As the doctor barked orders at his staff, the husband tried to explain what had happened. Eight months pregnant with twins, his wife had gone into sudden labor only an hour earlier. At first, they believed they had time to get home. Back to the world they knew with modern hospitals, doctors smelling of cologne, and where everything money could buy could be bought, but they had been wrong. Within a few minutes after her labor began, she screamed she was bleeding, and her screaming didn’t stop until the village had come into view.

Swinging doors with small panes of glass flew open as the trolley smashed into them, and rubber-soled shoes squeaked across the floor as the team of three rushed her to the largest examination room they had. They weren’t prepared for this. They were a clinic not a hospital, and scrambling, the nurses filled cloth-covered surgical trays with everything the doctor shouted he needed. Behind them, standing in a puddle of water mixed with blood, the husband stood in shock. This wasn’t happening. Tomorrow was her birthday, and he had a surprise. This wasn’t happening. This was not happening.

Thirty minutes later, he sat alone in a room smelling of disinfectant and blood. The stainless steel rail of the stretcher was cold on his arm, but her skin was still warm. Sheets of green and white were draped over her lower half, trying to hide the hemorrhage that had taken her life, and every few seconds a drop of blood could be heard as it hit the floor.

They had left him alone so they could attend to the living, but as far as he was concerned, she should have died, too. She was the reason he no longer had a wife. She was the reason he no longer had a son. She was a murderer, and he would never, ever forgive her...and he would make her pay.

Chapter One

Accustomed to the sounds of the city, the pigeons lining the iron fence surrounding the park cooed and burbled amongst themselves oblivious to the late morning drizzle that had two-legged beings hastening down the street for protection. A car horn in the distance caused a few to ruffle their wings, but it wasn’t until the doors to the courthouse across the street flew open with a bang, when the flock rose to the heavens en masse, the beat of their wings reaching a quick crescendo before they scattered in the sky.

More than one passerby glanced at the woman dressed in black as she stormed from the building, but she couldn’t have cared less. Rushing down the stairs, she took four long strides toward the 1984 Daimler limousine parked on the street, before she suddenly came to a stop and whipped around. Mindless of the misty rain and the fact that even more people were now milling about, she glared at the two women standing frozen on the steps behind her.