After my third prenatal checkup alone, Ferdinand Sanchez called out of nowhere.

“Get rid of the baby. My first child should be Deborah's.”

“We're married. We can always have more later.”

I thought I'd misheard. I rushed home to get a straight answer.

Instead, through the crack in the door, I heard him cooing at Deborah Harding：

“The stunt you pulled at the wedding, spreading those rumors? I barely managed to cover for you. Don't be so reckless next time.”

Then came Deborah's voice, syrupy and coy：

“I was just upset you married her. It was only a joke. Besides, you already took care of it for me.”

“You only get away with this because I spoil you.”

I couldn't take it anymore. I pushed the door open and asked for a divorce.

He didn't even flinch. He stood there, completely self-righteous.

“Renee Vance, don't forget. When those scandals about your mother broke at the wedding and your family threw you out, I was the one who took you in.”

“When your mother lost her mind, it was the miracle drug I tracked down that kept her stable.”

“Where do you get the nerve to ask me for a divorce?”

I froze. So this was what I was to him.

He thought he'd won. A cruel smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Where would you even go without me? Be good, get rid of the baby, and it'll be better for everyone.”

Fine, then. The baby and you. I didn't want either anymore.

……

“Fine.”

My face was white, but my eyes were calm. Still as dead water.

Ferdinand noticed nothing wrong. If anything, relief flickered across his face.

He reached out to stroke my hair. I shifted away before he could touch me, so smoothly he didn't even register it.

“I knew you'd be reasonable.”

“Don't worry. Once Deborah has the baby, I'll make it up to you. After that, you can have as many as you want.”

After that. There would be no after that.

He had no idea how many rounds of bitter medication I'd forced down, how much I'd endured just to conceive this child.

If I went through with the abortion, I might never be a mother again.

All of this he would have known, if he'd come with me to a single appointment.

When I said nothing more, Ferdinand stood and headed for the door.

“I'm heading out. I need to take Deborah to her checkup.”

I watched his back as he walked away, and something inside me twisted against my will.

I'd been let down so many times. I already knew the answer.

But my body moved before my mind could stop it, and the words left my mouth：

“Ferdinand.”

His steps faltered. He turned, and the patience that had been in his eyes moments ago was already gone.

“What now?”

“Could you……come with me tomorrow?”

Ferdinand blinked, and an uncomfortable look crossed his face.

“Tomorrow's Deborah's birthday. I've been planning it for weeks. I can't miss it.”

“But the doctor said……”

“Enough, Renee! Stop being so dramatic. I'll come see you after Deborah's birthday.”

He left without looking at me again, his long stride carrying him out of the room.

The door slammed shut behind him with a bang, and the room sank back into silence.

I sat motionless on the couch. The tears finally came.

I didn't know how long I sat there before I stood, numb from the inside out.

In the bedroom, I pulled open the dresser drawer. Inside, neatly folded, were several tiny outfits.

Ferdinand and I had picked them out together.

Back then, he would rest his hand on my belly, gentle and warm,

talking about what toys he'd buy the baby, arguing that the first word had to be "Daddy."

Now, for another woman, he'd told me to snuff out this little life like it was nothing.

I emptied the drawer slowly. Each piece I took out left me a little more hollow.

My phone buzzed. A text message.

“Ms. Vance, the matter you asked me to look into is turning up leads. The rumors from back then were definitely connected to Deborah Harding.”

It was from the private investigator I'd been contacting in secret. My hands shook as I typed my reply：

“I don't care what it takes. Get me solid proof.”

The moment the message went through, something hardened behind my eyes.

Back then, after the rumors broke, my father hadn't even bothered to verify them before having his lawyers draft a statement severing all ties.

“The Vance name cannot be dragged through this kind of scandal!”

“The stock is already dropping. The board is breathing down my neck. You and your mother are moving out today.”

My mother had knelt on the floor, begging him to believe her, begging him at least not to throw me out.

What she got for her pleading was a pair of security guards escorting us through the front door. We didn't even have time to pack.

Over twenty years of marriage, severed in a single afternoon. After that, my mother lost her mind.

If I could find the evidence, I could clear her name. I would no longer be some illegitimate child born of an affair that never happened.

And maybe, just maybe, her condition would improve.

But without a replacement for that miracle drug, I would never be free of Ferdinand Sanchez.

I was still turning the problem over when my phone buzzed again.

Teresa Swanson. My college friend who worked at the hospital.

I picked up, but before I could even say hello, her voice came through fast and breathless：

“Renee, that medication you showed me, you need to stop giving it to her right now!”

I froze：“What?”

“That imported drug your mom's been taking. I had my advisor send it to a specialist overseas for analysis.”

Teresa was talking so fast the dread in my chest tightened with every word.

“It's not a psychiatric medication at all. If anything, it could be making her worse.”

Teresa was still explaining the side effects, but I'd already stopped listening.

Cold shot straight to the top of my skull, and every drop of blood in my body felt like it had turned to ice.

I'd thought Ferdinand had only covered up Deborah's crimes.

It never crossed my mind that he'd been feeding my mother poison, day after day, pill after pill.

And all that time he'd ask in that gentle voice of his：

“How's Mom doing? Any improvement lately?”

I'd been grateful to him for it. Six whole months of gratitude.

I wanted to rip that mask off his face right then and there, to scream at him, to demand why he could be this cruel.

But this wasn't the time to lose control. Every second I wasted was another second my mother was in danger.

I grabbed my keys and tore out of the house, driving to the hospital like my life depended on it.

The moment I shoved open the ward door, the caregiver was standing at my mother's bedside, a cup of water in one hand and that blue pill in the other, ready to give her the dose.

“Stop!”

I lunged forward and knocked the cup out of her hand.

She flinched, startled, then her expression soured：

“Ms. Vance, what are you doing?”

“This is the miracle drug Mr. Sanchez specifically ordered. She has to take it on schedule every day. What if you set back her treatment?”

“From now on, nobody gives my mother any medication without my permission. If something goes wrong, that's on me.”

I stared at those pills, my voice trembling.

The caregiver muttered something under her breath, clearly annoyed, and left the room.

I turned to my mother, who had shrunk against the headboard, pressed into the corner of the bed.

The terror in her eyes hit me like a thousand needles driven straight through my heart.

I fought back the tears and pulled her into my arms.

“Mom, it's okay. Don't be scared. No one is ever going to hurt you again. I promise.”

She slowly stopped trembling, the panic fading from her face. But then voices drifted in from outside the door, low and gossipy.

“Poor thing, the woman in that room. I heard she used to be married into one of those old-money families. How'd she end up like this?”

A stranger's voice, laced with curiosity and pity.

Another voice cut in right after, sharp and shrill.

“Poor? Please. She's no saint. Apparently she hid an affair for over twenty years, and when the truth came out she got kicked to the curb. Couldn't handle the shame, so she snapped. If you ask me, she had it coming.”

“Exactly. Neither of them are any good. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”

“I heard the daughter wormed her way in too, broke up someone's relationship just to marry rich.”

Ever since the day my mother's life fell apart, voices like these had clung to us like rot that never healed.

At first, I charged out like a madwoman to argue, to explain, to beg them to understand that my mother had been framed.

All I got in return were colder stares and sharper ridicule.

“Still denying it at this point?” “Where there's smoke, there's fire.”

No one was willing to believe me. Or rather, they didn't care what the truth was.

The more I explained, the guiltier I looked.

The more I argued, the more pathetic I seemed.

By now I was used to it. But in my arms, my mother had started to tremble.

I was about to comfort her when she wrenched herself free, her eyes locked wide on the doorway.

“I didn't……I didn't……”

Before I could react, she shoved me aside and bolted out of the room.

“Mom!”

My heart lurched. I ran after her.

She was like a cornered animal, crashing blindly through the hallway.

The crowd of gawkers scattered instantly, terrified she'd barrel into them.

And there, at the end of the corridor, Ferdinand stood with Deborah.

Deborah wore a loose maternity dress, her belly slightly rounded, leaning into Ferdinand and murmuring something in that helpless, syrupy way of hers.

My mother charged straight at them and clamped both hands around Ferdinand's sleeve.

“Ferdinand! Please help me! I was framed……”

Before she could finish, Deborah, who stood on Ferdinand's other side, let out a piercing shriek and stumbled backward.

“You hit me!”

She clutched her stomach, her face draining of color.

“You hit my belly!”

Ferdinand's expression turned savage. He wrenched my mother's hands off his arm and rushed to steady Deborah.

“Are you okay? Does it hurt?”

My mother staggered from the force of being thrown off and slammed into the wall, frozen where she stood.

A new ring of onlookers had already closed in around the corridor.

“Did that crazy old woman just hit a pregnant lady?”

“God, that had to be on purpose. Bad enough she's lost her mind, but attacking a young girl like that!”

“Right? She looks so pitiful, who knew she was this vicious!”

Deborah huddled in Ferdinand's arms, her shoulders hitching with sobs, eyes rimmed red.

I shoved through the crowd and saw my mother's frail body pressed against the wall, terror all over her face.

“Mom!” I threw myself forward and caught her. Something seized my chest so tight I couldn't breathe.

“Ferdinand, are you blind? My mother didn't even touch her!”

I screamed it at him, eyes burning, but his gaze stayed ice-cold.

“Enough, Renee! Deborah's pregnant. How much strength could she possibly have? Your lunatic mother did it on purpose!”

“Make her apologize right now, or I'm calling the police!”

Deborah was still sobbing in his arms, tugging pitifully at his sleeve：

“Ferdinand, just let it go……She probably didn't mean it. Don't make things hard for her. I'm fine.”

Ferdinand's face darkened further. He stared at me, his voice frigid：

“Renee, Deborah is pregnant and she still went out of her way to find treatment for your mother.”

“That miracle drug? She moved heaven and earth to get it shipped from overseas.”

“And instead of showing an ounce of gratitude, you two repay her kindness by hurting her. Do you even have a conscience?”

Those words hit me like a thunderclap.

The miracle drug came from Deborah?

So it had been Deborah all along.

She was the one who spread the rumors back then, and now she was the one behind the poison driving my mother insane.