Three Days Behind a Locked Door
Chapter 01 - Three Days Behind a Locked Door
Clara Mercer had not left her bed in three days.
The curtains remained closed, breakfast trays sat untouched outside the bedroom, and every call from her husband went unanswered. To the staff at the Mercer estate, it looked as though the young wife of a millionaire had simply decided to hide from the world.
That was exactly what Lydia Mercer wanted everyone to believe.
Lydia, Julian’s mother, had moved into the estate two months earlier after claiming she needed time to recover from surgery. From the moment she arrived, she treated Clara like an intruder. She criticized her clothes, questioned her upbringing, and reminded her that Julian had married “far beneath the family name.”
Clara tolerated the insults because Julian was away negotiating the largest hotel deal of his career. She did not want to burden him. More importantly, she had just discovered that she was pregnant, and she planned to surprise him after the contract was signed.
But Lydia discovered the pregnancy test first.
Instead of celebrating, she warned Clara that a child would give her too much influence over Julian. Soon afterward, strange messages began appearing on Julian’s phone—screenshots suggesting Clara was meeting a former boyfriend named Noah. Lydia claimed she had seen a man enter the estate at night. She even produced a photograph of Clara speaking to Noah outside a medical clinic.
Julian tried to call his wife for an explanation, but Lydia always answered first.
“She refuses to come downstairs,” she told him. “She has been locked in that room for days. I am afraid she is hiding someone—or something.”
On the third evening, Julian returned unexpectedly from a black-tie business dinner. He was still wearing his tuxedo when he stormed upstairs, followed by Lydia and his father, Charles.
The bedroom door was unlocked.
Clara sat against the headboard in a white nightgown, her face pale and exhausted. A thick blanket covered her from the waist down.
“Where is he?” Julian demanded.
Clara stared at him. “Who?”
“The man my mother saw coming here.”
“There was no man.”
Julian’s anger, fed by three days of silence and carefully planted evidence, drowned out the fear in her voice. He crossed the room and pulled the blanket away, expecting to find a hidden phone, packed luggage, or proof of betrayal.
Instead, he froze.
Dark bruises covered Clara’s knees and thighs. One ankle was swollen. Her hands moved protectively toward the small curve of her stomach.
May you like
Julian’s face lost all color.
Clara looked past him at Lydia and whispered, “Ask your mother why I could not walk.”
