Redemption Road (Vicious Cycle #2)(18)

“Okay,” I replied as I wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand.

He eyed the machines I was hooked up to and the IV bag. “While I should be grateful there was a hospital to bring you to in this godforsaken place, I’m not impressed with their level of care compared to back in the States,” he remarked.

When he reached for the sheet, I involuntarily gripped the edges tighter. Closing my eyes, I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s to be expected after what you’ve been through, especially with a male doctor.”

After I released the fabric, Dr. Edgeway pulled the sheet down and then eased my gown up over my abdomen. “The incision looks like it is healing well, no signs of infection.” When he lightly tapped my stomach, I flinched. “It’s not surprising that you’re sore. Besides the surgery, you had been worked over quite extensively.”

“What exactly did you have to do?”

Dr. Edgeway didn’t immediately respond. Instead, he put my gown back in place and pulled the sheet up. Finally, after what felt like an eternity had passed, he cleared his throat. “The blunt force trauma you sustained caused your spleen to rupture. If Rev hadn’t found you when he did, you would have died from internal hemorrhaging in another hour.”

Bile rose in my throat as I painfully recalled my last hours in the compound. “I’m not too surprised that Mendoza left me to die. . . . He wanted me dead.”

“It was pretty evident from your injuries that’s what he intended.”

“So you just had to take out my spleen?”

After glancing down at the tile floor, Dr. Edgeway shook his head. “The blunt force trauma also caused a miscarriage—” My gasp of horror forced his gaze to meet mine.

“I was . . . pregnant?”

“Yes. You were.”

I could barely wrap my mind around such a thought. Of course, I had long been denied my birth control pills while in captivity, and since I was owned by Mendoza, he didn’t bother with condoms. I guess nature had taken its course. But the thought of carrying that monster’s child made my stomach roil in revulsion. At least there were some small mercies, and I had lost the baby. As much as I loved children and wanted them someday, I didn’t think I could have withstood raising a child of Mendoza’s.

“But I’m afraid that’s not the worst of it.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The miscarriage caused a tear in your uterine lining that couldn’t be repaired. The only way to stop the bleeding was to perform an emergency hysterectomy.”

Although Dr. Edgeway appeared to continue speaking, I couldn’t make out anything else he said. Absently, my hand came to rest on my abdomen. My now-barren abdomen. “I can’t have children,” I whispered in disbelief. I suddenly hoped and prayed that at any moment I would wake up from the nightmare, even if it found me back at Mendoza’s compound.

“You can’t carry a child, but you can still have a child of your own.”

“What?” I questioned absently.

“Annabel, look at me,” Dr. Edgeway instructed. When I finally met his gaze, he said, “You still have your ovaries. With today’s modern fertility treatments, you can have your own child via a surrogate. It isn’t impossible, especially for someone from your background.”

I know he didn’t intend it, but it sounded like Dr. Edgeway thought that I should be grateful for the wealthy background I came from. Allegedly it would be my salvation—the only way I could ever have a child of my own flesh and blood. But at that moment, money, status, or prestige didn’t mean shit. It sure as hell hadn’t saved me from Mendoza. And there was no way financial wealth could reassemble the fractured pieces of my life. There were some things that money simply could not buy.

“Annabel, you will heal and move on.”

“But I’ll never have life within me,” I challenged.

He shook his head slowly. “No. You won’t.”

I felt like I was being pummeled with new waves of grief and loss. After all I had endured, now I had survived only to learn I could never carry a child?

Why?

For the thousandth time I asked myself that one question.

Why?

Why me? Why did bad things keep happening? It struck me in that moment that while I might’ve physically escaped from my nightmare, I would be forced to continuously endure the emotional aftershocks. I became so overwhelmed with dark and desperate feelings then that I didn’t think I could keep my head up. “I’m very tired. I think I need to rest.”

“I’m sorry, Annabel. If I could have gotten to you sooner and under different circumstances, maybe I could have repaired the tear without having to remove the uterus.”

Even though he was sincere, I didn’t want his apology. Nothing he could say or do could ever make things right for me. No one could. At that moment, I realized I had traded one hell for another.

From this day forward, I would never be anything more than a shameful burden to my parents. As a woman who had been defiled by criminals, I would be considered damaged goods. Preston would never date or marry me, and for that matter neither would any other man in our social circle. Even if someone did, I couldn’t bear the picture-perfect family for him. No political propaganda commercial would want to feature a couple along with their surrogate.