The day of my final prenatal checkup, my husband's hundred and eighth kept woman went berserk in the middle of the street and stabbed me thirteen times.

After forty-eight hours of emergency surgery, my baby didn't make it.

Grief-stricken and seething, I gathered every shred of evidence I could and pressed charges against her for attempted murder.

Yet on the day of the hearing, I watched my own husband walk in holding a lawyer's license. Under his polished defense, he produced a letter of forgiveness in my husband's name and got the woman released on bail.

Afterward, he explained it to me with lazy indifference: "Marcella Pruitt is only twenty. She's in the prime of her life. You can't ruin a future that bright."

"Be reasonable. Three are already gone. One more hardly matters. There'll be other children."

My heart turned to cold ash. I pulled out my phone and dialed.

"Mrs. Rowe, the fourth child didn't make it either. The contract is nearly up. It's time you kept your promise and let me go."

——

The line went silent for a long while. Then came a single sigh. "James Rowe simply isn't blessed with this. Constance, these seven years have been hard on you."

"James's birthday is five days from now. Let me send you off then. You'll want time to pack, won't you?"

I didn't argue with Mrs. Rowe. I only answered flatly, "All right. As for the keepsakes my mother left me, please return them promptly. I don't want any further ties to the Rowe family."

"Whatever kindness you showed my mother over the years, I've repaid it with the lives of four children and a body that's all but broken. I owe the Rowes nothing now."

Mrs. Rowe let out a deep sigh, her voice heavy with regret. "All right. I'll keep my word."

When I hung up, I let out a breath, as if a great weight had lifted.

The next second, the bedroom door was kicked open.

James stormed in, cold radiating off him, and grabbed me by the collar, hauling me half off the floor, the veins standing out along his arm.

He bit out through clenched teeth, "Constance Vance, who gave you permission to touch Marcella? Didn't I already explain it to you? She's young. It's only natural she doesn't know any better."

"You're a grown woman. Why pick fights with her? You took the title of Mrs. Rowe. So accept everything that comes with it. Do you understand me?"

"I don't understand." My voice came out raw, and for the first time, defiance broke across my face. "James, do you actually love her? Or is it just that she reminds you of your first love?"

"That much, we both already know. Don't we?"

Something flickered in his expression, and then the fury surged hot across his face.

Crack!

He struck me so hard I went down to the floor, my forehead slamming against the wooden bedframe.

James looked down at me, that flicker of feeling in his eyes vanishing the instant it appeared. His voice went cold. "Who said you could speak of her? Constance, you've gotten brave."

"Seven years with me. You should know exactly what kind of man I am."

"Since you dared to send someone to ruin Marcella's good name, then of course I'll take my revenge out of your hide."

As his words faded, four or five men filed in through the open door, one after another.

Filthy from head to toe, hunger written plain on their faces. Their slick, sickening eyes landed on me at once, as though they meant to strip me bare on the spot.

When James saw the panic on my face, exactly what he'd wanted, a cruel amusement curled his lips. "Relax. They're only going to take a few photos. You still wear the Rowe name, after all, and I don't care to be cuckolded."

He turned to the others. "I'll leave her to you. Be sure to get plenty of nude shots. Once it's done, you'll be paid accordingly."

With that, James turned and walked out, pulling the door shut behind him.

A crisp click.

The sound of the lock turning.

I crumpled to the floor. I hadn't imagined James could be this ruthless, that he meant to cut off every last way out for me.

The pain in my body wasn't a fraction of the pain in my heart.

The men exchanged a glance, then lunged forward, tearing at my clothes.

I fought with everything I had, begging desperately, "No! Get off! All of you, get away from me!"

"I'm Mrs. Rowe. Aren't you afraid of what I'll do to you afterward?!"

With nothing left to lose, I threw out my title, hoping to scare them.

They only burst into jeering laughter.

"Everyone in Ashford City knows Constance Vance is Mrs. Rowe in name only. It's just a label, nothing more."

"Sure is. Heard that when you caught Mr. Rowe's fifty-second lover, you slapped your own face fifty-two times begging him to keep you."

"A pathetic little bootlicker like you, you think Mr. Rowe spares you a single thought? Stay quiet and we'll make it nice for you."

My stomach dropped.

I realized they wanted far more than a few photos.

So I summoned every last bit of strength to fight my way to a chance at survival.

I looked at the half-open window, threw myself toward it without a second's hesitation, planted my foot hard, and flung myself out.

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a hospital bed.

James glanced over and saw I was awake, his tone full of reproach. "It was just a few photos. Did you really have to throw yourself off a ledge? Playing the chaste, wronged martyr. Who's the act for?"

"If those branches hadn't broken your fall, you'd be paralyzed right now. Constance, can't you show a little sense? Stop making scenes."

Listening to the same old scolding, I stared at the ceiling, heart cold as dead ash, and gave no answer.

When James saw I wouldn't speak, the tension in his face eased a fraction, and he opened his mouth to say something.

A distinct ringtone cut through the room. James picked up his phone and shot me a look before answering.

Seeing no reaction from me, he pressed the speaker button.

The next second, Marcella's sweet voice filled the entire ward. "James, the light in my room is broken. Could you come pick me up and let me stay at a hotel for the night?"

"Forget the hotel. Just come to my place." James cut a sidelong glance at the bed.

On the other end, Marcella gasped, then hesitated. "That... wouldn't that be a little awkward? What if Constance gets upset?"

James's gaze turned taunting. He deliberately held the phone out toward me. "Go on. Say something."

"Huh? Constance is right there with you?" Marcella sounded startled.

I pressed my dry, cracked lips together, looking at that face, so familiar and so strange. In the end I closed my eyes and rasped, "It's fine. You can have the master bedroom for all I care."

James's brow knit tight. Before Marcella could get another word out, he hung up.

His eyes fixed on me, hard.

I met his stare with a calm face.

After a long moment, James let out two short, scornful laughs. "Keep it up. Keep playing the part."

"Seven whole years, and only now do you learn to play hard to get. Constance, you really are a joke."

"Next time you want to throw your life away, do it somewhere far from me. Don't die in front of me. It turns my stomach."

With that, James turned and left, slamming the door behind him.

Ding!

I picked up my phone and saw a new message in my inbox.

I opened it. My overseas teaching application had been approved.

Seven years ago, to keep my dying mother alive, I worked eight jobs a day, and even that barely touched the medical bills that swallowed us whole.

Then one afternoon, in the middle of a delivery run, I came upon a car wreck. I called for help, and only then noticed the fuel leaking from the wreckage.

The moment I'd dragged everyone clear, the car went up in flames.

When the rescue crew arrived, I climbed back on my bike and rode off, never dreaming that one rescue would rewrite my entire life.

Not long after, a woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Rowe of the Rowe Group sought me out. Her son had been left comatose, she told me, and a fortune-teller had read our birth charts and declared them a perfect match.

She asked if I would become her daughter-in-law, marrying him to turn his luck and save his life. The compensation she offered was considerable.

For my mother's sake, I agreed. I signed a private contract with Mrs. Rowe, and on the strength of her promises, I took on the burden of nursing her son.

After a full year of my care, uncomplaining through every hardship, James Rowe finally woke.

With the media circling and the pressure mounting, he married me once he opened his eyes.

At first our life together was happy enough. He even tried to accept me. But three years in, when my mother passed, James changed completely.

He started staying out all night. He stopped answering my messages, ignored my calls, and flew into a rage if I so much as said a word or two to him.

Then came the kept women, a new one every few days. Now and then one would last three months, but every last one got swapped out in the end.

Until Marcella Pruitt appeared. The day I sent someone to dig into her background happened to be the day of my prenatal checkup.

But before that file ever reached my hands, she stabbed me thirteen times.

It was only after I finally saw her in person that I understood why James guarded her the way he did.

She bore a striking resemblance to his first love. Those eyes, especially. They were too alike.

The contract was nearly up anyway. This marriage, this living hell, was due to end.

I pulled myself back to the present and looked at the last line of the email——“Would you be willing to join us?”

Without hesitation, I pressed “Yes,” then sent off a reply, letting them know I would arrive in Maldea in four days.

Once that was done, I went straight to check myself out of the hospital.

Back home, I began erasing every trace I'd ever lived there.

Matching clothes, matching slippers, matching little couple's trinkets, all of it went into the trash.

While clearing out the vanity, I found a pair of pink pearl earrings, James's gift for our first anniversary.

I could still see him then, his eyes soft, his movements stiff as he fastened them on me. “My Connie can pull off anything! From now on, I'm buying you so many more pearls!”

A pity. From our fourth anniversary on, James never gave me another. He stopped marking the holidays altogether.

Every time, I'd cook a full table of food, and he'd stay out all night. I'd plant myself stubbornly at that table until dawn, and still he wouldn't come home, and the food would go cold.

Just like this lopsided marriage of ours, growing bleaker by the day.

I steadied myself, dropped the earrings into the trash, and pulled open a drawer to find it crammed with the written promises James had once given me.

In those first three years, every time he wronged me, James would write me a promise. And every one of them began the same way——“CV.”

My name is Constance Vance.

Back then, drowning in that sweet, happy marriage, I thought those letters were his own private pet name for me.

A pity I'd guessed wrong.

A year ago, I learned that James carried a first love in his heart. When he'd crashed that car, she had been inside it with him.

She wasn't among the people I pulled out. I looked into it later and understood: she'd been thrown into the gap between the back seat and the trunk, completely outside my line of sight, and so she missed her best chance at rescue.

That girl was named——“Celia Vance.”

So “CV” had been hers alone.

The instant I knew the truth, I finally understood why every promise James wrote carried such thick guilt, such deep self-reproach.

He'd been atoning to his first love. Through me.

I crushed the promise in my hand, and my heart felt like two invisible hands had ripped it clean in two, the pain so sharp I couldn't stand.

One hand braced on the vanity, the other sweeping every last promise into the trash.

Anything that was never mine, I want none of it.

I burned every last piece, then reached out to the Vanishing Society. Only after I'd sent them my exact requirements did I tuck my phone away.

When I looked up, James was standing in the doorway with Marcella tucked against his side.

His eyes dropped to the brazier, brows knitting together. "What are you throwing a fit about now?"

I said nothing.

No matter what I did, in James's eyes it was always some childish tantrum.

I'd heard accusations like this more times than I could count. Once, when I still loved him, I would have fought to explain myself.

But I didn't love him anymore. I couldn't be bothered to explain anything.

Marcella's gaze grazed the brazier without lingering, then she hooked her arm through James's and shot me a taunting little smile. "Connie, surely you're not going to start playing the heartbroken martyr just because of one thing he said?"

"All this pretending you don't care about anything. You're trying to get his attention again, aren't you? Win him back?"

She put on an air of perfect understanding. "Oh, who'd have guessed it. Connie's almost thirty, and she's still throwing little-girl tantrums."

"But we're both women, so of course I can read those little games of yours."

With that, she gave James a coy push and pouted. "Aren't you going to go comfort your wife? She is the lady of the Rowe house, after all. What if she gets upset and sends someone to bully me again?"

James ruffled her hair and reassured her, indulgent. "Don't worry. She wouldn't dare touch you. I looked into last time, too. It was another one of my enemies who arranged it."

Listening to them, the hands at my sides clenched tight.

With his resources, there was no way James hadn't uncovered the truth and the person behind it.

But to keep Marcella happy, he'd still chosen to hire someone to take those photos of me, to ruin my name.

I gave a self-mocking laugh. All at once, these seven years felt like the work of a fool.

Seven whole years of my youth, wasted on a man who was never worth it.

I'd even wrecked my own health for him.

"What are you laughing at?" James's eyes sharpened, fixed on me.

I picked up a glass of water and doused the flames, calm. "Nothing. It has nothing to do with you."

With that, I had no wish to stay a moment longer. I turned and walked out.

The next day, the moment I finished canceling my identity records, James's message came through.

【Bring a box of condoms to Allure Bar. Twenty minutes.】

The same as always.

James only ever remembered protection at the last possible second, with the arrow already drawn on the string.

Sometimes, by the time I arrived, I'd walk in on the live performance.

To that kind of thing, I'd long since gone numb.

I was about to ignore it when I remembered the peace pendant hanging at his throat, the one my mother had prayed over for him.

A man like him didn't deserve to wear it.

I turned and headed to the store, bought what I needed, and hailed a cab.

I made it in fifteen minutes. I'd just raised my hand to knock when I heard the jeering through the gap in the door.

"James, you've really got a knack for this. You've trained Constance to heel so well, you say one word and she doesn't dare say two."

"Right, right. James, you got any secrets? Share some wisdom with us."

The room went quiet.

James took a drag of his cigarette and answered, idle. "First, you treat her well. Indulge every little mood, no conditions. Let her fall in deep. Then, once there's no one left around her, she'll depend on you with everything she has."

"After that, no matter how you push her away, she can't leave you. Because in her world, outside of you, there's no one else."

The words set off a wave of laughter and agreement around the room, everyone praising how brilliant his methods were.

Standing in the doorway, I felt like I'd been dropped into ice, my limbs rigid, the blood running backward through me.

For years I'd never understood the change in him. I'd always believed it was something I hadn't done well enough.

Now, hearing the truth with my own ears, I finally understood. It wasn't that I wasn't good enough. It was that some people were never worth a single ounce of my heart.