I collapsed to my knees, my hands trembling as I gathered his broken body into my arms.

“Jasper… Mom is here… I am sorry… I am so sorry…”

I cried until my voice tore apart, as if my soul had been split open.

Again and again, I swore it.

“I will make them pay. I swear I will.”

The medication seemed to have lost its effect on me.

I was actually able to brace myself against the wheelchair and slowly stand.

I lifted Jasper onto the wheelchair and covered the horrifying wound in his chest with a burial shroud.

Step by step.

I pushed him all the way to the entrance of the police station.

I refused to believe this world truly had no justice for me.

“I want to file a report,” my voice was shockingly steady. “Xander and Anais are suspected of intentional homicide and deliberate leakage of classified information.”

I pulled back the shroud.

Jasper’s wound was exposed under the harsh white light, grotesque and terrifying.

“My son was murdered,” I said coldly. “You can perform an autopsy. You will find out exactly what drugs were used on him.”

The officer’s expression shifted from shock to grim.

Then he slammed the desk and pointed at me, shouting.

“Mr. Xander has long stated that you suffer from delusions. Nothing you say can be trusted!”

“And besides, he already signed a donation agreement on behalf of the child. That was legal!”

My heart felt as if it were being crushed alive.

I had never imagined this.

That for Anais, Xander could set such a flawless trap.

I stepped back, only to bump into someone.

I turned around.

It was him.

Xander stood there.

He still carried the scent of hospital disinfectant, his expression colder than the first time I ever met him.

The moment he saw that I had brought Jasper out, his face changed drastically.

“Isadora, are you insane? Stealing a body is a serious crime!”

When he noticed the bloody hollow in Jasper’s chest, his anger slowly faded, replaced by a display of false grief.

“I already chose a burial site for him. Dragging him around like this, are you trying to make sure he never rests in peace?”

The last thread of my reason snapped.

“This is my son!” I roared. “Of course I will demand justice for him!”

“Have you forgotten how my legs were broken? Have you forgotten who fired three shots at him?”

Xander did not answer.

Instead, a weak and familiar figure appeared at the end of the corridor.

It was Anais.

She was wearing a hospital gown, her face pale, her steps unsteady. Yet she walked straight up to me and dropped to her knees.

She actually knelt.

“Isadora…”

Her voice trembled with sobs. “Back then, I was blinded by obsession. I was wrong.”

She pulled out her surgical scalpel and pressed it against her chest.

“If you hate me… I am willing to die right now to atone.”

The blade rested against her chest. One slight push and it would pierce her heart, blood splattering everywhere.

Everyone held their breath.

And for the first time,

I saw real fear in her eyes.

“Anais, you just had surgery. Do not get agitated!”

Seeing the bandages still wrapped around her chest as she held the scalpel to her heart, Xander completely lost control.

He rushed over almost frantically and snatched the blade away.

When he looked back at me again, his eyes were already stained with barely restrained hatred.

It was the first time I had ever seen him panic this much for a woman.

“Isadora, how far are you planning to take this?”

His voice trembled, though he forced himself to sound calm. “Do you only feel satisfied when you push Anais to her death?”

“She did make mistakes back then, but she has already paid the price. She barely survived. Is that still not enough?”

I stood there in silence.

All the rage, grief, and confusion churned violently in my chest, until in the end, only exhaustion remained.

He helped the frail Anais away.

I watched the uneven figures retreat, my nose burning, my vision blurring into mist.

He said Anais had already paid the price.

But the one who paid the most was me.

What I lost was my child.

Jasper’s body was sent for cremation.

And only after settling Anais and making sure she was safely resting did Xander finally remember that I was still sitting alone in the police station, helpless and abandoned.

On the way home, neither of us mentioned the fact that I had stood up.

It became the last unspoken agreement between us.

Xander looked exhausted, his voice hoarse, sounding like a plea and a warning at the same time.

“Isadora, if Anais’s parents had not sponsored me back then, I would never have made it through the police academy. I might have been forced by my family into a different life altogether.”

“They gave me a new future. Now they sacrificed themselves and became martyrs. I cannot let their only child come to harm.”

His voice caught in his throat, as if he were begging forgiveness for himself.

I turned my head to look out the window and calmly finished the words he could not bring himself to say.

“So you deliberately leaked my undercover identity and staged a so called revenge car crash.”

“So you could send Jasper to the hospital and make him Anais’s backup heart.”

The car fell into dead silence.

A very long time passed before his voice finally drifted out, broken and barely audible.

“I truly had no choice. I begged every doctor and specialist. Her life could not hold on until a suitable donor appeared.”

“Isadora, we can still have children in the future. I am willing to spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

His apology was like a blade, carving into my heart again and again.

I thought of the photograph my parents entrusted to me as they lay dying.

The boy in the photo looked clear eyed and stubborn, his gaze clean and resolute.

It was him.

My parents praised him endlessly, saying he was responsible and principled, and asked me to continue supporting him.

From the first moment I saw him, I fell deeply in love with him.

Afraid of hurting his pride, I never told him I was his sponsor.

I believed in love, and I believed in him.

But I never imagined this.

Someone had stolen my kindness and claimed my grace.

And he, without hesitation, repaid the wrong person.

In the end, the one who died was our child.

To keep me from disturbing Anais while she recovered, Xander locked me in the house for seven full days.

He came back every day, cooked as usual, told me little stories about his day, pretending this family had not been shattered.

And I did not say a single word for seven days.

Until the seventh day after Jasper’s death, when I saw Anais again.

Her complexion was rosy, her health astonishingly good.

She stepped over my son’s remains and lived more vibrantly than ever.

Anais did not bother to hide her contempt, the corner of her mouth lifting into a cruel curve.

“Isadora, I never thought that the pride of the police academy back then would end up like this.”

Her gaze fell on my slightly trembling legs, her mockery deepening.

“My fault. I forgot you are disabled now. Of course you cannot do anything.”

She lowered her head, as if savoring a pleasant memory.

“Do you know? When I cut him open, I did not use any anesthesia on your son. Before the pain knocked him unconscious, he kept calling your name.”

She spread her hands, as if showing off a trophy.

“No choice. The more pain he felt, the more active his heart stayed.”

I felt my reason.

Cracking apart, inch by inch.

“Anais, are you not afraid of retribution?”

“Aren’t you afraid that one day Xander will learn the truth and make you pay with your life?”

Halfway through my words, her smile suddenly froze.

But very quickly, her cold gaze swept past me toward the stairwell beside us.

“He will never know.”

“And before that happens, I will make sure you are silenced forever.”

The moment those words fell, the air turned icy.

She took a step forward, murderous intent clear.

Thud.

Just a second before the door was pushed open, Anais suddenly threw herself backward, her body crashing down the stairs.

Blood spread along the steps one by one, the sight horrifying.

Xander’s face went deathly pale. He rushed over, almost screaming.

“Anais. Anais. What happened to you?”

He knelt beside her, his hands shaking so badly he could barely hold her arm.

Blood bubbled at the corner of Anais’s mouth. Her breathing was so weak it seemed ready to stop at any moment, yet she forced herself to look up at Xander.

“Xander… don’t blame Isadora… her child just died… she is emotionally unstable…”

“Just take it… take it as my atonement… the debt you owed my parents… is repaid now…”

Before she finished speaking, her head tilted to the side and she fell into a deep coma.

Xander completely lost control.

The next second, he lifted his head and looked at me. There was no reason left in his eyes, only madness, rage, and hatred.

“Isadora, what do you want from me?”

He was almost roaring. “Is everything I have done still not enough for you? Do you only feel satisfied when you force Anais to her death?”

He pulled out his baton and advanced toward me step by step, tears hanging at the corners of his eyes, his expression on the brink of insanity.

“You forced me. You forced all of this!”

The baton came down.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

By the fifth strike, the pain was so overwhelming that I could not make a sound. My knee felt as if it had been smashed into gravel.

He was panting, his hands trembling, yet he still clenched his teeth and stomped down hard on my already broken leg.

“When you hurt Anais, you are hurting me. Do you hear me?”

I was dragged back home like a criminal being dealt with, locked into a room by his own hands.

The moment the door closed, he looked at Anais on the ambulance below. His eyes turned completely cold.

“When you come to your senses, I will let you out.”

“I owe you, and I will repay it. But you have no right to harm Anais.”

Bang.

The door was locked shut.

I curled up on the floor. The pain of shattered bones tore at my will again and again.

But that pain slowly brought clarity instead.

Dragging my crippled body, I crawled to the study, pried open the panel beneath the desk, and pulled out a safe that had been sealed away for years.

The password was my parents’ date of death.

Beep.

The box opened. Dust rose into the air, revealing stacks of old remittance records.

Recipient name: Xander.

From the time he was eight years old until he entered the police academy.

Every cent was the hope my parents had poured into him.

Beside them lay all the property my parents had left behind.

And a letter written in blood.

Inside was the path my parents prepared for me.

I was my parents’ proudest child.

I was an undercover agent for five years, surviving countless brushes with death.

I was not someone meant to be locked in a house, waiting to die.

I had to stand up.

For Jasper.

For myself.

I tore the bedsheets into strips and knotted them into a rope. Dragging my broken legs, I crawled inch by inch toward the window.

The wind on the tenth floor cut into flesh and bone like knives.

I clenched my teeth and relied on the strength of my arms, lowering myself bit by bit.

My skin was scraped raw, split open, flesh torn and bleeding.

My hands were worn down until bone nearly showed.

From daylight to nightfall, from brightness to pitch black, I did not know how many times I fell, or how many times I forced myself to hold on again.

Until I finally saw the iron gates of that compound.

The moment the searchlights turned on, I could no longer hold myself up and collapsed to my knees.

Trembling, I pressed my parents’ memorial photos to my chest and laid the blood letter on the ground.

At last, I raised my head toward the massive gate, my voice hoarse yet shaking the entire night.

“I, Isadora, served as an undercover agent for five years and was awarded first class merit multiple times!”

“Now I have been framed, my legs shattered, my child murdered. My family destroyed!”

I clenched my teeth and used the last of my strength to roar.

“I ask only for justice!”

That cry tore through the night sky.

At that moment, no one could remain unmoved.

The compound was especially guarded in the dead of night.

I dragged my festering broken legs all the way here, my body covered in blood, miserable to the point of terror.

The guards immediately raised their guns at me, eyes cold, alert and severe.

Until the searchlight illuminated the blood letter in my hands.

That was honor bought with life.

That was the path my parents secured for me with their lives.