On my thirty-second birthday, the gift I'd waited so long for turned out to be my husband, Lewis Thomas, and my adopted sister, Violet Fox, dragging me into an underground lab with a hundred people watching.

Bodyguards stepped forward and pinned my arms. Violet held up the drug for everyone to see. Lewis stood off to the side, his face blank.

More than a hundred of them, all polished and glittering, watched the scene the way people watch an animal in a cage, contempt in their eyes, smiles on their lips.

The needle went into my skin, and a wrenching cramp tore through my lower belly. Warmth spilled out of me at once, staining the pure white lab table a bright, wet red.

Amid the murmurs of all those wealthy guests, Lewis kissed Violet's cheek and pulled the side of her face against his chest. "Don't look. You faint at the sight of blood."

My husband looked at me, at the agony written all over my face, and felt nothing.

"You need to grow up. This is your sister's experiment. All you lost was a child."

Lewis and I had known each other thirteen years, from the day we met, to the day we understood each other, to the proposal, to now, our fifth year of marriage. For thirteen years we'd dreamed of the day we'd have a baby.

That was why I'd endured it, five rounds of IVF before one finally took.

And he'd let a whim of Violet's, a genetic experiment on a living body, take my baby away from me for good.

The doctor had already told me. I would never be able to conceive again.

Once the lab was empty and I was the only one left, I pulled the bloody needle out of my arm and, my head swimming, took out my phone.

The moment it lit up, a livestream notification popped up.

I tapped it without thinking, and there they were, Violet and Lewis, stripped from the waist up, chests pressed together, moving against each other.

The comment feed was flooding with gifts, everyone screaming at them to take more off.

I closed the stream and dialed a number that had lain quiet on my block list for five years.

"I've made up my mind. I'll divorce him, and then I'll come to you."

...

"You're sure you want the divorce, want to join our project? We could get a special assignment at any moment and have to ship out. Take some time to think it over." Professor Armstrong's voice pressed me again through the receiver.

I bit down on the tip of my tongue to steady my voice. "There's nothing to think over, Professor. Lewis cheated on me."

"From college until now, the two of you were the perfect couple in everyone's eyes at that school." There was a sigh under his words.

Professor Armstrong had been our faculty advisor back in the day. He'd watched Lewis and me weather everything together.

I glanced at the file beside my hand and let a mocking curve pull at my mouth. Thirteen years of feeling, worth less than the novelty a stranger brought.

Seeing how firm I was, he stopped trying to talk me out of it.

Lewis had found his true love. And I was going to go find my own life.

After I hung up, I took the file and had a car drive me straight to Thomas Group's headquarters.

The moment I walked into his office, I set it down in front of him. "Sign it."

Lewis raised an eyebrow, looking at me with impatience. "You know I never sign anything without reading it."

I looked straight into his face. "It's the report from the experiment a few days ago. You killed my child, and now you won't even sign the report on it?"

"Killed? That fetus of yours was meant to be weeded out! Survival of the fittest. You don't understand that?" His back went rigid, his neck strained as he shouted at me.

I lowered my eyes. I couldn't be bothered to argue.

"You should thank Violet. If it weren't for her, do you think you'd be getting to drop that burden in your belly this easily?"

"Don't be so thin-skinned about it."

I kept my eyes down, my hands balled into fists under the desk, the knuckles white. "Of course."

Soon I forced the mist in my eyes to clear and stared, unblinking, at that face of his.

He seemed to see through the disappointment in my eyes, and relented. "I'll have to look it over. Give me five minutes."

With that, he took the file into his hands.

I watched his face, and saw something serious surface in his eyes.

It was Lewis's occupational habit. Any document that passed through his hands, he had to read to the last word and turn over in his mind for a long while before signing.

He was just about to open the cover when his personal assistant shoved the door open and burst in.

Lewis glared at him, furious.

"Something's wrong, Mr. Thomas. Miss Fox, she—" The assistant caught sight of me and stopped short.

"Out with it! Never mind who's here!" The fury in Lewis's eyes gave way entirely to worry.

"Miss Fox has been hospitalized!" The assistant no longer looked at me. "The experiment a few days ago frightened her. She hasn't been able to eat these last few days—"

Lewis shot up from the leather chair, his eyes vicious on me. "You're the one who frightened Violet!"

For days I'd been fighting my way through the pain of losing my child, and he was worried about Violet being frightened.

Somewhere along the way, Lewis had shown me nothing but a poker face. And now his own face was hung, plain and bright, with worry.

Not for me. For that adopted sister of mine who had everything. Violet.

I straightened up, and a dry, cracked voice came out of my throat. "Sign it before you go. You were there at that experiment too, after all."

His gaze swept over me, more impatient now. "Are you done?"

"Can't it wait till I'm back?" His face was dark. "You only lost a child. She's gone two whole days without eating!"

I forced out a smile. "Sign it. This is the one time I'll ever ask you to sign something. The last time too."

His expression eased a little.

He knew what a stubborn woman I was. I'd never once let him give me a gift of his own accord.

He snatched up the pen, flipped carelessly to the last page, and signed without so much as a glance. "There. Are you satisfied now?"

"Your sister needs me right now. And you, my wife, keep badgering me over a signature. Take your experiment report and get out!"

He threw the file onto the floor.

Ever since my parents adopted Violet, she'd taken away every bit of family love I had. My parents always felt she was an orphan, that she needed their love more. And now she'd taken my love away too. She'd even destroyed the only child I would ever have.

Lewis didn't notice how red my eyes had gone. He hurried out, leaving me alone in his office.

I picked the file up off the floor and left.

The employees pointed and whispered, all of them laughing at how much I'd meant it.

I took out my phone and called the one person I hadn't spoken to in five years.

Rudolph Mason.

"I want to see you now." That long-lost voice came through the receiver.

"Give me seven days. In seven days I'll come to the city where you are." I turned him down.

The divorce papers needed seven days to take effect. And in those seven days, I was going to let them taste what it felt like to lose everything.

I had to go back to the house that used to be home and clear out my things.

I stepped into the marital home that had been ours, the wedding photo still hanging on the wall.

In the photo I leaned happily against his broad chest, his chin resting against my hair, his eyes full of love.

Everything churning inside me, I walked to the corner of the room where Lewis's very first love letter to me still lay. Back then he was just a poor nobody, and he had bitten his finger open to write me a letter in blood, swearing to give me his life and his love, all of it.

I finally found it under the vanity in the corner, that letter made of blood and love.

My cosmetics, though, had long since been thrown to the floor by Violet like garbage.

Those cosmetics were the ones Lewis had once flown overseas to have custom-made just for me. He'd said my looks were extraordinary, that ordinary cosmetics were beneath me, so he'd spent tens of millions commissioning the lead creators of a luxury brand to make them to fit me alone.

Holding back the tears in my eyes, I picked up that long-sealed letter.

I returned the letter and the wedding photo from the room to Lewis, placing them in his safe.

If the love we once had was gone, then the memories of it should be gone too.

Looking at everything in the bedroom, I called for the maid and told her to take every last thing that belonged to me and burn it completely, including that set of cosmetics no one could buy in any store.

With sighs and confusion, the maid carried it all to the backyard and burned it.

I followed her out and watched with my own eyes as the flames devoured all of it.

The blaze scorched heat into my eyes, and the tears I'd kept pressed down this whole time finally spilled over, beyond my control.

I don't know how long it was before Lewis came and stood beside me.

There was a trace of impatience on his face as he looked at me. "Still throwing a tantrum over the experiment?"

Lewis still thought I was losing my temper over Violet running that experiment on my child.

"I just don't want it anymore." My voice was flat, drained of any feeling.

"How about I arrange a trip to Iceland for you? I'll go with you. It happens to be our tenth wedding anniversary." His voice softened a little.

The old me would have felt happy. Now I simply shook off the hand that had touched Violet.

He stared blankly at the hand I'd flung away.

Soon the maid came up and broke in on us. "Mr. Thomas, ma'am, the baby items have arrived."

The pain inside me was unbearable, but I forced my voice to sound like a machine with no feeling at all. "We don't need them. Send them back."

Lewis, though, told the maid, "Put them in the nursery."

The pain spread through my whole body. I couldn't stop myself from saying, "But... the baby is already gone. What do we need those for?"

Lewis pulled out his phone, glanced at the screen, and a smile immediately spread across his face as he headed for the door.

The next second, he had his arm gently around Violet, and the two of them walked slowly over to me.

"You really don't need them. But my child does." Lewis lowered his eyes to Violet's belly.

"Just this morning, I got my own flesh and blood. A boy, with truly superior genes."

His words went off beside my ear like a bomb.

Pain pulsed through my chest, my throat kept tightening, and I could hardly breathe.

Violet's hand rested on her belly, and though she was smiling, her eyes carried the air of a woman who ran this house.

Lewis's gaze swept over my heaving chest, something like smugness in his eyes. "Violet and I have been trying for a baby for half a year now. Our baby is one in a million, not beneath everyone else like that fetus of yours."

My breath caught, and my whole body was shaking.

Six months ago, the hospital found I was physically unfit to ever carry a child, and Lewis chose IVF. I'd taken the fertility drugs in his arms, half destroyed by the agony of it, and he'd stroked my forehead with reddened eyes, swearing that in this life he only wanted this one baby.

Three months ago, on the day my pregnancy was confirmed, he'd made a grand show of ordering a whole planeload of violets from overseas for me, swearing he'd give me and the baby in my belly the happiest life there was.

My vision went black and I stumbled, nearly fainting on the spot. While I suffered the drugs' side effects day and night, he had been trying for a baby with Violet.

And now he was telling me that half a year ago, he had already been trying for a baby with her.

Through the blur of tears, I stared at Lewis and lashed out. "Did you ever once think about my child, who was just beginning to take shape?"

Lewis looked at me, already streaming with tears, and let out a heavy sigh.

"Nadia, are you done making a scene? Violet's not feeling well in her early pregnancy, so you might as well start taking care of her right now, to atone for what you did." His voice sank, dark.

Tears dropped onto my shoes. In an instant, I forced myself calm.

"Do whatever you want." My face was cold as I fought down the urge to cry.

Lewis, whose face had been contorted with rage, suddenly ran out of steam. He began sizing me up again, as if he hadn't expected me to be this calm.

Violet rose onto her toes and whispered something in Lewis's ear. Lewis immediately shouted at the servants, "Smash the whole nursery and redecorate it."

"Violet doesn't like that style."

The servants went straight to the nursery with their tools.

That nursery was one I had painted by hand over three months. Soft yellow throughout, touched with beige, waiting to welcome my unborn child.

Now it was breaking apart under the servants' hammers.

I looked at the dust-filled nursery and threw myself in front of their hammers. "You can't! This is my child's room! No one touches it without my permission!"

Violet's sobbing rose behind me. "I grew up in an orphanage. My child should grow up in one too."

Lewis's eyes went wide with fury as he grabbed my clothes and dragged me out of the nursery. "Stop making a scene!"

"My child with Violet is a boy. As the heir to Thomas Group, he can't grow up surrounded by a color this cheap!"

Calmly, I took out my phone and filmed the whole thing, Lewis directing the servants to smash the nursery.

"Keep smashing. You're doing well." I looked at Lewis.

"This is the last trace of your own child, and you're destroying it with your own hands. Don't regret it later."

I sat in the wreck of the nursery, unable to make myself leave.

It wasn't until Lewis's voice came from beside me that I understood I'd been sitting there a whole day and night.

"You're the baby's aunt anyway. Once it's born, you can look after the baby and Violet. Saves us hiring a nurse." Lewis said it looking straight into my eyes.

There was nothing left in my line of sight but ruin.

I forced out a dry voice. "As you wish."

Seeing that I was still this cold, deaf to everything, the guilt on his face turned to impatience. "Nadia, don't play any of your games with me."

And as if that hadn't taken the edge off, he swung his hand and struck me across the cheek.

My cheek flared red and swollen at once, and just as I was about to hit back, the maid brought my grandmother in.

Her gaze swept over my swollen cheek and my tangled hair, then went straight to Lewis. "My precious granddaughter is pregnant?"

The words had barely left her when Violet, who'd been resting in the bedroom, came trotting out and into Grandmother's arms.

"My darling girl, you have to rest properly now. You're the little treasure of this whole family." Grandmother's face was pure delight.

"Don't worry, Grandmother. Violet's done this family a great service. I'll take good care of her." Lewis said it watching Violet, who wore a bashful little blush.

"Nadia, you bring nothing but bad luck. How can a woman who's just miscarried stand in front of our Violet?" Grandmother turned to me all at once, the joy in her eyes going cold in an instant.

Violet pouted, hurt rising on her face. "Just let my sister stay here and look after me. Otherwise she'd have nowhere to go."

I looked at the three of them, and the bitterness rose out of my eyes before I could hold it back.

Human joy and sorrow really don't run on the same current.

"Grandmother, my child's death was a gift from the two of them."

Lewis's face darkened instantly, and he cut me off. "Nadia, I know you're jealous of Violet. For the sake of our marriage, I'll turn a blind eye to these things you say to hurt her."

The pain in my heart came on hard, but my face stayed perfectly calm. "So you do know we're married? Once this thing between the two of you gets out, won't the whole world laugh itself sick? The great Thomas Group, tangled up with his own sister-in-law, and a bastard child on the way."

Ever since my parents took Violet in, she had fought and grabbed for everything that was mine. Every time she wanted to hurt me and succeed at it, she'd frame me in front of my parents without a second thought, and it was Lewis who proved me innocent, again and again.

In the end, Violet took my child and my love too.

"I finally managed to carry a baby, and the two of you killed my baby with your own hands." I said it shrill, laying out their crime.

"How many times do I have to say it? That was for the good of all mankind. Nadia, you benefited too. Your fetus was defective, and on top of that it was a girl."

"You know I have to have an heir. A girl can't be my heir." Lewis's voice was cold as a glacier.

Only because it was a girl, they murdered my child under a high and noble excuse.

Violet stroked her belly and began to sniffle. "I'm sorry, sister. I shouldn't have hurt you and your test-tube baby…"

I saw the glint of self-satisfaction shining under her tears.

"Enough! Nadia, Violet grew up in an orphanage. Do you have any idea how much she suffered all the way up?"

"Provoke me again and I'll throw you into the red-light district. I'll let the people there teach you what manners are." Lewis leaned hard on that last line.

I had once thought Lewis was only taken with Violet for a while, that he'd come around after a time, and I had even been willing to wait for him to apologize. I never imagined Lewis and Violet would join hands to murder my child, and say things this cruel to me on top of it.

The corner of my mouth curled into a scornful smile, and I just looked at Lewis's face.

They thought I had always been a homemaker leaning on Lewis.

They had no idea that behind them all I held multinational assets, and had run an AI lab for years.

Lewis's original shareholders were college classmates I had once helped, and it was I who quietly talked them into funding him.

Those classmates didn't understand why I would back some penniless nobody so hard, and I told them without hesitation that Lewis was a one-in-a-thousand stock with real potential.

At the time they said it to me over and over. "First, if Lewis doesn't have what it takes, we pull our money right away. Second, if Lewis ever fails you, we will stand firmly on your side."

I nodded, confident. And reality had slapped me across the face.

Sick of the three of them and their performance, I walked past them, expressionless, up to the second floor.

Grandmother held the weeping Violet and stroked her hair to soothe her. "You can't cry in early pregnancy, sweet girl. We spoiled Nadia rotten. With us here, she won't dare hurt you."

I stood on the second-floor stairs and looked down, and I saw Violet being held and kissed by Lewis.

Her eyes kept streaming tears, but the corner of her mouth lifted toward me.

I swallowed the bitterness down into my belly, met her gaze, and raised my head with a proud smile.

What they didn't know was that I had just caught every one of their ugly faces, whole and complete, on my phone.