By the time I rushed back from the funeral home to the villa, it was already close to midnight.

Yet the living room was brightly lit, filled with laughter—the birthday party for Vanessa was still going on.

Liam lifted his eyes and glanced at me faintly, his voice cold as he spoke.

“Where did you go? Why are you only coming back now?”

His tone was as cold as interrogating a criminal, because here at home, he didn’t need to pretend affection like he did outside.

Before I could say anything, Liam’s voice shifted.

“Good timing. Vanessa doesn’t have a dress. Give her your wedding gown. And give her the jewelry set I gave you last time.”

My heart trembled slightly.

His eyes casually swept down to my feet. “The shoes too. The pair you’re wearing looks fine.”

I could feel the friends around us go silent for a moment.

But I smiled—smiled like someone finally waking from a long dream.

Liam, as if still unsatisfied, swirled the wine in his glass and slowly delivered the last cut:

“Because of your false accusation, Vanessa was frightened. So starting today, she’ll be moving into our home. She’s spoiled and picky—her three meals a day can’t be repetitive.”

The air froze instantly.

Everyone was waiting for me to collapse, cry, lose control—waiting to watch my humiliation.

But I suddenly realized that after losing Lila, there was nothing left in me that could still be destroyed.

I took a slow breath, my voice steadier than ever:

“Liam, let’s get a divorce.”

I had said this line in my mind countless times. I’d held it in for so long. Today, I finally had the courage to say it aloud.

Ever since that incident, the love between Liam and me had died completely.

I had kept up the façade because of guilt, but inside, everything had already crumbled.

This was the first time my heart truly sank like an anchor—never again to be moved by him.

Liam’s expression shifted slightly, as if something had pricked him.

He set down his glass, stood up slowly, and walked toward me.

“Clara, what are you throwing a tantrum about now?”

I was so calm I barely recognized myself. “I said, divorce.”

He stared at me, his dark eyes narrowing dangerously.

I lowered my head and slipped off the expensive heels.

“These shoes rub against the skin… but if you wear them long enough, you get used to it.”

I placed the shoes gently in front of Vanessa.

She froze, glanced at Liam, pulled her feet back, yet didn’t dare say anything.

“The dress and the jewelry—I’ll have someone send them to your room.”

The room was utterly silent.

Just as I was about to get up and leave, my wrist was yanked hard.

Liam pulled me forward, making me stumble right into his chest.

“Clara, if you’re going to walk away, you’d better leave behind everything on you that belongs to me.”

I lifted my head and looked straight at him. “Do you want me to take off my clothes?”

He raised an eyebrow, his eyes as cold as a blade.

“When your Bennett family went bankrupt, wasn’t it your mother who stripped you and sent you to my bed? However you came… that’s how you’ll leave.”

A chill ran through my entire body, like being submerged in icy water.

“Or—are you regretting it now?”

Liam let out a cold laugh. “Fine. If you kneel and put the shoes on Vanessa for her—I’ll forgive you.”

I heard a few sharp gasps around me.

But I suddenly laughed.

My marriage with Liam had never been the harmonious, enviable union others imagined.

On the eve of our engagement, the Bennett family went bankrupt.

My father jumped from a building in despair, survived, but lay in the hospital severely injured, needing enormous medical expenses.

Fearing Liam wouldn’t help us, my mother drugged both me and Liam, then made a huge scene afterward to force him to marry me.

That night became the beginning of all my humiliation.

And it completely twisted everything between us.

Liam was forced to marry me.

On our wedding night, he brought another woman home to humiliate me.

He did everything right in front of me, and even the condom—I was the one who opened it and handed it to him.

And the mess left in the room was something I cleaned up on my knees, piece by piece.

For the sake of my family, and for the love I stubbornly held onto, I endured.

For ten years.

Ten years of bowing and scraping.

But now—I couldn’t endure anymore.

“I’ll take them off.”

Before anyone could react, I had already unfastened the clasp of my shawl.

It was deep winter, though the heating inside was warm.

But I stood by the doorway, the cold wind rushing under my dress, raising goosebumps across my bare shoulders and arms.

I reached back and undid the zipper of my dress.

Half my shoulder and chest were exposed to the freezing air.

“Oh my god!”

A few timid guests covered their eyes, unable to look.

I could feel the men watching with interest.

Only Liam’s gaze darkened, lips tightly pressed, and the slight tremor of the cigarette between his fingers gave away something unusual.

The dress slipped off, and I stood there nearly exposed in front of everyone.

The cigarette burned Liam’s fingertip; he dropped it immediately, then shrugged off his suit jacket and threw it over me.

“Clara, you must be tired of living!”

“Everyone shut your eyes. If a single word about what you saw tonight gets out—I’ll make sure you won’t see tomorrow’s sunrise!”

“Get out!”

Liam rarely lost his temper, especially not in a setting like this.

The familiar faces in the room naturally understood and retreated quickly.

“Liam, are you satisfied now? Can you let me go?”

I lifted my chin, staring at him stubbornly.

Even though tears stung my eyes, I refused to let them fall.

I had cried for Liam too many times.

I would not cry for him again.

“Clara, stop playing these pathetic hard-to-get tricks in front of me. It disgusts me.”

Liam still refused to believe me, warning me not to embarrass the Foster family.

I took a deep breath and spoke again.

“Liam, this time, I truly want a divorce.”

Liam looked at me like he had heard the funniest joke in the world.

He grabbed the back of my neck and forced my upper body down.

“You dare divorce me?

Can you afford your father’s daily hospital bills?

Can you afford your mother’s daily shopping expenses?”

“Clara, your mother was the first to kneel in front of me and beg me not to divorce you!”

Liam’s disgust toward my mother—and toward me—had reached a level impossible to conceal.

He hated that my mother drugged him.

He hated that I never fought back.

“Even if your mother didn’t drug me back then, I still would’ve married you. I still would’ve helped you.

But the one method I despise most—was exactly the one you used!”

“Clara, you destroyed our relationship with your own hands!”

No matter how many times I tried to explain, Liam would never believe me.

When I didn’t respond, his frown deepened.

He lifted me and forced me to kneel before Vanessa, pressing my neck down so I’d put the shoes on her.

“Put the shoes on her.

You’ve done lowly things like this for ten years—you should be good at it by now.”

The things I should've done, the things I shouldn’t have done, the things I was forced into, the things I agreed to—I had done so many things that even I couldn’t respect myself anymore.

But now, all I wanted was to end everything as quickly as possible.

So once again, I obediently put the shoes on Vanessa.

Maybe I was too obedient, and Liam lost his amusement.

He dragged me into his room in anger and stripped Vanessa’s clothes off right in front of me.

Scenes like this—I had seen them too many times.

Sometimes Liam even asked me to step in and teach the women he brought home.

Just like before, I tore open the condom wrapper and handed it over.

But this time, Liam pushed it away.

“No need tonight.”

My hand trembled, then withdrew.

His movements didn’t stop, yet for once he actually lifted his eyes and glanced at me.

I didn’t look at him. I didn’t even care to.

Liam got angry again and locked me inside the bathroom.

That night, the wind and snow outside were fierce, and the noises outside were loud as well.

I sat there listening to it all night.

Half-asleep, I was jolted awake by an urgent ringing phone.

“Is this Miss Clara? Your mother has been in a car accident. She’s in emergency rescue right now—please come to the City People’s Hospital immediately.”

My heart tightened instantly.

“Liam!”

I began pounding on the door, trying desperately to interrupt the sounds coming from outside.

Liam opened the door wearing only a bathrobe.

His loose collar revealed kiss marks all over him, and the woman in his arms clung to him without letting go.

“What is it?”

“My mom was in a car accident. Can you take me to the hospital, please?”

I fell to my knees begging him, tears bursting from my eyes, terrified he’d refuse because he wasn’t in a good mood.

“Seriously, do you not even think when you lie?”

Vanessa let out a mocking laugh and pointed at the pitch-black sky and falling snow outside.

“It’s three in the morning and snowing. Normal people are all at home asleep. What did the car do—crash straight into your mom’s house?”

Liam laughed too, not even lifting his eyelids.

“Clara, you’re lying about something like this?”

“What, is it because you couldn’t stand hearing us?”

He locked the door again.

The more I shouted, the louder things outside became.

With no other choice left, I grabbed the stool beside me and smashed the window, then climbed out.

The sharp glass sliced open my leg instantly, blood dripping into the snow.

It was too late at night, and with the snow falling, I couldn’t get a taxi at all.

I could only run like a lifeless corpse through the streets.

In the snow, the long streaks of bright red blood were shocking to look at.

After two soft beeps, a black Cayenne pulled up beside me.

“Get in.”

Inside the dim and confined car, the man in the driver’s seat never once turned to look at me.

I thanked him over and over, yet he didn’t say a single word.

Only when I was about to get out of the car did I hear him speak:

“Clara, besides Liam… you still have other options.”

“If you think it through, come find me.”

A gold-embossed business card was handed to me.

I received it with both hands, thanking him repeatedly.

But at that moment, all I could think about was my mother, so I slipped it into my pocket without even looking at it.

I stumbled into the emergency room, not even able to ask anything before I saw a nurse pushing out a body covered with a white sheet from the operating room.

“Has the family for Linda still not arrived?”

“She’s already dead, and her daughter still isn’t here. What a sight.”

The two nurses chatting casually pierced my heart with every word.

I rushed over and lifted the white sheet.

The once well-kept face was now covered in wounds, her body and legs bruised and broken everywhere.

For the past ten years, every single minute, I had resented my mother.

I had even once wished that we could die together.

But now that she was truly dead before my eyes—all I felt was pain.

Because there were no family members left at home, there was no funeral that needed to be arranged.

I stayed by my father’s hospital bed for a while, told him about Mom, and told him about myself.

I spoke intermittently until dawn. Before leaving, I looked at my unconscious father and, with a choked voice, said:

“Dad… I’m tired.”

Early the next morning, my mother’s body was cremated.

I placed the urn into a box and carried it home.

Along with it, I brought back the divorce agreement I had someone draft for me.

The moment I walked in, I ran right into Liam and Vanessa laughing together at the dining table.

“Sign it.”

My voice was cold as I slammed the divorce papers onto the table.

“So you escaped in the middle of the night just to get this divorce agreement?”

“Clara, you’ve really lost your mind!”

I clutched the urn tightly against my chest, my head lowered.

“Liam, let’s let each other go.”

“I don’t love you anymore.”

Before, I would still argue with Liam, and when things got heated, we even resorted to physical fights.

I would point at his nose and ask if the love he swore he had for me back then had been nothing but a joke.

Most of the time, I still held onto a sliver of hope—hoping he would forgive me, hoping we could fix our marriage.

So when he said he liked boldness, I tried to please him during dates.

When he said he liked innocence, I put on the clothes he loved to make him happy.

But after Vanessa moved in, my heart grew quieter and quieter.

Those tricks meant to please him became my shame—and became the outlet for his humiliation.

“What’s this that fell out, sis…?”

“Gregory Nicholson?”

Vanessa picked up the business card I had dropped and read the name on it.

So it was Gregory.

Liam’s lifelong rival, the nemesis he’d had since childhood—the one I’d never met, who lived across the ocean.

The next second, Liam’s face darkened, and he slapped me hard.

“You say you don’t love me anymore because you found someone else outside?!”

“Do you even know what kind of person Gregory is?!”

A roaring sound filled my ears, my body swayed, and I couldn’t stand steady.

The urn in my hands shattered on impact.

Watching the ashes scatter through the air, I stood there unable to react.

Instinctively, I knelt on the ground, wanting to gather them back.

But no matter how I tried, it was useless.

Vanessa even grabbed a carton of milk from the side and poured it onto the floor.

The ashes immediately turned into sticky clumps.

“Ah!”

Something snapped in my mind.

I lost control entirely and swung a stool straight at Vanessa.

Liam had no time to react—Vanessa was already on the floor, clutching her head.

“Liam… it hurts…”

“Liam, it hurts so much…”

Someone called an ambulance.

Liam gripped my wrist tightly and forced me to stay at the hospital.

“If anything happens to her, you’ll die with her!”

That day, I was forced to give Vanessa blood transfusions—again and again—until even the doctors said I couldn’t give any more.

Only then did Liam let me go, saying I had brought it all on myself.

For the next few days, I hid inside my father’s hospital room and didn’t leave.

“So this is where sis is hiding! Thanks to that hit you gave me, Liam is treating me so well now.”

“And this is sis’s dad? Why isn’t he moving?”

Pampered and favored, Vanessa spoke with arrogance in every step she took, every word she said.

She poked at my father’s oxygen tube repeatedly, curious about what it was.

“Don’t touch that!”

I shoved her away, and she stumbled back, holding her head.

The next second, she lunged forward, yanked out my father’s oxygen tube, and smiled as she toyed with it in her hands.