Apartment 274, Terrow Heights Apartment Complex, Baltiney, New York...
Hot tears continued to stream down the supple brown cheeks of Valencia Adrianna Romas as she found herself once more in her bed alone, as she slowly rubbed her hand along her belly. She had been carrying for one month and the father of her unborn child had elected not to have anything further to do with her. His parents had assured her that it wouldn't always be the case, but she had not been so sure. Valencia had come from an average family who had been numerous and spent a good deal of time between Baltiney, New York, and Flashpoint, New Jersey. She'd originally been a Jersey girl, but her family moved following the tragic events that led to the relocation of her family to Baltiney, New York.
At the time Valencia had been about twelve years old and she'd been on her way to visit relatives for the holidays like most of the people who had the unfortunate luck of having boarded flight 126. Valencia's parents and her younger siblings had all survived the tragic events with her included but she had been forever changed once the plane had gone down. The first time she had seen or ever heard of the infamous wealthy businessman Ryker Kennison, he had arrived and shined a bright flashlight in her small face when he had been in search of survivors along with the rest of the rescue teams.
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Broken Plane, Flight 126, Unknown Location (Ten Years Prior)...
Valencia Ramos had been unable to move as the weight of the plane's debris had been crushing her small chest in the wake of the settling of the plane following the crash. She had felt that every bone in her twelve-year-old body had been broken as she helplessly sat in the dark amid the already decaying bodies of other passengers who had not been her parents. She had gotten caught off guard while returning from the restroom back to her seat when the turbulence knocked her around and then unconscious without anyone able to get to her.
She had previously been tasked with ensuring her younger siblings took a turn in the restroom and got safely back to their parents once they had finished. They had been watching across the plane as the younger Ramos children made it back safely but Valencia had elected to use the restroom herself when the issues began. She thought nothing of it given the number of professionals and kept her cool as she finished up in the restroom before washing up and attempting to get back to her seat.
She had barely a glimpse of her family altogether and called for her to join them as the surrounding stewardess' had them all strapped in and demanded they stay in their collective seats. Valencia had only gotten a glimpse of her family before the plane went down and everything had been thrown into chaos. She ended up in a twisted section of the plane after the crash amid toppled seats and bare in what remained of the isle as she managed to get a glimpse of the passengers that had been more toward the front of the plane, among them had been two boys, later she knew them to have been Kevin and Carter Kennison. They had been crushed and their necks broken during the crash.
She had felt for them, her body experiencing some of the same crushing as the hours passed. It hadn't been long before she felt the oozing of her own blood, warm and slick as she sat awaiting a rather tragic and premature end to her young life. As time passed she had nearly given up all hope when the voice of a man she would never forget called out amid the darkness and rubble from the plane. He had been determined to get inside even with the experts urging him against it.
"MY WIFE AND BOYS ARE IN THERE!" shouted an angry and determined Ryker Kennison as he pushed passed those attempting to stop him. He had flashed his light in her face giving her the last ray of hope that she could be pulled out from the mess that had been the wreckage.
Ryker had been searching for his family but had been a man full of compassion and empathy as he scooped through the rubble and found the tiny hand of a dying Valencia Ramos.
"HEY THERE'S SOMEBODY ALIVE HERE!" he shouted still fighting the rescue crew who had been trying to pull him away. He shined his light on her once more and they had finally been alerted after a brief period of denial from the team as merely the desperate man "seeing things that he wanted to see". "FUCK YOU, YOU CALL YOURSELF A RESCUE TEAM, I KNOW WHAT I SAW, SOMEBODY IS ALIVE IN HERE AND I'M GOING TO GET THEM OUT WITH OR WITHOUT YOUR FUCKIN HELP!"
Valencia had been in tears as the determined man followed her hand and arm struggling to lift the heavy debris off her until he had finally gotten assistance from the reluctant rescuers if only to keep the frantic businessman from hurting himself. They had been shocked that he'd been right as they caught sight of little twelve-year-old Valencia barely clinging to life. The determined billionaire Ryker Kennison had wasted no time now that he'd seen that it had been a child, a little girl amid the rubble. He carefully pulled her out and into his arms and she got a glimpse of his sorrowful and concerned dark eyes before she'd been passed to the rescuers and subsequently passed out just as she heard the most heartbreaking mournful shouting she'd ever known.
Later she found out while in the hospital that Ryker's wife and children had died as a result of the crash and the injuries associated with it. He had managed to save a good deal of the people aside from the pilots a couple of stewardesses' and his own family with his rescue attempt. The greatest thing that came of Ryker Kennison's contributions was reuniting Valencia with her family who had survived the tragic events intact.
The next time she saw Ryker Kennison since the events of the rescue, he had been at the memorial service for the other victims and even added his name to the lawsuit against the airline for the faulty plane he opted out of any money for the event instead giving it all to the families that had suffered the same tragedy.
He had not hidden his brokenness in the wake of losing his family very well as far as young Valencia had been concerned and when the news came of Ryker's tragic accident on the fifth anniversary of the plane crash she had suspected all too well that it had not been simply an accident.
At the age of seventeen she had been infatuated with Ryker Kennison, the man who had saved her life and the lives of so many others, the city's biggest hero as far as anyone else had been concerned and then to lose his own family in the process only to suffer a tragic car accident five years later which had left him hospitalized for months sent shockwaves throughout the city, especially from people who had been fond of him.
Valencia Ramos had been one of those people and opted to see him while he had been in a coma for six months by telling the people in attendance that they were "related". It had not been a very good ruse, but she managed to convince the bleeding hearts that as a survivor from the crash that Ryker personally saved she had a right to see to his welfare. She visited him whenever she could even getting a job at a local diner so she could stay close to the city to be near him.
When Ryker awoke he had been a completely different man and knew next to nothing about the people that had cared about him. While some people tolerated "Ken" for Ryker's sake others shunned him outright due to his scandalous behavior, his mother had been the chief among those who turned him away. Seeing how truly broken the man who saved her had been, Valencia made it her business to attempt to keep him out of trouble and alive as a means of repaying her debt to him.
Ken took a liking to her and they ended up falling into bed more often than not but she still didn't let up on trying to find some way to protect him, even from himself. She had seen Ken at his worst and found a way to reel him back even when he'd gone to the brink. Whether he chose to believe it or not, her opting to carry his child had been born of a means to protect him and give him a legacy despite all that he had lost.
It wasn't easy intentionally earning Ken's ire but after a near-fatal overdose from the week before she'd opted to go off birth control to get pregnant by him, Valencia had been determined to at least have Ryker Kennison's child to keep him and his legacy alive.
After all, she had loved this broken and rather complicated man since she'd been twelve years old, if anyone was going to carry his child it was going to be her consequences be damned.
Valencia sighed as she once more moved her hand along her belly, her tears long dried as she lay in the center of her king-sized bed alone again for yet another night with her lover Ken on the warpath about her pregnancy. Even with his ire, she had been confident that she'd made the right decision and wouldn't have changed it for all the money in the world.