“Do you realize the police recovered part of the crime scene footage? I saw the back of the woman who bribed the kidnappers and had Aina killed! It was her!” I shouted.

Zofia immediately shook her head like a rattling drum, tears streaming down her face. “It wasn’t me!”

Dominic could never stand to see Zofia getting harassed. In a single stride, he grabbed a wooden stool from beside him and smashed it over my head.

“Aah!”

I screamed as hot blood ran down the back of my neck. He seized me by the throat with one hand, lifted me off the ground and hurled me onto the shattered glass.

Then he pulled out his phone and called his assistant. “Bennie, go to the hospital and record a video of Aina. Send it to me.”

Hanging up, he narrowed his eyes, stepped over and stepping on my neck, grinding hard.

“Still want to run your mouth? Wonder if you'll keep going once I got the actual video.”

The pain had turned my whole body numb, my consciousness slowly fading. The choking made me feel the cold shadow of death creeping in—I couldn’t even speak.

Not long after, his phone rang. He put it on speaker.

“Mr. Gardner, bad news! The hospital says your daughter was never there.”

“What? She has a tracker on her. Find her!”

Dominic’s brow furrowed as he glanced at Zofia. He distinctly remembered telling her to take Aina to the hospital.

Zofia hadn’t expected Aina to bring a tracker around with her. Immediately, she panicked.

Zofia quickly gestured for Clementine to start packing their things, looking dejected as if she had suffered a great injustice.

“I really did take your daughter to the hospital, I even told her not to wander off. Hannah must have hid her daughter to frame me!”

Zofia then turned to me. “I know you’re angry about the kidnapping plan Nico and I came up with. I know you don’t want me and my daughter here. I’ll leave with Clem right now."

She continued, "It’s my fault—I should’ve listened to your warnings. Now you’re doing everything you can to ruin me.”

Dominic caught the implication instantly. “What did she threaten you with?”

Under his stare, Zofia pretended to hesitate before mumbling, “Hannah told me in private to stay away from you. She said she had plenty of ways to destroy my daughter’s future… She even called me and Clem worthless trash nobody wanted.”

By the end, she was sobbing uncontrollably.

“You… liar…” I managed to croak.

Dominic snapped. He yanked me up by the hair and dragged me across the floor until I was in front of Zofia. He forced my head down toward her feet.

“Zofia is the woman I treasure most. You have the guts to threaten her? Now, apologize!”

Meanwhile, his phone kept vibrating, but he had no time to notice.

“If you didn’t look a little like Zofia back then, do you think I would’ve taken the knife for you? Married you as a consolation prize?”

His words left me feeling as though I had been plunged into an ice cellar.

I clutched Aina's death certificate in my arms, refusing to let go, even as Dominic slammed my forehead into the floor until blood trickled down my face.

Through blurred vision, I saw Zofia’s lips curl in a faint smug smile.

I gave a bitter laugh.

So the man I thought had risked his life for me had never done it for love. I’d been nothing but Zofia’s stand-in.

Just as my consciousness began to slip away, tires screeched outside the gate. Dominic’s assistant burst in, looking frantic.

“Mr. Gardner! Why didn’t you answer your phone? I found your daughter’s trail.”

Bennie shot me a quick, pitying glance before continuing.

“The tracker was damaged, but I traced her with Mrs. Gardner near the awards venue. Then the signal vanished. I’ve got a team working on restoring the data now.”

The air inside the room immediately felt heavy and tense.

Zofia let out a quiet sigh of relief, shot me a defiant glare, then turned to Dominic with fresh tears in her eyes.

“Now we finally have proof I’m innocent. It was Hannah who hid your daughter. Maybe when she passed the awards venue, she got jealous and reported me out of spite.”

Dominic slowly turned toward me, I could see the veins in his forehead bulging. The air itself seemed to tear under the weight of his anger.

Panicked, I clutched my daughter’s belongings and documents to my chest.

I spoke so faintly, “It’s not like that! My daughter is truly dead, these are what's left of her! When they prepared her body for burial at the funeral home, her tracker was taken off with her clothes. If you don’t believe me, send someone there to check.”

My pleading didn’t even touch Dominic. It couldn’t cut through the storm of his anger.

His eyes dropped to small box I was clutching along with her crumpled death certificate.

Before I could react, Dominic snatched it from me and smashed it to the ground.

“You’re faking it! What’s your problem with Zofia and her daughter? You even buy this cheap box of... stuff and thought I'd just believe you?”

Dominic grabbed a piece of the broken box, “Hannah—eat this.”

He’d gone completely mad. He shoved the pieces of the box toward my mouth and I could feel the sharp pieces in my mout. Blood soon bubbled between my lips.

I broke down, sobbing, my heart shattered.

The pain reached a point where I couldn’t cry anymore. I started laughing instead—a hollow, bitter sound.

“Yes! Fine! It was me. I tried to killed Zofia and her daughter now!”

“Dominic, you’d better kill me now, because as long as I’m alive, they will never be part of your family.”

I had never lost control in front of him like this and Dominic was stunned. Seeing my blood-soaked appearance, a fleeting glimpse of pity flashed in his eyes—a emotion he didn’t even notice himself.

Zofia saw it too and panic flashed across her face.

She grabbed Clementine and made for the balcony. “You two are the real couple. Clem and I are outsiders. With your wife hating us like this, what kind of life do we have left? We might as well end it now!”

Dominic’s pupils tightened. Without thinking, he rushed over to stop them, holding them tightly in his arms to comfort them.

“Zofia, don’t do anything stupid. As long as I’m here, no one will lay a finger on you.”

Then he looked up at me, his voice suddenly cold. “Hannah, apologize to Zofia!”

I stayed still.

A slow smile crept across his face. “Fine, be in denial all you want. I won't let this slide without teaching you a proper lesson.” He continued, “Now, what are you going to do?”

I was all too familiar with his threatening tone and it sent a chill down my spine.

Ignoring my struggles, he bound my wrists and ankles, dragged me out and hauled me onto a nearby boat.

The night sea was pitch-black and terrifying. Several sharks broke the surface now and then, moving closer.

Dominic hadn't ordered his men to throw me in—yet. Instead, he tied the rope around me to the railing of the deck.

“Hannah, just admit you were wrong to Zofia and I’ll pull you back up right now,” his voice was tightening.

I saw exactly where this was going. My voice rose into a furious shout. “Dominic, you will regret this!”

His expression hardened and he personally threw me into the sea.

“Stay in the water until you come to your senses. The moment you’re ready to apologize, I’ll pull you out.”

“No!”

The sharks surged toward me, jaws opening wide. I screamed in pure despair…

Back on deck, Dominic stepped off the boat with Zofia, but he couldn’t shake a sense of unease.

My own desperate screams still echoed in my head.

Zofia called Dominic’s name several times, but he didn’t seem to hear her.

Just as they stepped off the boat, his assistant Bennie came running, drenched in sweat and panting hard.

“Mr. Gardner, the tracker data has just been restored! It shows your daughter’s last location was at the funeral home.”

“I went there to verify,” he continued. “We found her clothing. Your daughter really was killed by the kidnappers… her body has already been prepared for burial.”

The color drained from Dominic’s face. Without a word, he bolted back toward the boat.

When he saw the scene in the water, he let out a terrified scream, “Hann!”