I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry.

When you are shattered into a million pieces, there is no sound. There is only a deafening, hollow ringing in your ears.

My mother was dead. My sister, the little girl I had protected from our abusive father, the sister whose dreams I had sacrificed my own happiness to fund, had sold me to the devil. And Roger... Roger had known all along. He had used a dead woman to keep me chained to him.

I lay there in the dark hospital room for hours, staring at the ceiling until my eyes burned. I had nothing left. No baby. No mother. No sister. No husband.

The door clicked open.

I didn't move, pretending to be asleep. The heavy scent of expensive vanilla and sickeningly sweet perfume flooded the sterile room.

"Look at her. She looks pathetic." It was Mia’s voice. My sister.

"Shh, don't wake her up yet," Cheska giggled. "I want to see her face when she sees what we brought."

I slowly opened my eyes.

Mia and Cheska were standing at the foot of my bed. Mia looked stunning in a designer coat I had bought her for her birthday last month. Cheska was leaning against her, holding a small, familiar mahogany box.

My heart stopped.

It was my memory box. The one I kept hidden in the back of my closet. The one Roger swore he had thrown away years ago.

"Give that back," I croaked, my voice raw and broken. I tried to push myself up, but my limbs were still weak from the panic attack.

Cheska smirked, popping the latch open. "Roger brought this to my suite earlier. He said since I’m having the heir, I should see if there’s anything in here worth keeping from your... failed attempt."

"Don't touch it!" I lunged forward, but the IV line yanked my arm back, sending a sharp spike of pain through my vein.

Cheska reached into the box and pulled out a tiny, hand-knitted blue baby blanket. It was the blanket I had made while I was pregnant. The one I had wrapped around my stomach every night, singing lullabies to the son I never got to hold.

"Hmm. The wool is a bit scratchy," Cheska mused, rubbing the fabric between her manicured fingers. "And the color is so depressing."

"Roger said you can use it as a rag for your purebred Pomeranian," Mia chimed in, a cruel smile playing on her lips. My own sister. Looking at me like I was garbage.

"Actually," Cheska said, her eyes glinting with pure malice, "I think it belongs in the trash. Just like the defective little thing it was made for."

She dropped the blanket onto the floor and deliberately stepped on it with her muddy designer boots, grinding the delicate blue yarn into the hospital linoleum.

Something inside me snapped. The last frayed thread holding my sanity together completely unraveled.

I didn't fight them. I didn't scream. I just stared at the muddy footprint on the only thing I had left of my child.

"Aw, is she going to cry again?" Mia sneered. "Let's go, Ches. The smell in here is making me nauseous."

They turned and walked out, their laughter echoing down the hallway.

I slowly pulled the IV needle out of my arm. Blood dripped down my wrist, but I didn't feel it. I climbed out of bed, my bare feet hitting the freezing floor. I picked up the ruined blue blanket, clutching it to my chest, and walked out of the room.

I didn't go to Cheska's suite. I didn't go looking for Roger.

I walked straight to the stairwell and climbed.

The heavy metal door to the hospital rooftop pushed open with a groan. The freezing Seattle rain hit me instantly, soaking through my thin hospital gown, plastering my hair to my face. The wind howled, but it was nothing compared to the storm of agony tearing through my chest.

I walked to the edge.

The city lights blurred below me, a dizzying drop into the dark, wet streets. The cars looked like tiny ants. One step. That was all it would take. One step, and the pain would finally stop. I would be with my baby. I would be with my mom.

Roger had won. He had broken me completely.

"I'm coming, my sweet boy," I whispered to the dark sky, clutching the blue blanket tightly against my heart. "Mommy is coming."

I climbed over the cold metal railing. My toes gripped the very edge of the concrete ledge. The wind pushed against my back, urging me forward.

I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath.

I let go of the railing.

Suddenly, a large, warm hand clamped around my wrist like a vice.

Before I could even gasp, a strong arm wrapped securely around my waist, yanking me backward with terrifying force. I slammed against a hard, broad chest, tumbling over the railing and crashing onto the wet rooftop concrete.

"Let me go!" I screamed, thrashing wildly against the stranger. "Let me die! Please, just let me die!"

"Dying is easy, Ysabel," a deep, velvet voice murmured right next to my ear. The sound of it sent a strange, involuntary shiver down my spine. It was a voice that commanded absolute authority.

The man shifted, pinning my flailing arms gently but firmly to my sides so I wouldn't hurt myself. I looked up through the pouring rain.

He had piercing, midnight-blue eyes, a sharp jawline, and an aura of dangerous power that made the freezing air feel suddenly suffocating. He was wearing a bespoke black suit, completely unbothered by the torrential downpour.

"Who... who are you?" I choked out, trembling violently.

The corners of his lips curved into a dark, predatory smile. He reached up, gently wiping a wet strand of hair from my cheek.

"I'm the man who took Roger's company," he said smoothly, his eyes flashing with a dangerous promise. "I'm his cousin, Julian Thorne. And if you step off this ledge, you let them win. But if you take my hand... I will help you destroy every single one of them."

I stood there for a long moment, shivering uncontrollably in my soaked hospital gown. The despair that had driven me to the ledge was still there, but now, a tiny, hot spark of rage had ignited beside it.

I turned and walked back down the stairwell.

When I pushed the heavy door open to my hospital room, Mia and Cheska were still there. Mia was plugging a hot curling iron into the wall outlet by the mirror, touching up Cheska's hair as if my room was their personal salon.

I stopped in the doorway, staring at my younger sister.

For twenty years, I had been her shield. I had taken our father's drunken blows so she wouldn't have to. I had worked three jobs with a shattered pelvis to pay for her first modeling portfolio. I thought we were surviving the world together.

But looking at her now, seeing the genuine, unadulterated disgust in her eyes as she looked at my dripping wet hospital gown, a horrifying realization washed over me.

Mia didn't just sell me out for Roger's money. She hated me.

She had always hated me. I saw it now, clear as day. She resented my sacrifices because they made her feel like a charity case. She was bitterly jealous that I had married into the billionaire Thorne family, while she had to hustle for auditions. She didn't care that my marriage was a gilded cage of abuse; she only saw the gold. And now, by replacing me with her best friend, she finally got to be the one holding the power.

I had spent my entire life protecting a girl who was just waiting for the perfect moment to destroy me.

"Look who decided to come back," Mia sneered, rolling her eyes. "Did you go for a swim in the rain to cool off your temper?"

I didn't answer. I just stood there, staring at them with dead, hollow eyes.

Cheska frowned, clearly unsatisfied with my lack of reaction. She wanted me screaming. She wanted me begging. She looked at the hot curling iron in Mia's hand, and a dark, twisted idea flashed in her eyes.

Before I could even blink, Cheska snatched the iron from Mia. She pressed the scorching hot ceramic barrel directly against her own forearm for a split second, then threw it to the floor and collapsed onto her knees, wailing at the top of her lungs.

"What the hell is going on in here!"

Roger burst through the door, his face pale with panic.

Mia immediately dropped to the floor beside Cheska, playing her part perfectly. "Roger! Save her! Ysabel went crazy! She attacked Cheska with the iron! She said if her baby is dead, yours shouldn't live either!"

"My arm is burned!" Cheska sobbed hysterically, clutching her stomach. "And my stomach hurts so much! Roger, please, save our baby!"

At the mention of the child, Roger's face twisted in terror. He scooped Cheska up into his arms instantly.

He didn't spare a single glance for me. He didn't notice that I was soaking wet, shivering, and bleeding from where I had ripped out my IV. He only spat a cold, venomous warning in my direction.

"Ysabel! Stay right here. When I get back, we are going to fix this for good!"

After the room cleared out and Mia scurried after them, the room fell into a deathly silence.

It took forever for me to find the strength to move. I didn't look for dry clothes. I simply sat on the edge of the bed, numb, waiting.

When Roger finally returned an hour later, he grabbed me by the arm, hauling me up with cold efficiency.

"Cheska has a severe third-degree burn on her arm because of you," he snarled. "She's hysterical, and the doctor says her stress is putting my heir at risk. You have two choices, Ysabel: you either undergo a skin graft for her right now to fix what you ruined, or I will have your son's grave paved over with concrete tonight."

The color had long since drained from my face. I looked like a walking corpse.

I didn't defend myself. I didn't argue that Cheska had burned herself. I just looked into the eyes of the man I had once taken a truck impact for, and whispered through dry lips, "If I give her the skin... will you tell me where he is?"

The words seemed to catch in Roger's throat. After a tense silence, he grunted, "Fine."

That night, I was wheeled into the surgical wing. Whether it was my body's exhaustion or an order from Roger himself, the local anesthesia didn't work. I felt every agonizing, searing second of the scalpel slicing the skin from my thigh.

When I finally came to the recovery room, Roger was standing by my bed. My leg was wrapped in thick, painful bandages.

My first words were a broken rasp. "Tell me... where is my child buried?"

Roger's expression was grim. The air around him became intense. He reached out, gripping my chin hard, his eyes dark and angry.

"If I tell you," he whispered dangerously, "are you just going to go find him and kill yourself?" He tightened his grip until it bruised. "Ysabel, I have already announced Cheska's pregnancy to the board. My new heir will be born soon. Until then, you will not cause another scene."

I froze, then suddenly shoved his hand away, crying uncontrollably. "Roger, you promised! You said you would tell me! You can't take it back!"

"I am his mother!" I screamed, the agony of the last ten years finally tearing out of my throat. "When I still had a womb, he was a part of me! Now that he's gone, what right do you have to keep me from him?"

Roger remained completely unmoved by my tears.

Despair, cold and infinite, flooded my soul. I rolled off the bed, ignoring the blinding pain in my bandaged leg, and fell to my knees at Roger's feet. I had to play the broken wife one last time.

"I'm begging you..." I sobbed, gasping for air. "I just want to know where he is. I won't ruin your plans, I swear. Just let me see him once. I'm on my knees, Roger! Please! Tell me!"

"Enough."

Roger stood up abruptly, yanking at his tie in irritation. He looked down at me with total, absolute contempt.

"Look at yourself, Ysabel. You're pathetic. Do you think your dead son would even want a mother as miserable and broken as you?"

I went still, my hands pressed against the cold floor, shaking uncontrollably. Just as I felt my heart was about to stop from the sheer weight of his cruelty, Roger's cold, thin voice drifted down from above.

"Angelique Church Cemetery. Plot 278."

"Angelique Church Cemetery. Plot 278."

The words echoed in my mind like a sacred chant as the cab pulled away, leaving me standing alone before the towering wrought-iron gates. I didn't care about the agonizing pain shooting up my bandaged leg. I didn't care that I was still wearing a thin, blood-stained hospital gown under my coat.

I limped through the rows of grey headstones, the freezing winter wind biting at my skin, until I reached the small, lonely corner of the grounds.

Plot 278.

It was a tiny, unmarked slab of stone. No name. No date. Just a cold, forgotten piece of earth.

My knees gave out. I collapsed onto the freezing dirt, my trembling fingers tracing the rough edges of the stone. Ten years. For ten years, my baby had been out here all alone in the dark.

"My sweet boy," I whispered, my voice breaking as a violent sob tore through my chest. "Mommy is here. I'm so sorry it took me so long. I'm so sorry."

I unzipped my coat with shaking hands, pulling out the ruined, muddy blue blanket Cheska had stepped on. I carefully folded it and laid it gently over the cold stone, trying to keep him warm.

I didn't leave. I lay down on the freezing earth right next to the grave, curling my body around the stone as if I were holding him in my arms. I talked to him through the night, singing the lullabies I had kept locked in my heart, crying until my voice was completely gone and my tears ran dry.

When the pale, grey light of morning finally broke, my body was entirely numb.

I forced myself to sit up and dragged my battered body to the cemetery warden’s office. The old man behind the desk looked at me in shock—a pale, shivering woman looking like a ghost.

"I want to buy the plot directly next to 278," I rasped, my throat raw.

"Ma'am, those plots are expensive, and you look like you need a hospital—"

I didn't let him finish. I reached down to my left hand and violently twisted the massive diamond wedding ring off my finger. The symbol of my ten-year nightmare. I slammed the glittering diamond onto his desk.

"This ring is worth over a hundred thousand dollars," I said, my eyes dead and hollow. "I don't want any change. I just want the dirt next to my son. And I want it now."

The warden swallowed hard, nodding slowly.

With the deed in my hand, I walked back out to the gravesite. The sky had turned a bruised, angry purple, and suddenly, the heavens opened up.

A torrential, freezing Seattle downpour crashed over me. The rain soaked through my clothes in seconds, chilling me to the very marrow of my bones. But I didn't seek shelter. I fell to my knees in the mud, right on top of my newly purchased grave.

"Take me," I cried out to the empty, weeping sky, the rain washing away my tears. "Please, just let me stay here. Let me be buried right here with him."

I lay my head on the muddy earth, closing my eyes as the freezing rain beat down on my back. I stayed there, unmoving, as the afternoon bled into evening. My heartbeat slowed. The cold stopped hurting, replaced by a heavy, peaceful numbness.

I just wanted to sleep.

And as total darkness finally fell over the cemetery, the world faded away completely.

Two days later.

The VIP maternity suite at Seattle Grace Hospital was filled with the piercing, relentless wails of a newborn baby.

Roger rubbed his temples, a headache throbbing behind his eyes. Cheska was lounging on the hospital bed, scrolling through her phone, completely ignoring the red-faced infant screaming in the bassinet a few feet away.

"Cheska, make him stop crying," Roger snapped, his patience wearing thin. "My mother and the board members will be here in an hour to see the heir."

"I'm exhausted, Roger!" Cheska whined, not looking up from her screen. "I just pushed a baby out. I'm not ruining my recovery to rock him. Where are the nurses?"

"They're busy," Roger growled. He stared at the crying baby, feeling a sudden surge of irritation. He didn't want to deal with dirty diapers and screaming fits. He just wanted the title of a father.

Suddenly, a thought struck him.

Ysabel.

She had been quiet for days. Too quiet. She should be here. She was supposed to be serving them, making sure Cheska was comfortable, taking care of the messy parts of raising a child so they didn't have to.

"That useless woman," Roger muttered, pulling his sleek phone from his pocket. "She's probably throwing another pity party at the house. I'll have her down here in twenty minutes to act as the nanny."

He dialed Ysabel's number, tapping his expensive leather shoe impatiently against the floor.

The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times.

Finally, there was a click.

"Ysabel, where the hell are you?" Roger barked instantly, his voice dripping with venom. "Get your ass to the hospital right now. Cheska needs you to watch the baby, and if you aren't here before the board arrives, I swear to God I'll—"

"Hello."

Roger froze. It was a man's voice. Deep, cold, and entirely unfamiliar.

Roger's grip on the phone tightened, a strange unease crawling up his spine. "Who is this? Why do you have my wife's phone? Put Ysabel on the line right now."

There was a heavy, chilling silence on the other end. Only the faint sound of rain and wind could be heard in the background.

Then, the man spoke, his tone completely devoid of emotion.

"I'm sorry, sir. But the owner of this phone is buried dead."