He had done it, and yet our child was gone too.

Because of the fire, the scar winding across my belly remained forever. And now, he made a joke of it.

“Is it really necessary to care about something that belongs to the dead? Besides, you were the one at fault first. Consider this compensation for Evie.”

Evie stepped forward, a cruel smile lighting her face.

“That’s right, Tiffany. I heard your child died so tragically because you committed too many sins.”

“To make it into a relic, I even kept it in a church for a whole month to absorb light!”

“Tell me, could the fact that you can’t conceive now, that even IVF won’t work, be because this child resents you?”

Her words pierced my heart, tearing flesh and blood as if with claws.

I slammed her onto the table, drew my dagger, and sliced across her face.

“Did the priest tell you that today you would meet a blood calamity?”

“Evie, I had originally wanted to let you go, but you are asking for death!”

With a flick of my wrist, blood blossomed across her face like a cruel, dark flower.

Just as the dagger neared her neck, Zavier kicked it away with a sharp force.

“Enough! How long are you going to keep making trouble?”

Before his words faded, I drew a gun and pressed it to Evie’s forehead.

The fury in his eyes deepened. “Tiffany! Was what Evie said wrong?”

“Look at what you’ve become! How are you any different from a lunatic?”

“If it weren’t for you insisting on going out to kill that night, would the child have died? When will you ever reflect on your own mistakes?”

The gun in my hand trembled violently, almost firing. I shook uncontrollably, every fiber of me quivering.

He knew as well as I did why our child had died. Those enemies, hunting revenge, were after him.

First, they found my parents’ villa and slaughtered them, then strung their bodies in front of the house to lure Zavier out.

When that failed, they dragged me from the basement and used the child as leverage, forcing me to call him. I called, but he didn’t answer.

They thought I was only his lover, so they chose to vent all their hatred on me. Hundreds of thugs came, planning to humiliate me, to film it, and send it to Zavier.

But they underestimated a mother’s will to protect her child. They all died, horribly.

That night, I wept endlessly, clutching my parents’ corpses. With my bare hands, I dug them a grave in front of the villa until my ten fingertips were shredded and bleeding. Through the long hours of digging, Zavier knelt beside me in silence.

By dawn, the child had been cut out, already without breath.

He cradled the child and knelt before me for three days and three nights. “Tiffany, from this moment, this life is yours. My blood will only flow for you.”

I pressed a cigarette butt into Evie’s chest, my smile cruel and jagged.

“You’re right. It’s all my fault. My gravest mistake was trusting your lies.”

Evie wailed and threw herself into Zavier’s arms. “She’s already lost her mind!”

Zavier’s eyes never left mine, his gaze tense and fixed.

The moment I reached into my pocket, his muscles tightened in alert, but when I pulled out the cemetery order, his guard eased at last.

“I intended to move the child closer to us, but… it seems unnecessary now.”

Pain flickered in his eyes as he obediently held out his hand.

The next second, my dagger cut through his index finger, sending it to the floor.

I pressed it under my foot and let out a wild laugh.

“Do you think you deserve this? Zavier, this is what you owe me! I’ll reclaim it, piece by piece… slowly!”

I toyed with the dagger and leaned close to Evie.

Zavier, who hadn’t flinched even when his finger was cut off, instantly panicked and threw himself over her protectively.

“Don’t touch her! Tiffany, don’t force me to fight you with my life!”

That look, that tone, dragged me back to the bloody night five years ago.

That night, when the enemies came, all ten bodyguards in the villa were killed. Their leader demanded that Xavier hand me over, promising that if they had their fun, he would be spared.

His eyes were red as he shielded me, forcing himself to stand against them all. And he had said the exact same words. “Don’t force me to risk my life. I’m afraid there aren’t enough of you to die.”

Then he had turned, gently covering my eyes with a silk scarf. “Don’t look. Your brother is here. To bleed for you, I’m willing.”

Too many people had died that night. By the end, I had grown numb to the screams echoing around me.

At dawn, I discovered he had already prepared a plane ticket for me, one way, and only for me.

Blood dripped slowly from his severed finger, each drop striking my ears like a drum.

He tore a piece of his shirt and expertly bound the wound. “Tiffany, don’t force me to hate you.”

The memory overlapped with eight years ago.

When he had chopped off my boyfriend’s hands, he had smiled at me and whispered, “Tiffany, hate me. If you can’t love me, at least hate will make you remember me.”

Perhaps our relationship had twisted from that very moment, a wrong beginning, destined never to have a good ending.

Evie pulled the gun from Zavier’s waist, trembling so violently her movements were chaotic.

“If you dare hurt Zavier, I won’t let you live!”

Too bad the fool hadn’t even known how to pull the trigger.

I advanced step by step as she screamed frantically, panic dripping from every word. In a flash, I struck her wrist and wrenched the gun into my own hand.

I leveled it at her forehead.

Evie collapsed like rotting flesh, clutching her head as she crouched in terror, her screams piercing the air.

“If you want revenge, know your place. Zavier, your taste is appalling.”

I took the ashes with me and left the chaos behind.

But Zavier didn’t return home, and likely never would again.

A night passed, and the world outside whispered that I had fallen from favor, that the blood-drenched demon who licked knives had been replaced.

For Evie, he had reformed himself, even going to prison to apologize one by one to those he had wronged, all in the name of accumulating virtue for their next child.

He reshaped the company, cutting every tie to the Morrison family. But I knew the only person he truly wanted to sever—was me.

He could shower Evie with gemstones worth tens of millions without hesitation. At a single word from her, he would spend recklessly to build a church.

When I heard the news, I laughed until I doubled over, tears streaming down my face.

“Denver, do you think God would even dare live in a man like that’s church?”

Denver said nothing.

But I understood, we had long since lost any protection from God. We were destined to dwell forever in darkness and blood.

He did so much, so much, for Evie, and I only pretended not to see.

Then the doctor’s message arrived. Evie was pregnant again, and Zavier was overjoyed, convinced it was the blessing of building the church.

He began preparing their wedding, blocked my number, and let only his lawyer contact me about the divorce.

I handed the phone to Denver.

“Sir has really gone too far this time. Tiffany, are you truly going to divorce?”

I shook my head. “In my life, there is no divorce. Only widowhood.”

“He wants a wedding, doesn’t he? Then I’ll give him a wedding.”

The night before their wedding, Evie sent me a message.

[I told you long ago, you can’t conceive because of your sins. But I am different from you.]

[Tiffany, give up. Zavier can only be mine.]

I laughed, cold and low.

She wanted Zavier, the man. What I wanted was his life.

On the wedding day, the hall was packed with guests, the same people who had once witnessed my wedding with Zavier.

He drove the wedding car to the hotel to pick up the bride. The door opened, the light dimmed, and a figure in pure white appeared, her back ethereal, like an angel.

He rushed forward, impatience blazing, and embraced what he thought was his salvation.

“Evie, thank you….”

In that instant, he turned, and blood burst forth.

My cunning smile was revealed.

The lights flared on, and the floor was no longer covered with red petals, but with rivers of blood.