The amniocentesis had been done personally by the president of the City OB-GYN Medical Association.

And the paternity results were already in.

This was exactly what I'd wanted—for them to commit an even bigger crime trying to bury their affair!

To destroy the evidence, Molly had pulled rank and scheduled my surgery immediately.

Lying on the operating table, Molly swabbed me with iodine, her eyes red, getting ready to put me under general anesthesia.

Jude watched the moving shadow on the ultrasound screen, and his eyes welled up too, as if he couldn't help it.

He took my hand and choked out:

"Bella, why don't we just call this off?"

"Look, the baby already has a human shape, and it's a boy. If you carry him to term, you'll be able to walk tall in my family for the rest of your life. No one will ever mock you again for not being able to have children…"

"And my mother would even write your name into the family register. You'd be qualified to take part in the memorials and everything…"

Molly turned her face away and dabbed at the corner of her eye.

"That's right, Bella, in another six months you'd have status as the mother of his son. Why throw all that away over a bad dream?"

"Even I can't bear to look at this tiny little life. How can you, his own mother, be so heartless?"

Status as the mother of his son?

The two of them had already worked out that the moment I gave birth, they'd kick me to the curb.

I had to hand it to them—the scumbag and the slut put on a flawless performance.

If I hadn't heard the truth with my own ears yesterday, I couldn't even imagine how wretched I'd be six months from now.

Just picturing that scene made me tremble all over with fury.

"This is my uterus. Whether I keep this baby or not, that's my call!"

"If you two keep running your mouths, see if I don't put a knife in him right here!"

I grabbed the scissors off the surgical cart and made a show of stabbing them toward my belly.

Sure enough, Jude and Molly went white with terror, eyes wide.

"No!"

The two of them lunged at me like they'd lost their minds.

The scissors were caught four inches from my stomach and wrenched away.

Anyone who didn't know better would think Jude was so afraid I'd hurt myself.

But the truth was, he was only afraid I'd hurt their son.

After all, the two of them had other plans.

Before I went into the operating room, I'd pretended to make a trip to the bathroom.

The hidden camera I'd secretly planted in Molly's office had captured, perfectly, yet another of Jude and Molly's scheming sessions.

"Jude, do you think Bella could have found out I snuck over to your place last night, that she heard what we were up to?"

Jude shook his head.

"No way! It had to be a nightmare!"

"Otherwise, with her temper, she'd have stormed in right then and made it a fight to the death with the two of us! You've seen it yourself—the way she goes crazy with jealousy over you!"

Molly let go of her worry completely, and said with deep regret:

"Such a shame about our son. All those months I spent cultivating him, finally getting it to work…"

Jude sighed.

"Nana, I'll try to talk her around in a bit, see if I can coax her out of the surgery. But if she still won't listen, can you strip the embryo out and transplant it into your uterus directly?"

Molly had no intention of carrying it herself, and she was afraid of the pain, so she broke into tears on the spot and said no.

But Jude wouldn't let it go. He took her hand and pleaded:

"Nana, this is our first child, after all. I really can't bear to let it go…"

"If we actually get rid of it, you'd have to start all over from scratch, and the two of us couldn't sleep together for at least three months…"

As Jude said this, tears actually slid down his face.

A single tear from a man, performed until your heart breaks.

Molly had no choice but to agree.

"Then I'll put her under general anesthesia in a bit, draw two vials of her blood for the test, and I guarantee she'll be thrown out like a stray dog with nowhere to go!"

“After she pulled that on us, you have to tell your mother she got rid of the baby out of pure selfishness. And all your relatives, too!”

“I'll make sure no man will ever take her again, no matter how badly she wants to remarry!”

Jude agreed to every word.

“And the engagement money. I want all of it back, and her family had better pay a fortune in emotional damages on top of it!”

It was only in that moment that I finally understood the kind of animal I had married.

……

Jude flung the scissors away, his face a mask of grief and disbelief.

“Bella, how much do you hate this child? Enough to throw away your own life over it?”

My thoughts snapped back to the room, and I shot it right back at him:

“It's just an abortion. Why are the two of you stalling so hard? Don't tell me the baby in here is yours and hers.”

Jude's face darkened, and he handed the anesthetic straight to Molly.

The needle was almost in my arm when I shoved it away:

“That dose isn't right, is it? It's just a termination. Why would you need general anesthesia? Are you two planning to do something you shouldn't while I'm under?”

Jude and Molly went pale, their hearts in their throats.

After exchanging a glance, the two of them had no choice but to pull out the big guns.

Molly suddenly produced a few blurry photos:

“Bella, you're willing to risk your life to be rid of this baby. Don't tell me the rumors are true, that you've got someone else on the side, and that's why……”

Jude pretended to freeze, staring at Molly in disbelief:

“What rumors? Why haven't I heard about this?”

It had never occurred to me that the way Jude planned to force me out of the Delgado family would be by smearing me as a cheater.

Molly hesitated for a few seconds before saying softly:

“Jude, let it go. It's probably just a misunderstanding. Bella loves you so much, how could she get a room with someone else…… I must have seen wrong that time at the Grandview Hotel……”

Jude lost it completely.

He hauled me up off the operating table and demanded in a cold voice:

“So this is your excuse for killing our baby? Who is he? Who's the other man?”

“No wonder you kept finding reasons to travel for work this year. You were off meeting your lover, weren't you?”

I had to hand it to him. He really did sell it.

It made me laugh outright.

“Jude, I'm going to watch this child terminated with my own eyes. If it absolutely has to be under general anesthesia, then the whole thing gets filmed, start to finish. Otherwise I'll report Dr. Lambert for malpractice.”

“You wouldn't dare!”

Jude practically screamed it.

But I said coldly:

“In my dream, I think I heard you and Dr. Lambert doing something unspeakable together.”

“Bullshit! Bella, you get more ridiculous by the day! If Molly and I had anything going on, the kid would be old enough to run errands by now! What's any of that got to do with you?”

“Over one godforsaken dream you get an abortion, you smear me, the works. I can see you really don't want this marriage anymore!”

Furious now, he shoved me down hard onto the bed and turned to order Molly:

“Stop begging her! Just do the surgery, then rush the paternity test through!”

“My child does not need a cold-blooded, heartless, vicious mother like her!”

“I'm going to the Grandview Hotel to check the security footage. I'll find ironclad proof that she cheated. I'll make her leave the marriage with nothing, and admit she deserved every bit of it!”

Molly had never wanted to carry the pregnancy herself, so she stopped hesitating and gave me the local anesthetic.

It didn't hurt, but feeling the child stripped from my body firsthand, and watching Jude's eyes go bloodshot with the ache of his loss, I still felt nothing but satisfaction.

The paternity results came back that same night.

Just as expected, Molly had tampered with them. They showed the child was mine and Jude's.

And Jude, moving with frightening speed, got hold of the full video of me bringing a drunk client into the hotel to rest.

What a shame. He'd bet on the wrong hand.

That short-haired man in the suit was, in fact, a woman.

Jude threw the so-called evidence in my face, his voice cold.

"I've already told both sets of parents, and my relatives too. Tomorrow we all sit down and work out the divorce. Three years and not a single child, then you cheat, and on top of that you abort my son. Under the law, the three hundred thousand in engagement money I gave you has to come back. You'd better start thinking about how you're going to explain yourself!"

I wasn't even out of the hospital yet, and already he couldn't wait to scheme it all out.

I took a sip of the warm brown-sugar water and didn't expose a single thing.

"Fine. Better with everyone here. There's a lot that needs explaining."

The next day, the tiny ward was packed with relatives from both families.

My mother-in-law opened with insults.

"Bella Fox, you little tramp, you cheat and then you kill my grandson. Why don't you just go die?"

The relatives piled on, calling me a faithless slut and cold-blooded to boot.

"She leaves with nothing! Every cent of the engagement money returned! And another hundred thousand to Jude for emotional damages!"

My parents, because of the evidence, knew I'd done wrong, but they weren't about to let anyone bully me like this.

They were ready to step in for me on the spot, but I held them back.

"Dad, Mom, don't rush. Let me show everyone something good first."

The next second, I cast the video my assistant had put together straight onto the screen.