Chapter 1 - The Knock That Stopped the Flame
Trevor flicked the cigarette lighter open.
The small flame danced between him and Rebecca.
“Both you and that bastard in your belly are nothing but ash,” he said. “Time to burn away my obstacles.”
Rebecca pressed both hands over her pregnant stomach and backed against the concrete wall.
She could smell gasoline.
A red fuel can stood beside Trevor’s truck. A dark trail of liquid ran beneath the tires and across the garage floor.
He had not lost his temper.
He had prepared this.
Linda stood beside the locked garage door, her arms folded over her chest.
Trevor’s mother looked at Rebecca without pity.
“Don’t let her ruin our plans.”
Thunder shook the suburban house.
Rain hammered the roof.
Rebecca’s phone lay crushed near the workbench after Trevor had ripped it from her hand. She had no key, no weapon, and nowhere to run.
But the small security camera above the tool cabinet was still blinking.
Trevor noticed her looking at it.
“You think someone is coming to save you?”
He stepped closer, shielding the lighter from the cold draft.
Rebecca forced herself not to look at the camera again.
She had installed it three days earlier after discovering that someone had entered the garage while she slept.
Trevor believed he had disconnected the home-security system that afternoon.
He had not found the second camera.
The one connected directly to her neighbor’s phone.
A shadow moved behind the frosted glass panels of the garage door.
Then someone struck the metal from outside.
BOOM.
Trevor froze.
Another blow shook the door in its frame.
BOOM.
Linda turned sharply.
“Who is that?”
Trevor’s confident expression disappeared.
The lighter trembled in his hand.
Rebecca slowly lifted her head.
For the first time that night, she smiled.
“Your time is up.”
The pounding stopped.
Silence filled the garage.
Then a man’s voice came through the door.
“Trevor, put down the lighter and step away from your wife.”
Rebecca recognized the voice.
It belonged to Daniel Hayes, the fifty-year-old neighbor who lived across the street.
But Trevor reacted as if he had heard a dead man.
“No,” he whispered. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”
Daniel struck the door again.
“I saw the gasoline. I saw everything.”
Trevor looked toward the camera.
Rebecca watched the exact moment he understood.
The attack had been recorded.
His hand closed around the lighter.
Then he turned toward the gasoline trail.
“Open that door,” Rebecca said.
Trevor’s face twisted.
“If I’m going down, you’re coming with me.”
He lowered the flame toward the floor.
Before it touched the gasoline, Linda grabbed his wrist.
“Not yet,” she hissed. “We still need her signature.”
Rebecca stared at them.
“What signature?”
Linda’s cold eyes moved to Rebecca’s stomach.
May you like
“The one that makes your baby worth more dead than alive.”
👉 Rebecca had believed Trevor wanted to hide an affair, but Linda’s words revealed that the unborn child was tied to something far more valuable.
