Chapter 1 - The Bus Fare
“This is enough for the bus,” Dominic said impatiently. “Hurry up. My mother is waiting for lunch.”
I stood outside St. Mark’s Hospital with my five-day-old son sleeping against my chest.
Every breath hurt.
Every movement pulled at the incision from my emergency C-section. Beneath my oversized sweater, the stitches felt like fire. I had barely slept since Leo was born. My body was swollen, weak, and still trying to recover from bringing a human being into the world.
For a moment, I honestly thought I had misunderstood my husband.
“You want me to take the bus?” I asked quietly.
Dominic sighed as if I had ruined his day.
“Don’t start, Audrey.”
“I was just discharged,” I said. “I can hardly stand.”
“My sister was walking around three days after giving birth.”
“Your sister had a normal delivery,” I whispered.
“And you have a bus card,” he replied. “You’ll survive.”
Behind him sat the black luxury SUV my father had given me before our wedding. It was registered in my name, insured through my family’s company, and paid for entirely by a trust Dominic knew nothing about.
He drove it every day.
He said it made the right impression when he met investors.
I had imagined that he would help me into the passenger seat. I thought he would carry the diaper bag, make sure Leo was warm, and drive us home carefully.
Instead, he held out a few crumpled bills.
“Here,” he said. “Bus fare.”
I stared at the money in his hand.
“Dominic, I’m holding our newborn.”
“You’re holding a baby, not a piano.”
My throat tightened.
Then Victoria, my mother-in-law, stepped out of the hospital doors with Dominic’s father, Arthur, and his younger sister, Natalie. They were dressed as though they were leaving a brunch, not a maternity ward.
Victoria smiled at Dominic.
“Darling, are we still on time for Le Jardin?”
“Of course,” Dominic said. “Audrey is taking the bus.”
Victoria glanced at me for less than two seconds.
“Well,” she said, “new mothers need to learn independence.”
Natalie laughed.
“I took the subway alone when I had the flu once. It builds character.”
No one asked how I felt.
No one looked at Leo.
No one offered to help.
The discharge nurse stood nearby, visibly uncomfortable. Dominic grabbed the diaper bag from her, tossed it into the SUV, and then remembered that I would need it.
He sighed, pulled it back out, and dropped it at my feet.
“There are leftovers in the refrigerator,” he said. “Heat those up when you get home.”
He opened the SUV door for his mother.
“Don’t keep calling me,” he added. “I’m spending the day with my family.”
I looked down at the few bills in my palm.
Then I looked at my son.
Leo stirred softly against my chest, his tiny face peaceful and innocent. He had no idea that the man who should have protected him was treating his mother like an inconvenience.
Something inside me shifted.
Not anger.
Not tears.
Certainty.
The luxury SUV drove away.
Through the dark windows, I saw Dominic laughing with Natalie. His mother sat in the front seat, already talking about lunch. My husband never looked back.
A city bus stopped at the curb.
The driver looked at my pale face, then at the newborn in my arms. Without saying anything, he lowered the front of the bus so I could climb aboard more easily.
“Take your time, ma’am,” he said gently.
That one sentence nearly broke me.
I sat near the window, holding Leo close while Manhattan blurred past us. The city was loud and alive outside, but inside my chest, everything was suddenly quiet.
For two years, I had tried to make my marriage work.
Dominic had not always been cruel.
When we first met, he was charming, focused, and ambitious. He talked about building a technology company that would change people’s lives. He made me laugh. He listened to my dreams. He said he loved that I was “different” from the wealthy women he met at investor events.
He thought I came from an ordinary family.
I had let him think that.
I told him my father was a retired contractor with a small construction business. I never mentioned Brooks Global Corporation. I never mentioned the headquarters in Chicago, the international divisions, the board members, the political connections, or the fortune attached to the Brooks name.
I wanted to know whether Dominic loved Audrey Brooks.
Not Charles Brooks’s daughter.
At first, I believed he did.
But the moment his company began attracting serious investors, he changed. He began measuring people by what they could do for him. He stopped asking about my day. He criticized the way I dressed. He complained that I was too “sensitive.” His mother called me a burden. Natalie joked that I had married above my station.
And Dominic let them.
The bus stopped at a red light.
In the lane beside us, I saw the black SUV.
Dominic was heading toward an expensive lunch while I sat on a public bus with a newborn baby and fresh surgical stitches.
He did not look over.
He did not recognize me through the window.
That was the moment I reached into my bag and dialed a number I had not called in years.
My father answered on the first ring.
“Audrey?”
“Dad,” I said softly.
Then my voice cracked.
“I need a security team sent to my apartment.”
There was silence.
I looked down at Leo.
“Dominic gave me bus fare after I was discharged. He took the SUV and went to lunch with his family.”
My father’s silence changed.
It became cold.
Controlled.
Dangerous.
“Tell me where you are,” he said.
“I’m on the M15.”
“Listen to me carefully, sweetheart. You are not going back to that apartment. Neither you nor my grandson will spend another night with that man.”
A black sedan appeared behind the bus ten minutes later.
Then another.
By the time the bus stopped near my old apartment building, two members of my father’s private security team were waiting on the sidewalk.
One of them opened the door for me.
“Mrs. Brooks,” he said respectfully. “Your father sent us.”
I held Leo closer.
Behind me, the city bus pulled away.
May you like
Ahead of me was a life Dominic never imagined I could choose.
And before the day was over, he would learn that giving me bus fare had been the most expensive mistake of his life.
