Escaping His Cage: The Phoenix Wife Returns

Maya POV My phone vibrated against the mahogany table. Again. *Liam Calling...* It was the fiftieth time in two hours. I watched the screen light up, illuminating the dark living room with a ghostly blue glow, then fade back to black. It was a rhythmic pulse of desperation I had no interest in answering. I sat by the fireplace, the flames licking at the gas logs behind the glass. In my hand, I held the "Realm of Maya" necklace. I had fished it out of the box earlier. It felt heavy, like a shackle made of diamonds and lies. The front door unlocked. I didn't flinch. I had expected this. He still had a key. He owned the building, after all. Liam stormed in, breathless, his tie undone, his hair windblown. He looked frantic. He looked like a man who had lost his favorite toy. "Maya!" He spotted me and rushed over, stopping just short of the armchair. "Why aren't you answering? I've been calling you all morning." I didn't look at him. I kept my eyes fixed on the dancing flames. "I was busy." "Busy doing what? Sulking?" He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling a sharp breath. "Look, about the gala... I'm sorry. Okay? I panicked. Ava is... she's volatile. I handled it poorly." "Poorly," I repeated. The word tasted like ash. "I'm fixing it," he said, stepping closer, his voice dropping to that persuasive baritone he used in boardrooms. "I've spoken to the PR team. We're spinning it. You were unwell. It was a reaction to medication. We'll go on a second honeymoon. Anywhere you want. Paris? Fiji?" He reached out to touch my shoulder. I stood up, moving out of his reach. I walked to the fireplace and opened the glass partition. The heat hit my face, dry and intense. "I don't want Paris, Liam," I said. I held the necklace over the flames. The diamonds sparkled, indifferent to their fate. "Maya, what are you doing?" His voice pitched up. "That's—" I dropped it. The heavy gold chain hit the logs with a clink. It didn't melt immediately, but it lay there among the flames, the metal beginning to blacken as it was consumed. "You're crazy," he whispered, staring at the fire. "Maybe," I said. "Or maybe I'm finally sane." The door opened again. This time, there was no hesitation. Ava walked in. She wasn't wearing red tonight. She was wearing white, a cruel parody of innocence. She held a tablet in her hand, and her smile was sharp enough to cut glass. "She's not crazy, Liam," Ava said, walking into the room as if she owned it. "She's just ungrateful." Liam spun around. "Ava, I told you to wait in the car." "I got bored," she shrugged. She looked at me, her eyes traveling down to my stomach. "Besides, we need to discuss the future. The nursery isn't going to design itself." I felt a wave of nausea, but I swallowed it down. I walked over to the coffee table where Liam had thrown his briefcase. I opened my laptop, which was sitting there, and turned the screen toward them. "I found these," I said. On the screen was a chat log. It was from Liam's cloud account, synced to the iPad he left at home last week. *Liam: She's boring, Mark. But she's safe. Once the baby is born, I'll ship her off to the Connecticut estate. She can play mommy while I live my life.* *Ava (Audio message): Just make sure she doesn't get fat. I hate looking at her.* The audio played in the silent room. Ava's voice, tinny and cruel. Liam stared at the screen. He didn't look ashamed. He looked annoyed that he'd been caught. "That was just talk," he said dismissively. "Locker room talk. It doesn't mean anything." "It means everything," I said. Ava laughed. "Oh, honey. Grow up. Men like Liam need women like me. You were just a placeholder. A womb." She took a step toward me, her hand resting on her own stomach. "And now, even that is redundant. My baby will be the heir. Yours will just be... the spare." The cruelty was breathtaking. It sucked the air out of the room. I looked at Liam. He was watching me, waiting to see if I would break. He expected tears. He expected begging. I gave him neither. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was the medical discharge summary from yesterday afternoon. I tossed it onto the coffee table. It landed between us, a white flag that was actually a declaration of war. "There is no spare," I said. My voice was steady, terrifyingly calm. Liam frowned. He picked up the paper. His eyes scanned the medical jargon. *Termination of pregnancy. Completed.* His face went gray. The paper shook in his hand. "What is this?" he whispered. "I handled it," I said, echoing his own words from three days ago. "I'm not having a bastard running around. Isn't that what you said?" "You..." He looked up, his eyes wide with shock and a dawning, terrible rage. "You killed my child?" "I saved it," I corrected him. "I saved it from you." Ava gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. For the first time, her smirk vanished. "You monster," Liam choked out. "We're a match made in hell then, aren't we?" I smiled. It was a cold, broken thing. "I want a divorce, Liam. And this time, I'm not asking."