Jeremy's words cut like twin daggers, each one plunging deep into my chest. My ravaged body could no longer hold itself up, and I crumpled backward.

Just as my consciousness wavered, one of the nannies, Marilyn Turner, rushed down from the second floor, shouting, "Mr. Sterling! Mrs. Sterling! Carl's burning up!"

Through my hazy vision, I saw Carl cradled in her arms, his face flushed crimson, his eyes tightly shut, and his lips murmuring faintly.

Panic seized Jeremy. He pressed a hand to Carl's forehead, and his expression darkened. "Get Carl to the hospital now!"

Carolina flew into hysterics, charging at me with a vicious shove. "This is your fault! I told you you'd get Carl sick. Why didn't you listen? Why did you beg me to let you out?"

She kept blaming me. "Carl's barely a month old, and now you've infected him. Are you happy now?"

She shoved me with all her strength. The back of my head slammed into the wall, a hot trickle of blood sliding down my neck.

Still, I clung to consciousness, my blurred vision catching Jeremy as he rushed out with Carl in his arms.

He passed right by me as if I were invisible. Only when I scrambled forward and grabbed his ankle did he reluctantly stop.

"Jeremy," I begged, "please take me with you."

"Get off!"

He kicked me aside, his face twisted with rage. "A liar who's been playing me for five years doesn't deserve to be Carl's mother."

He turned to the maids. "Get this lunatic out of here and lock her up! Don't let her out again until I say so!"

His kick sent me sprawling backward. Pain seared through the back of my head and my abdomen as Jeremy stormed out with Carl in his arms.

Then, Carolina walked up to me.

She delicately wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and crouched, leaning in so close I could feel her breath on my ear.

"Regina, give it up. With your body falling apart like this, how could you ever raise a child?" she sneered. "Thank you for giving me a son with inheritance rights and sparing me the pain of having to bear him myself."

When the maids closed in to drag me away, she stood up. "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Jeremy proposed. We're getting our marriage license tomorrow, and the wedding's next month."

She pulled a necklace from beneath her collar. Dangling from the delicate chain was a transparent orb.

My eyes widened, and a raw scream tore from my throat. "Give it back! That's mine!"

Carolina's fingers traced the orb, her lips curling into a smirk. "I heard this holds the ashes of your stillborn child. Jeremy couldn't stop thinking about his first baby, so he gave it to me as a proposal gift."

Her voice brimmed with triumph. "He told me these ashes, Carl, and I are his whole world."

With that, she sniffled, tears spilling down her cheeks as if on cue.

I roared and lunged for the necklace, but the maids pinned me to the floor. Helpless, I could only watch as she walked out, climbing into Jeremy's car.

At that moment, everything I had was ripped away. All that remained were my broken body and a heart drowned in despair.

That evening, Carolina was called home by her father, Theodore Jenson. Jeremy returned alone with Carl, whose fever had already broken, only to find the house shrouded in darkness.

He frowned and flipped on the lights. He called for the maids a few times, but no one answered. He settled Carl into the crib and headed upstairs to look for them.

After searching the second floor to no avail, his irritation flared. He went into his study to find their contact information. Just as he was about to dial, he heard a faint rustling near the kitchen.

A knot of dread tightened in his stomach. He bolted toward the nursery next to the kitchen.

The room was cold and still. There was no sign of me.

He spun to the crib, but it was empty too.

I had taken Carl and disappeared.