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.

After I uploaded what the two of them had done to the cloud, I finally fell into a heavy sleep.

The next morning I took a cab straight to Lewis's company and called a shareholders' meeting. The shareholders' secretaries only knew me as Mr. Thomas's wife, and my fax meant nothing to them. But the moment their bosses heard, they rushed straight up to the top-floor conference room.

Word reached Lewis fast. He shoved the conference room doors open.

"What are you making a scene about now?" He frowned and waved me over to the doorway.

"Nothing." I looked at him, cold. If a stare could kill, Lewis would have died a thousand times over under mine.

"You don't understand company matters, and these shareholders aren't people you're in any position to meet, understand? Actually, it's fine you're here. I'm going to announce Violet as vice president of Thomas Group, and tomorrow she's going to quietly strike these shareholders off the system." Lewis said it plainly.

Back then, once I'd talked these people around, they'd thrown everything behind Lewis for my sake, sparing no money and no connections.

Thomas Group had only reached this point because of those college classmates I once funded, the very shareholders he was so casually declaring he'd remove.

"Violet's pregnant. She's very sensitive right now, and she wants every one of the pretty shareholders gone." Lewis said it like it was nothing at all.

He was going to strike off shareholders who had emptied their pockets to help, all because of something Violet said offhand during her pregnancy? I had almost, out of decency, meant to warn them.

"You're a housewife who couldn't even manage to become a mother. How could you possibly understand Violet?" Lewis's face was turning a hard, iron gray.

Thinking of that baby, barely formed, my fingertips shook with the ache of it.

When I was confirmed pregnant, he told me a pregnant woman shouldn't be so precious about herself. While I endured the side effects of the IVF drugs day after day, he was behind my back, working out with Violet how to kill my baby.

I laughed out loud all at once, nodding again and again. "You're right, I don't understand a thing. Since the two of you have already decided, then here's to Thomas Group going from strength to strength."

I turned and went back into the conference room, and told my college classmates right away that Lewis meant to quietly strike them off.

One of them had once been my roommate. She'd come out of a poor mountain region, and if not for my funding she'd never have become the renowned entrepreneur she was.

She looked at me and said, "I always felt Lewis wasn't reliable. Back then I was sure he'd brainwashed you. It's just as well. I'll have my secretary pull our investment now."

Every classmate got on the phone with their assistants at once, demanding to sever ties with Thomas Group as fast as possible.

Lewis watched us from the other side of the soundproof glass wall, with no idea what we were saying.

When I walked out of the conference room, I ignored Lewis glaring at the door and left the place without another word.

His words were like a rusted knife, dragging back and forth through my wound.

My chest was tight, like a stone pressing down on it, and I couldn't hold on any longer. I ran out.

I don't know how long I ran. When I finally stopped, spent, I found I'd come without meaning to, to the park where Lewis and I had our first date.

I'd barely reached the water when I saw Violet walking toward me with a sneering little laugh.

"Sis, you've been married to Lewis all these years and you don't even have a job. Not like me. Tomorrow I'm going to be vice president of Thomas Group."

"You know what I love about Lewis?"

"His money? His face? Wrong. What I love is the way he loves you. Anything that belongs to you, I want it, and I want to enjoy it right in front of you."

"To get him, I even carried his child. He told me you were a dead fish in bed. Not like me. Men can't get enough of me." She was laughing so hard there were tears in her eyes.

I kept ignoring her. I knew this exact look in my eyes was the thing Violet hated most.

"Oh, right. That unborn baby of yours was never any human-gene experiment. It was abortion drugs mixed specially for you. Your child was never going to be born. Not like mine, who's been enjoying endless wealth and glory from inside my belly."

My breath went ragged, and the dark came at me in waves. With every bit of strength I had, I grabbed her hair and wrenched her hard toward the ground.

"I'm going to make you regret this."

"I'm going to let the whole world know you stole a married man. And that man is your own sister's husband. You'll be branded a woman with no morals for the rest of your life!"

My move frightened her. Then, all at once, she threw herself into the artificial lake beside us.

"Sis, I'm sorry!" she cried out from the water.

"I'll never show my face in front of you again. If my dying makes you happy, I'll sink to the bottom of this lake right now."

Lewis came running and shoved me hard toward the water. "You're vicious!"

I lost my footing and went in. The cold water swallowed me in an instant, and I thrashed on instinct, my face streaming, though I couldn't tell the lake water from the tears of everything I'd swallowed.

"Lewis, we've known each other for over ten years. In your eyes, am I really that kind of person?" I demanded, wretched in the water.

He watched me bob up and down, and stayed silent a few seconds, a flicker of guilt crossing his face. The next second he dove in and lifted Violet up onto the bank.

"There's a limit to how far your foolishness can go."

I kept struggling in the water, in no state to answer him.

On the bank Lewis held Violet, soaked through, his eyes full of tenderness for her.

He looked down his nose at me. "You can reflect on yourself in there."

And so he carried her off in his arms, and let me sink and rise in the water before his very eyes.

The evening lake was cold enough to bite into bone, and I floated helpless in that vast expanse.

Once, Lewis would come undone over the smallest bit of my hair getting wet in the rain. Now he didn't spare a thought for the fact that I'd lost a baby days ago, and let me drown in that foul, reeking water.

Only when my vision went black and I had no strength left to struggle did Lewis order his bodyguards to fish me out.

When I came to again, I was in a cramped, pitch-black space where I couldn't see my own hand. I could feel clearly that my body was moving the whole time.

Not far off, Lewis was talking to Violet in that gentle voice. "I promise I won't let Nadia near you again. She's an impossible woman. The passenger seat is yours forever, and as for Nadia, the trunk suits her just fine."

With that, they fell into a kiss.

The sound of them kissing bored clearly into my ears. I wept without a sound, and the exhaustion pulled me back down into endless darkness.

I don't know how long it was before a basin of cold water woke me. Through the blur I saw Lewis like a lion gone mad. "You made Violet bleed! If anything happens to her and my son, I will never let you off!"