Two days later, I went home. The moment I stepped through the door, Vivien walked out of the bedroom. She looked down at me from across the room,

a vicious smile curling at the corner of her lips, her eyes full of mockery and contempt.

“Kay, your life must be pretty miserable right now, huh? Abandoned by your own husband, betrayed by your best friend, stuck in that dingy hospital room without a single person to take care of you. Watching Bartholomew dote on me hand and foot. You must hate it so much you could scream.”

I stared at her coldly, unwilling to waste a single word on her. She was ugly to me now. Repulsive.

When I didn't respond, her smile only widened. She leaned down slowly, bringing her mouth close to my ear.

“Did you really believe, all those years ago, that I was actually sick? That I needed a kidney transplant?”

She let out a soft laugh, her voice dripping with amusement.

“Kay, you're hopeless. Truly, pathetically hopeless. I was never sick. The kidney transplant was a lie I made up to trick you.”

My eyes went wide. Every drop of blood in my body turned to ice. I stared at her, unable to process what I was hearing.

“What did you just say?”

Vivien straightened up, arms crossed, her expression brazen.

“I just couldn't stand you. Ever since we were kids, you were always the golden girl. The money, the looks, everyone orbiting around you. Even Bartholomew married you in the end. I hated it. That smug, charitable little act of yours, like you were doing the world a favor by existing. So I faked being sick. I tricked you into giving me your kidney. Watching you lie on that operating table, risking your life for me without a second thought? That felt good.”

“You knew. You knew how much damage donating a kidney would do to my body. You knew I was risking my life to save you……”

My voice shook. My whole body shook. Back then, I'd gone against my family's wishes, insisted on donating my kidney to her, and spent the better part of a year recovering from the surgery.

I had treated her like a sister. Given her everything I had. And all of it had been repaid with a carefully orchestrated lie.

“So what?”

Vivien scoffed, her eyes turning vicious. “Why should you get to have everything? Why should Bartholomew love you? I wanted to destroy your life, steal your man, drag you down from your pedestal and grind you into the dirt. I wanted you to feel every ounce of what I felt. That car accident, the miscarriage? I deliberately didn't give blood. I wanted you to die. Too bad you're hard to kill. But it worked out anyway. You can't have children now, and that gave me my opening. Bartholomew only loves me and the baby in my belly. You're nothing.”

“You're insane!” I was shaking with rage. “Vivien, aren't you afraid I'll tell Bartholomew every single thing you just said?”

“Tell Bartholomew?” Vivien threw her head back and laughed like she'd just heard the funniest joke of her life. “Kay, do you honestly think he'd believe you? I'm the only one he sees now. He believes every word out of my mouth. You could scream the truth until your throat bled, and he'd just think you were jealous. That you were making a scene. Have you forgotten? He stopped believing you a long time ago.”

I lost all control. I put everything I had into the palm of my hand and slapped her across the face.

“Vivien, you're nothing but a homewrecker!”

I screamed it with bloodshot eyes, my chest heaving violently. The weakness from the pregnancy sent dark spots flooding across my vision.

The slap snapped Vivien's head to the side. She clutched her cheek, a flash of something cold and dangerous in her eyes. She was about to lunge at me, but then she heard footsteps and switched instantly to a wounded, pitiful expression, tears spilling on command.

Bartholomew had heard the commotion and come running from the study.

He pushed open the door and saw Vivien crumpled on the floor, hand pressed to her face.

“Bartholomew, Kay hit me, she called me a homewrecker, she said she'd hurt our baby……”

He rushed in, panic written across his face, and gathered Vivien into his arms.

The second he saw the handprint on her cheek, his expression turned to stone.

“Kay, you hit her?”

He strode toward me and shoved me hard.

I was already weak, already pregnant. I had no strength to resist. I hit the floor.

The baby seemed to sense my fury. Pain tore through my abdomen without warning, so sharp that cold sweat broke across my skin.

Bartholomew didn't even glance at me on the ground. Every fiber of his attention was on Vivien in his arms, his hands moving gently over her, checking for injuries.

“Vivien, does anything hurt? Is the baby okay?”

Vivien nestled against his chest, crying prettily, and pointed a trembling finger at me.

“Bartholomew, I just wanted to welcome her home and apologize. But she hit me the second she saw me, and she said she'd make sure our baby dies a horrible death.”

Bartholomew turned to look at me. The fury in his eyes was consuming.

“Kay, how can you be this cruel? Vivien is pregnant. She came to see you out of kindness, and you hit her? You cursed my child?”

He crouched down, seized my chin, and forced my face up to meet his. Every word came out glacial.

“Apologize to Vivien. Right now. Or I will make this city unlivable for you.”

I gritted my teeth against the searing pain in my lower abdomen and lifted my head to look at this man I no longer recognized. A hollow laugh escaped me.

Apologize for what? For every humiliation I'd endured? For my dead child? For the trust I'd given that was thrown back in my face?

I looked at him with empty eyes, my voice raw. “I did nothing wrong. I will never apologize.”

Bartholomew's face twisted. The rage in his eyes flared hotter. He opened his mouth to speak, but the agony in my abdomen surged again, my vision went black, and I was gone.

The doctor said the fainting was caused by the shock to my pregnancy combined with my weakened state. He stressed repeatedly that I needed complete rest for the remainder of my term and that I absolutely could not endure any more stress.

I nodded in silence. When the IV was finished, I prepared to leave the hospital.

The moment I stepped through the front doors, the Vance family driver was already standing at attention beside the car.

“Ms. Simmons, Old Mr. Vance asked me to take you directly to the family estate. Tonight is the annual Vance family banquet.”

I was ushered into the car, and it drove straight to the Vance estate.

When I pushed the door open and stepped inside, the living room was full of Vance elders and relatives. The laughter and chatter died the instant I crossed the threshold.

Every pair of eyes turned on me at once, some dripping with contempt, others ice-cold, others openly mocking.

“Well, well, if it isn't Mrs. Vance herself. I was starting to think you wouldn't show.”

The relative's voice was razor-sharp, her gaze undisguised disgust.

“Five years of marriage and not a single child to show for it. What's the point of keeping the title of Mrs. Vance?”

“Exactly. The Vance line has been single-heir for generations. We can't let it die out. Marrying a woman who can't bear children is a joke.”

The barbs came one after another, each one a needle driven straight into the rawest part of me.

I clenched my fists, nails biting deep into my palms, and forced my spine straight. I was about to fire back.

Before a single word left my mouth, Bartholomew walked in. Tall, immaculate in a tailored suit, his arm wrapped tight around Vivien as they crossed the room together.

The moment the two of them appeared, the entire room fell silent. Every gaze locked onto them.

Bartholomew swept his eyes across the room. When they passed over me, they didn't linger for even a fraction of a second. Instead, he took Vivien's hand and walked to Old Mr. Vance.

“Grandfather, everyone, I have an announcement. Vivien is carrying a Vance heir. She's two months along.”

The room erupted, then flooded with congratulations.

“Wonderful! Bartholomew, the Vance family finally has an heir!”

“Ms. Pruitt is truly blessed. You can just tell she's the lucky type. I'm sure it'll be a healthy baby boy.”

Their eyes slid toward me, brimming with disdain.

“See? The one who can give the Vance family a child is the one who matters. You should do yourself a favor and step aside.”

I clenched my teeth until my jaw ached. The pain in my chest had long since gone numb.

Then Bartholomew led Vivien to the hostess's chair and gently helped her sit down.

“Vivien, you're pregnant. Sit here where it's comfortable. Don't tire yourself out.”

Vivien put on a show of bashful reluctance：“Bartholomew, that's Kay's seat. I couldn't possibly……”

“Why not?”

Bartholomew cut her off, his gaze sweeping over me, cold and dismissive.

“It's just a chair. There's no yours or hers.”

A bitter laugh escaped me. The hostess's seat of the Vance family, and all it took was one careless sentence for him to hand it to Vivien.

I turned and walked toward the door, spine rigid, refusing to let a single tear fall in front of any of them.

I had barely made it past the estate gates when hurried footsteps sounded behind me. Vivien caught up.

She stepped in front of me, triumph and venom written across her face without the slightest attempt to hide it.

“Leaving just like that, Kay? You must be seething inside.”

Vivien folded her arms across her chest, blocking my path, her lips curling into a vicious smile.

“Bartholomew announced my pregnancy in front of the whole family. Every single one of them accepts me now. That seat belongs to me sooner or later. Do yourself a favor and disappear.”

I had no interest in engaging with her. I stepped to the side, trying to go around.

“Move.”

Vivien's hand shot out and locked around my wrist, her eyes full of cold malice.

“Kay, since you won't step aside on your own, don't blame me for what comes next. If you won't destroy me, I'll destroy you first!”

I struggled, trying to wrench free, but her grip was iron-tight.

In the middle of my pulling away, Vivien's expression shifted. She threw herself backward, straight toward the road behind her.

A car was speeding past at that exact moment. It struck Vivien and she hit the ground with a piercing scream.

Bartholomew charged over like a man possessed. The moment he saw Vivien crumpled on the ground, his pupils contracted and his voice shook apart.

“Vivien! Vivien, are you okay? Don't scare me!”

She lay in his arms, face white as paper, both hands clutching her stomach, tears pouring down her cheeks.

“Bartholomew, I'm fine……don't blame Kay. If she doesn't want me around, I can leave. But why……why would she try to hurt my baby? Just because my brother accidentally hit her with his car, she wants revenge now……the baby is innocent……”

Bartholomew's head snapped up toward me. Those eyes that had once been full of tenderness held nothing now but towering rage and hatred. He roared at me.

“Kay Simmons, she's pregnant and you did this to her? You've lost your mind!”

Then he barked at the bodyguards rushing up behind him.

“Restrain her! Don't let her get away!”

The bodyguards were on me instantly, ignoring my resistance, seizing my arms and binding them with rope.

The cord bit into my wrists until they burned. Cramps knotted through my lower abdomen in wave after wave, but Bartholomew never once looked at me. He scooped Vivien into his arms and ran for the exit like a man gone mad.

The bodyguards shoved me into a car and followed, all the way to the hospital.

The surgery light was on. Bartholomew stood outside, radiating a cold, violent fury.

When he saw them bring me over, he closed the distance in three strides, seized my collar, and fixed me with a stare that could flay me alive.

“Kay Simmons, if anything happens to Vivien or my child, I will bury you. I will make you pay in ways you can't imagine.”

He was gripping me so tight I could barely breathe. But I laughed.

“Are you going to kill me, Bartholomew? For your mistress and her bastard child?”

“Shut your mouth!”

My words only made him tighten his grip. The hatred in his eyes was enough to drown me.

“Don't you dare talk about Vivien and my child that way!”

Right then, the surgery light went off. The doctor stepped out and said Vivien had sustained only superficial injuries. The baby was fine.

The tension drained from Bartholomew's body. He let go of me and rushed straight into the ward.

When Vivien came to and saw me bound off to the side, she immediately grasped Bartholomew's hand, eyes glistening, and pleaded on my behalf.

“Bartholomew, please don't blame Kay. She didn't mean it. She was just upset. Let her go, please.”

The more gracious and forgiving she pretended to be, the more Bartholomew pitied her, and the more he despised me.

He locked his gaze on me, cold enough to cut bone.

“If Vivien hadn't begged for you, I would never have let this go. Kay Simmons, you are truly a disappointment.”

“Disappointed?”

I pulled my lips into something that wasn't quite a smile.

“Let me make something clear, Bartholomew. She is your mistress. The child she's carrying is illegitimate. Nothing changes that.”

His face went ashen.

“Still running your mouth. Take her to the storage room and lock her in. She can think about what she's done. No one opens that door without my order, and no one brings her food or water.”

“I didn't push her! She threw herself into the road! Bartholomew, you can't do this to me!”

I fought with everything I had, thrashing to break free, but the bodyguards were too strong. They dragged me out of the ward by force.

The storage room was damp and freezing. Dust and mildew thickened the air. The door locked behind me, and everything went black.

I curled up on the cold concrete floor. The pain in my stomach was worse now, as if a fist were tearing through my insides. Sweat soaked through my clothes. I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood.

I pounded on the door with everything I had left, screaming until my voice cracked. Nothing came back. Not a sound.

The pain dragged me under again and again, consciousness slipping away only to be ripped back by another wave. In the dark, there was nothing but endless despair.

The door did not open until the following evening.

I forced myself upright and walked out one step at a time.

The servants I passed sneered and whispered. Not one of them offered a hand.

Back in the bedroom, I turned on my phone. There was a confirmation message from the hospital. My appointment for the termination had been approved.

Two days from now. The same day I would collect my divorce papers.

Just then, an email came through. It was from the private investigator.

Inside was every piece of evidence from my car accident.

Dashcam footage proving Neville Pruitt had driven into me on purpose. A recording of the Pruitt siblings getting their story straight after the fact. Bank transfer records showing Bartholomew had paid to cover it all up and shield the perpetrator. Even Neville's current hiding address, laid out in full.

Finally, every last piece was in my hands.

What they owed me, starting now, I would collect. Every single debt, one by one.