“Helena, are you really going to become a war correspondent? Don’t you know that you could die at any moment?”

Hearing her friend’s desperate question, Helena’s eyelashes trembled, but her tone remained firm.

“I’m sure.”

At the other end of the line, Maeve sighed in frustration. Before she could speak, Helena closed her eyes bitterly and added, “Maeve, maybe this is the only way for me to be free.”

Maeve fell silent, still unwilling to give up. She tried to persuade her again. “What about Rafael? Are you really willing to let him go so easily?”

At the mention of the familiar name, Helena’s fingers tightened, the joints whitening from the force.

“He won’t care.”

After hanging up, the doctor finished the examination. Clearly, he had overheard the conversation, and he spoke with a complex tone, trying to convince her.

“Miss Walsh, while the mortality rate from sepsis caused by artificial heart infections is high, there is still a chance of recovery with continued treatment. Why give up now?”

Helena shook her head and smiled softly, as if accepting her fate.

“No need. I want to do something meaningful in the final moments of my life.”

“Thank you for all your care up until now. I will send the treatment fee over as soon as possible.”

The moment she left the hospital, Helena received a call from Rafael.

His voice was cold, clearly holding back his anger.

“Where are you? Who gave you permission to leave without telling me?”

“I’m at the hospital for something-” Before she could finish, he impatiently cut her off.

“Enough, I don’t care what you’re doing at the hospital. I’ve sent you the address. Come here right now.”

Having just undergone surgery, her chest ached faintly, but she pressed a hand to her heart and forced herself to leave.

She took a taxi to the address Rafael had sent, only to find that it led to the rooftop.

As soon as she arrived, a bucket of ice water was handed to her.

Rafael stood coldly, commanding her in a flat tone.

“Kaylee is kind-hearted and wants to do the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise awareness for ALS patients. She can’t handle this kind of pain. Since you two have similar builds, you should do it.”

She had just undergone surgery and was forbidden to be near ice, let alone in the early spring chill. The rooftop was biting cold, but she knew Rafael wasn’t offering her a choice.

Helena’s face turned pale as she took the bucket, the beads of ice making her fingers tremble.

Rafael smirked and walked to the side, holding Kaylee in his arms.

“Start.”

The ice water poured over her head. The already painful wound in her abdomen seemed to be pierced by countless needles, the pain causing her to convulse.

Through chattering teeth, Helena forced her eyes open—only to see the two of them locked in a passionate kiss.

Seeing her look over, Kaylee released her hold on Rafael’s neck, her lips swollen and fake remorse in her voice.

“Sorry, I think it wasn’t recorded. Can we do it again?”

Rafael kissed Kaylee’s neck, glanced indifferently at Helena, and spoke coldly. “Didn’t you hear what Kaylee said?”

Helena lowered her eyes, sweat beading on her forehead from the pain, yet she seemed unaware. She lifted the bucket of ice again.

Over and over, she mechanically drenched herself, numb to the pain, while Kaylee always found new excuses.

By the time all the buckets were empty, Helena was shaking uncontrollably, barely able to stay upright. It felt like she could collapse at any moment.

Only then did Kaylee finally speak, sounding almost apologetic. “Okay, that’s enough. You’ve worked hard today.”

Rafael had been watching coldly the entire time. In her words, he lovingly massaged her wrist.

“She’s tough, she’ll be fine. As for you, recording it yourself, the camera’s so heavy. It must be exhausting holding it.”

Kaylee playfully leaned into his embrace. “But I have you to take care of me.”

The two of them acted as if no one else existed, walking away hand in hand.

As they passed by Helena, Rafael stopped, took a card from his wallet, and tossed it at her with an air of mockery.

“There’s a hundred thousand on it. It’s your reward for today. Helena, it turns out you’d really give up your life for money. Tsk. How cheap.”

Helena’s lips turned purple from the cold, and only after they left did she dazedly pick up the card from the ground, as though unaware it was meant to humiliate her.

When Helena returned to the villa, she was greeted by the unmistakable sounds of a man’s heavy breathing and a woman’s soft moans coming from upstairs.

Rafael had taken Kaylee to what was supposed to be their marital bedroom.

She curled up on the sofa, trembling, numb to everything except the suffocating pain in her chest. She had no heart anymore, yet her hollow ribcage ached as if it were boiling over, scalding her from the inside. Tears streamed down her face uncontrollably.

In their five years of marriage, Rafael had often brought different women home. But ever since Kaylee appeared, it was as if all his affection, all his sincerity, had been reserved solely for her.

Helena knew—he wanted her to suffer.

They had once been the envy of all, from school uniforms to wedding vows. But on the eve of their engagement, she broke their promise.

When he found out she was leaving the country, Rafael had desperately tried to stop her. He had knelt outside the Walsh family’s house for three days and nights, soaked in the rain until he collapsed with a fever.

Even as he was rushed to the hospital, he deliriously called out her name.

That accident left his legs permanently damaged, and his dream of a military career was shattered.

For a man as proud as Rafael, she had cost him everything.

Helena still remembered the day she left. He had chased after her car all the way to the airport, his red-rimmed eyes filled with agony as he fell to his knees.

“Helena, don’t leave me. Whatever future you want, I’ll give it to you. Just don’t abandon me, please.”

But she hadn’t looked back. She had pried his fingers off her wrist, one by one, and walked away.

Since then, Rafael had despised her with every fiber of his being.

But only Helena knew the truth.

That year, her entire family was in a car accident. Her parents died on the spot, and she was the sole survivor. Overnight, she lost everything—and was left to face an insurmountable debt.

Then, the Perkins family approached her. If she agreed to donate blood to Kaylee, they would settle her family’s debts.

She had no choice. She had to break up with Rafael, to protect him from being dragged into her mess.

After a successful match, the Perkins family "adopted" her. To outsiders, she was a foster daughter. In reality, she was nothing more than a walking blood bank.

The repeated blood extractions weakened her body, but when she heard that Rafael had risked his life to start a business—only to end up in a car accident, hovering between life and death—she secretly returned to the country to donate her heart to save him.

Later, Rafael’s business thrived, and the two families arranged a marriage alliance.

But Kaylee already had a boyfriend abroad and refused to marry a stranger. As the "adopted daughter," Helena was pushed forward instead.

When Rafael saw her again, his fury was uncontainable. He married her only to keep her imprisoned at his side, punishing her with relentless humiliation and torment.

Helena had once thought she could spend a lifetime making amends. But when she realized her own time was running out, she selfishly chose to leave.

The future Rafael had once longed for—she, too, wanted to see it.

She didn’t know how much time had passed before the noises upstairs finally ceased.

Rafael came downstairs wrapped in a bath towel. The moment his gaze landed on her wretched figure, his expression twisted with disgust.

“Why are you just sitting there? Go make dinner.”

Helena tightened her grip on the bank card in her palm, her voice faint but steady.

“I need two hundred thousand.”

Once she paid off her medical bills, she could leave without hesitation.

Rafael’s expression darkened instantly, his carefully concealed indifference giving way to pure hatred.

“You love money that much? You’d throw everything away for it?”

For a moment, it seemed like he wanted to strangle her. But then his eyes fell on her frail, bony frame, and he forcibly held himself back.

His voice was laced with venom as he spat, “Helena, I hate you! I hate you so much I wish you were dead!”

She watched him turn away to retrieve the money, then closed her eyes bitterly.

Rafael... This time, she really was going to die.

—

The next day, Helena developed a fever but merely swallowed a few cold pills and carried on.

The villa had no housekeepers. The expensive clothes they wore, through all seasons, were always hand-washed by her.

Perhaps it was a fever or an infection, but her body trembled uncontrollably. A sharp pain shot through her chest, and she clutched at it desperately as she gasped for air.

She felt as though the oxygen was slowly being drained from her lungs.

“Medicine...”

She staggered toward her bedroom, reaching for the drawer where she had left her pills—only to find them missing.

“You’re looking for this?”

A voice rang out.

Helena turned instinctively toward the sound, her vision blurring.

In Kaylee’s hand was her bottle of medicine.

Panicked, Helena reached out, but her vision swam with darkness.

“Give it back...”

Kaylee studied the bottle lazily, as if savoring her distress. Then, as if by accident, she suddenly loosened her grip.

“Oh dear,” she said with feigned innocence. “Oops, I dropped it.”

Helena ignored Kaylee’s taunts and silently bent down to pick up her medicine, only for Kaylee to step on it with a smirk.

Seeing Helena’s indifferent expression only fueled Kaylee’s resentment. Her eyes burned with hatred.

“It’s always like this—you act like nothing ever affects you. But why? After everything you did to him, why does Rafael still think about you?!”

“You have no idea how much I envy you. Even in his sleep, he calls your name! I’ve been by his side for three years—why can’t he see only me? What do you have that I don’t?”

“Helena, I was supposed to be the one to marry him! This marriage was stolen from me! You’re just a pathetic parasite living off my family, so what makes you worthy of his attention?”

She pressed down harder with her foot, grinding the pill bottle until it started to collapse under the pressure. Only then did she seem satisfied, her lips curling into a cruel smile.

“But it doesn’t matter anymore. Now, he believes I was the one who saved his life. He’ll never know you gave him your heart. Everything you once had—I’ll take it all, piece by piece.”

“Helena, this is what you owe me!”

The moment she finished speaking, she suddenly let out a sharp scream and threw herself backward against the table.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Helena snatched the crushed medicine from under her foot, desperately stuffing a pill into her mouth as her breathing turned ragged.

Rafael walked in just in time to witness the scene, his expression twisting with disgust.

“It hurts...”

Hearing Kaylee’s pitiful whimper, he immediately rushed to her side, his face dark with concern. When he noticed the fresh wound on her forehead, his anger boiled over.

Without hesitation, he kicked Helena to the ground. His voice was sharp with fury.

“I thought you were just a gold-digger, but I didn’t realize you’d become this cruel. If you so much as lay a finger on Kaylee again, don’t blame me for being merciless!”

His gaze swept over the broken pill bottle on the floor before he turned away without a second glance.

Helena lay on the ground, dazed, watching his retreating figure. She wasn’t sure which hurt more—her body or her heart.

Dragging herself back to her room, she finally lost consciousness.

It felt like her bones were being crushed, inch by inch, but the pain was so intense that she couldn’t even make a sound.

She didn’t know how much time had passed before the medicine took effect. Cold sweat drenched her body as she finally slipped into a deep sleep.

Then, out of nowhere, a splash of ice-cold water jolted her awake.

Rafael stood at her bedside, holding the familiar pill bottle, his expression frozen over.

“Kaylee already told me everything. She saw you taking vitamins and simply asked about them, yet you selfishly assumed she was trying to steal them from you and even went so far as to hurt her. Is this stuff really that important to you?”

Helena clenched the bedsheet tightly, her face deathly pale as she lowered her gaze.

“Yes. It’s very important.”

She had finally found the courage to leave and start over. She couldn’t afford any more complications.

Besides, at this point, the truth no longer mattered.

Rafael let out a cold laugh, as if she had just pushed him past his limit.

“Helena, you never fail to disgust me.”

He suddenly grabbed her by the throat, forcing her to look up at him. Then, gritting his teeth, he dumped the entire bottle of pills into her mouth.

“You love taking them so much? Then eat them all!”

Only when she started choking, tears streaming down her face as she struggled for air, did he finally release her in disgust. But just as he was about to leave, his gaze fell on the scattered pills.

“These... aren’t vitamins?”

His expression flickered with something unreadable. Hesitation. Doubt.

Impatiently, he rummaged through her drawer and pulled out another bottle—this one still sealed.

When he read the label, whatever trace of uncertainty had been in his eyes vanished. His anger returned, fiercer than before.

“Medicine for artificial heart infection?” He let out a scornful laugh. “Helena, your acting skills are truly remarkable. What, do you expect me to believe you don’t have a heart? Or are you trying to tell me you’re dying?”

Helena curled up on the bed, coughing violently as if she could claw the pills out of her throat. Then, all of a sudden, she laughed.

"Yes, Rafael." Her eyes locked onto his, unwavering. "I'm about to die-"

“Enough!” He lost control and slapped her across the face, his breath ragged with fury. His voice dripped with mockery.

"Lies one after another. Do you think I’d actually pity you? If you really had the guts to die, you would have done it already!" His voice was sharp with contempt.

"You’re too greedy for that. You’d never give up everything you’ve schemed for."

He pulled out a tissue, wiping his wrist as if he had touched something filthy.

Then, with a final sneer, he spat, "This better not be birth control pills."

"If you think you can escape me by getting close to another man—forget it."

His voice was chilling. "Even if you die, it’ll be right in front of me."