Elena's POV

On our eighth anniversary, I found out I was pregnant.

That same day, my phone buzzed with an alert from my husband’s car tracking app. His car had exploded.

My stomach dropped. Tears blurred my vision. “No… please, God, no.”

After eight years of marriage, four miscarriages, and countless nights spent crying myself to sleep, I finally had another chance to be a mother. But Adrian wouldn’t be a part of it. Our baby would grow up without a father.

I refused to accept it.

I called Adrian several times. No answer.

The tracker showed that his phone was across town, alive. But the app insisted his car had exploded. None of it made sense.

I grabbed my keys and drove.

Minutes later, I spotted his black Mercedes parked in a deserted lot. It was untouched. No smoke, no damage. Relief flooded through me—the app must have malfunctioned again. It had done that before, then I paused.

Why was he here? Why hadn’t he picked up my calls?

I stepped out quietly and moved closer. I could see shadows through the dark windows.

Then a sound slipped through the half-open window.

A woman's moan.

A man's low groan.

I froze, covering my mouth before I could gasp. My mind screamed at me to turn back, to leave, to pretend I never came here, but my body refused to obey.

Through the half-open window, I saw him—Adrian with his shirt open, and his fingers tangled in long dark hair as he kissed a woman’s neck.

Celeste.

My adopted sister.

The air left my lungs. My chest caved in, but I didn’t make a sound. I pressed myself against the side of the car, hand clamped over my mouth as silent tears ran down my face.

Adrian, the man I loved and had been married to for eight years

And my adopted sister, the same person that Adrian had claimed to despise because of how she had made my life a living hell.

Just when I thought the worst had happened, Adrian's phone rang.

"Fuck," he muttered, voice hoarse. "Hold on."

He answered with irritation. "What is it, Doctor?"

A pause. Then he grinned.

Adrian ended the call and pulled Celeste close as a genuine smile spread across his face. It was something I hadn’t seen for years.

"You're pregnant," he said softly.

Celeste gasped, her hands flying to her stomach. "Are you serious?"

"Yes." He kissed her deeply. "And the doctor said your womb is responding perfectly to the treatment. One more test next week to confirm everything is healed, and then we can finally start our family properly."

Happy tears streamed down Celeste's face. "Oh my God. Adrian, we're going to have a baby."

"We are." He cradled her face in his hands. "You're going to be an amazing mother."

My heart bled as my hand moved instinctively to my own stomach, where my baby was growing.

Celeste’s smile faded slowly. “What about Elena?”

Adrian’s smile grew cold. “You don’t need to worry, baby. After next week’s test shows you’re healed, I won’t need her anymore.”

My blood ran cold.

What did that mean?

“I still can’t believe she never figured it out,” Celeste laughed. “You told her it was genetic incompatibility, and she believed you.”

“Elena’s an idiot,” Adrian said dismissively. “She signed every consent form I put in front of her without reading a single line. The experimental treatments, the tissue samples, the terminations—she authorized all of it, thinking they were insurance forms or whatever bullshit I told her.”

My legs threatened to give out, but I forced myself to stay still. I had to keep listening.

“Those four babies,” Celeste murmured. “You really used them to cure my womb?”

“Every single one,” Adrian replied without remorse. “Different stages of development, different protocols. And it worked. You’re cured, and you’re carrying my child.”

Celeste giggled softly. “Thanks to Elena’s babies.”

My knees went weak, and I almost dropped to the floor. It became hard to breathe, and my ears rang. My vision blurred, and for a moment I thought I would lose consciousness.

My four babies hadn’t died from miscarriage—they had been murdered by their father, for my sister.

Elena’s POV

"All I had to do was slip in some drugs to her meal to induce early labour," Adrian said, almost amused. "Then I would tell her that there were complications. She would cry, I would comfort her, and life would go on."

My mind flashed back to each miscarriage. The pain. The blood. The hospital rooms.

After each loss, Celeste would show up at the hospital with homemade chicken soup. “I made this especially for you,” she would say, her eyes full of fake tears. “I know how much you’re hurting. I’m here for you, sis.”

She would stay the night, sleeping in the chair beside my bed, holding my hand whenever I woke up crying.

Adrian would be there too, stroking my hair, whispering, “We’ll try again. We’ll have our baby. I promise.”

I had believed them both.

My hands shook violently. I bit down harder on my palm to keep from screaming.

They had poisoned me four times.

"Are you really going to divorce her when my womb is cured?" Celeste asked, her voice dripping with false concern.

"Of course," Adrian said casually. "Once the doctor confirms the treatments worked, I don't need to keep her around anymore."

He paused, and I heard the smirk in his tone. "Then you and I can finally be together publicly."

Celeste's voice was breathy. "What about my family? What will they say?"

Adrian laughed coldly. "The family that favours you over their own daughter? Please. They'll side with us. Her mother already told me she thinks Elena is an embarrassment."

The words cut through me like knives, because it was the truth.

"She already signed her five percent company shares over to me years ago without realizing it," Adrian continued. "She'll walk away with nothing. She has no friends, no support system. After the divorce, she'll have nothing and no one. She'll probably end up back in some countryside hovel where she belongs."

Celeste furrowed her eyebrows. “How do you plan on doing that?”

Adrian chuckled coldly. "Next week, we'll throw a huge party to announce your pregnancy to everyone important, my business partners, your family, and so much more.”

He continued. "Then I'll have something slipped into her champagne. Then halfway through the party, Marcus will find her in one of the upstairs rooms in a compromising position with some strange men."

Celeste gasped. "You're going to frame her?"

"She'll be too drugged to know what's happening. Marcus will make sure there are photos. By the end of the party, everyone will believe Elena Moretti cheated on her devoted husband at a party celebrating her sister's pregnancy."

"That's brilliant," Celeste breathed. "Everyone will think she's the villain."

"Exactly. The divorce will be clean, and she'll get nothing." Adrian's voice dripped with satisfaction.

My heart pounded so hard I thought it would burst through my chest.

He was going to drug me, frame me, and take everything.

Their moans filled the silence again. I backed away from the car slowly, careful not to make a sound. My hand was bleeding where I had bitten it, but I didn't feel it.

All I could feel was devastation, rage and heartbreak.

When I was far enough away, I ran.

I climbed into my car, and my body shook so violently I could barely hold the wheel. I sat there in the darkness, tears streaming down my face, my palm pressed protectively over my stomach.

Four babies murdered. Used as experiments to cure my sister's infertility so she could carry my husband's child.

And now he was going to destroy my reputation and take everything I had left.

I barely remembered driving home. My hands shook so violently on the steering wheel that I almost crashed twice.

I drove home in a daze, their conversation replaying endlessly in my head.

‘She’s an idiot. She has nothing and no one. She’ll end up back in some countryside hovel where she belongs.’

I walked inside the house absentmindedly, then I headed straight to Adrian’s home office.

I needed proof. Evidence. Something to make sense of what I had heard.

My hands shook as I searched through his files, his laptop, his locked drawers. I found the small brass key hidden beneath the drawer lining and opened the filing cabinet.

Medical records with my name. Dates that matched every pregnancy. Procedures I never consented to. Bank statements showing payments to a private research facility.

I kept searching, my hands moving faster.

Finally, I found the transfer record. The company shares Adrian had promised me as a wedding gift—I had signed them all back to him without realizing it.

I stared at the document until the words blurred.

"She'll walk away with nothing."

A bitter laugh escaped me. Adrian was so ignorant of the truth.

I couldn't be left with nothing, because what Adrian didn't know was that he hadn't built Moretti Enterprises from nothing.

I had.

Five years ago, when his company nearly went bankrupt, an anonymous investor saved it. The investor paid all the debts, funded the expansions, and covered the losses.

That investor was me.

I was the anonymous silent shareholder with fifty percent ownership of his company. I had created the account under my maiden name, Elena Rossi, using an offshore account that Adrian never knew existed.

Before I married Adrian, Clara had left me her entire life savings. It was money she had carefully saved from her seamstress work over decades, along with inheritance from her parents.

It was about a million thousand dollars, but I was careful with it. I invested it wisely, made smart decisions, and over the years, it grew. By the time Adrian's company was failing, I poured $147 million into his failing company.

So his empire was built on my money.

And he called me an idiot.

Another laugh escaped me.

I gathered every document, every file, every piece of evidence, and made copies, hiding them where he would never think to look.

Then I sank to the cold floor of his office and cried until my body had nothing left to give.

When there were no tears left, I just sat there, feeling empty. I had no idea where to start.

Then I remembered something Adrian had said months ago.

"Stay away from Ivan Romano. He's my biggest competitor. He is ruthless and dangerous. He will do anything to destroy me."

Ivan Romano. Adrian's biggest rival and worst enemy.

He was the only one who could help me now.

I picked up my phone with trembling fingers and began searching. It took twenty minutes to find Ivan's private number buried deep in Adrian's files.

I stared at it for a long time.

Once I made this call, there would be no going back.

But when I thought of my four babies, of Celeste's mocking laughter, of Adrian's cruelty, I pressed Call.

The phone rang twice before a deep, smooth voice answered. "Who is this?"

My throat tightened, but I forced the words out. "My name is Elena Moretti. I'm Adrian Moretti's wife."

A pause. "Moretti's wife. What do you want?"

Tears blurred my vision. "I need your help."

"Why would Adrian Moretti's wife be calling me? I am your husband's rival." His tone sharpened.

"Because I want him destroyed," I whispered. "And I think you're the only man who hates him as much as I do."

Silence stretched.

Then Ivan laughed. It was a dark, low sound that sent a shiver through me.

"Mrs. Moretti," he said slowly, "you have my complete attention."

Elena’s POV

"Tell me everything." Ivan's voice was sharp and cold. “Tell me why Adrian Moretti's devoted wife wants her loving husband destroyed."

I explained everything from the tracking app, to finding Adrian with Celeste, the conversation I had overheard concerning the experiments on my babies, and his plan to divorce me.

By the time I finished, tears were running down my cheeks again.

Ivan was silent for a long moment.

"Do you have proof?" he finally asked.

"Yes." My voice was stronger now. "Medical records, bank statements, transfer documents. Everything."

"And you have fifty percent shares in the company?" Ivan asked.

"He doesn't know about them. Nobody does." I replied. "I also have evidence of everything illegal he had done in his company. But I can't use it. He has connections, lawyers, and my family—"

"Your family supports him?"

The question was like a knife to my chest, because the answer was a bitter truth.

My mother had never wanted me back.

I was ten when the DNA test results came back. Celeste and I had been switched at birth because of a hospital error.

When they came for me, I had been living in a small countryside village with a seamstress who had raised me. We were poor, but I’d been happy.

They took me to their mansion in the city, but my mother couldn't let Celeste go. She had raised Celeste, and loved her.

So she kept both of us.

But there was never any question who she preferred.

“Elena, fix your posture. You look like a peasant.”

“Elena, speak properly. Your accent is embarrassing.”

“Elena, why can't you be more like Celeste?”

Nothing I did was ever good enough. I took etiquette classes but I was too clumsy. I studied languages but my pronunciation was wrong.

Celeste was perfect and graceful, and my mother made sure I knew I didn't measure up.

By eighteen, I had learned to stay quiet, to make myself small, and to not expect love.

That's when I met Adrian. He was charming, successful, and he looked at me like I mattered.

“You're different from other girls,” he had said.

I fell in love with him fast and hard.

When he proposed after six months, I said yes immediately.

My mother had pulled me aside the night before the wedding. “Adrian Moretti is using you. But you're too stupid to see it.”

I hadn't listened.

I had married him, spent eight years trying to be the perfect wife.

And the whole time, Celeste had been there, sleeping with my husband behind my back, and I had never suspected a thing.

My chest ached as I blinked hard, forcing myself back to the present.

"My family loves my sister. They'll most likely side with him when he divorces me. I can't trust on their support."

Ivan was silent for a moment. "So you want revenge."

"I want justice," I corrected, my voice breaking. "He murdered my babies. He used them to cure my adopted sister's womb so she could carry his child. He made me sign away everything I had, and now he's going to throw me away like garbage."

"And why did you come to me?" Ivan asked curiously.

"Because you hate him." I replied desperately. "Adrian told me to stay away from you. He said you would do anything to destroy him."

He chuckled coldly. "What do you want from me, Elena?"

I clenched my fists tightly. "I want to take everything from him, the way he took everything from me. His company, his reputation, his freedom. I want him to lose it all. I have fifty percent of his company. You're his biggest competitor. Together, we can ruin him."

Ivan was quiet, then finally he spoke. "If I help you, it won't be charity. I want something in return."

My stomach clenched at the tone of his voice. "What do you want in return?"

"Marry me."

"Marry you?" I repeated incredulously, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Yes," Ivan said simply. "If I'm going to help you destroy Adrian Moretti, I want something permanent in return. Not money. Not shares. You."

"But—"

He interrupted. "Think about my offer, Mrs. Moretti. You have my number."

The call was disconnected.

I stared at my phone, my mind spinning. Marry Ivan Romano? Adrian's biggest enemy?

I shook my head. No. I didn't need him. I had the evidence. I had the shares. I could handle this myself.

I would make sure Adrian lost everything, the same way he'd taken everything from me.