Price of a Sunset 2
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he had helped break. "We'll be back in five days, Maya. Just... get some sleep," he muttered, closing the
door behind him.
The click of the front door echoing through the empty mansion sounded like a gunshot. The
moment they stepped outside, the profound silence of the house settled in. I scrambled up to find my
phone, but Patricia had taken it. I rushed to the bedside table to grab the landline receiver—it was
dead. The line had been physically cut from the wall box downstairs. I ran to the wall-mounted smarthome tablet to dial an emergency broadcast, but the screen was gone, leaving only exposed wires.
They had stripped me of every connection to the outside world to ensure I wouldn't 'ruin' their luxury
vacation with my 'hysterical' calls.
But as I panicked, my eyes caught the tiny, blinking green light of the high-definition nursery
camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. It was hardwired to an independent cloud server that
Patricia didn't know how to access. It was recording. Every word, every threat, and every agonizing
gasp from my innocent baby was being saved to a secure online drive. And I was about to fight like
May you like
hell to make sure they paid for every single second of it.
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