“Anika, I know you’re upset,” he said, his tone sharp and cold. “But this time, you went too far. I can’t keep spoiling you.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Spoiling me? Wilbert, did you even bother to find out the truth?”

He wasn’t expecting me to snap back. His face darkened instantly. “You know what you did. I’m not here to fight with you. I came to tell you the solution. Because of your tantrums, Nivianne’s reputation is ruined. When you leave the hospital, you will host a banquet and apologize to her publicly. You will admit the rumors were your mistake and you will restore her standing. As for your father, his state will be explained as a normal risk of brain aneurysm surgery.”

For a moment, I thought I misheard. Then I saw his expression. He meant every word.

“Are you insane?” My voice cracked. “My father is like this because of her, and you want me to save her name?”

His eyes hardened. “Enough. I’m not asking you. This is what you will do. And don’t forget, your father is still on the edge of life, and your brother is rotting in prison.”

My heart went ice cold. It was always like this. No matter how much I wanted to resist, he reminded me of the chains around me. My father. My brother. I had no choice. I swallowed my anger and closed my eyes. “Fine. I’ll do it. But you get my brother out first.”

He hesitated only a moment before nodding. “One month. That’s your deadline.”

I agreed.

.....

When the day came, his driver picked me up. Wilbert walked into the venue with Nivianne on his arm, never leaving her side. He didn’t have to say anything. His eyes ordered me around like I was nothing but his servant.

I clenched my fists and walked onto the stage, forcing my face to stay calm. “I’m here today to apologize to Dr. Nivianne Sloane. What I said before online was a misunderstanding. I’m sorry for the damage I caused.”

The whole hall erupted.

“The nerve of her, smearing a doctor’s name like that.”

“So it was all a lie? I knew she just wanted attention.”

“Poor Dr. Sloane, having to endure this kind of slander.”

“Imagine the shame—dragging herself up here just to beg forgiveness.”

“Wilbert must be furious. No wonder he replaced her.”

People whispered, pointed, accused me of smearing her name. I didn’t explain. I couldn’t. I just wanted to get it over with and leave.

But as I stepped off the stage, Nivianne’s syrupy voice followed me. “Anika, I left something in the car. Can you fetch it for me?”

“No,” I said flatly. “Ask the waiter.”

She put on that fake pout and clung to Wilbert’s arm. “But I trust Anika more. Only she can handle my things.”

Wilbert stroked her hand and looked at me with that same commanding stare. I already knew what it meant. Refuse, and I’d pay for it later.

So I turned and walked out.

.....

The air outside felt heavier than the hall. I barely made it to the car before the roar of an engine cut through the night. A car screeched to a stop right in front of me, and before I could even take a step back, the door flew open.

A man in black rushed at me, his eyes cold and hateful. My heart dropped into my stomach. I tried to run, but he yanked my hair back so hard I nearly fell. His hand cracked across my face, the sting sending my vision sideways.

“Who are you?!” My voice cracked and I tasted blood in my mouth. “There are cameras everywhere. Do you really dare to touch me here?”

The man in black only sneered. His eyes were cold and empty. “I’m the one sent to teach you a lesson. You offended Miss Sloane. Just being touched is too easy for you. You should be dead.”

He yanked my hair and smashed my head into the car window.

“Ahhh!”

Glass shattered and I felt warm blood sliding down my face. He slammed me again and again until the window was painted red with my blood. My head spun and I couldn’t even fight back because he was too strong.

“Help… someone help me…” My voice broke into sobs. The air was silent except for the sound of my crying. Blood stung my eyes and my body was limp. Just when I thought this was the end, he finally let me go. I collapsed onto the ground like trash.

The car headlights came on and the engine roared. My chest tightened when I realized they were going to run me over.

“Stop!”

A figure rushed toward me, but before I could see who it was, the darkness swallowed me whole.

When I opened my eyes again, I smelled disinfectant. My head was wrapped in bandages and every breath felt like needles in my chest. The pain was unbearable.

“Anika, you’re awake.”

It was Wilbert. His face looked tired and pale, with dark circles under his eyes. He let out a long sigh of relief when he saw me conscious.

“It’s alright now. I found out what happened. It was a medical disturbance. They thought you were Nivianne. I already sent them to prison. You don’t need to be scared anymore.”

His voice was soft, almost tender, and it made me sick.

“Does your head still hurt? Try moving a little. Tell me if anything feels wrong.”

His phone rang. I knew that ringtone. It was Nivianne. He ignored it for once, and instead he held my hand tightly like I was something precious.

I tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let go.

“Wilbert,” I whispered, “if I told you I heard that man say he was following Nivianne’s orders… would you believe me?”

He froze, then frowned, and finally let go of my hand. His voice turned cold. “Anika, stop it. You’re imagining things. Nivianne is a victim too. If it weren’t for you, she would be the one in this bed right now. How could she be behind this?”

I let out a bitter laugh. My eyelashes trembled as I turned away from him. I didn’t even have the strength to argue. What was the point? He never believed me.

I closed my eyes, too tired to keep fighting.

“I know you’re upset with her,” Wilbert said softly. He brushed his hand through my hair like he was soothing me. “I promise, once everything settles down, I’ll keep less contact with her. Just trust me.”

He stayed beside me all night, whispering sweet words like before, as if that could erase everything. But I only stared at him with empty eyes.

My heart felt cold. Because I knew he was lying. He would never leave Nivianne.

And outside my door, I didn’t know that she was already on her way to find him.

.....

Hours later...

I was still asleep when the door slammed open and I was yanked straight out of bed. My body was weak and my head spun.

“Where’s Nivianne? What did you do with her?!” Wilbert’s voice was sharp and full of rage.

I blinked, still half in a daze. “What… what are you talking about?”

He threw something at my face and I felt the sting on my skin. When I looked down, I saw it was a necklace. My necklace. The one I lost when that man in black attacked me.

“Anika!” Wilbert’s teeth were clenched. “Explain this!”

I picked up the necklace with shaky fingers. “This is mine… but I don’t understand.”

“She sent me a message last night. Just two words. Help. When I rushed to the hospital she was gone and this was the only thing left on her bed.” His eyes burned with accusation.

My throat went dry. “It has nothing to do with me.”

He lunged forward and his hand wrapped around my neck. His face twisted with fury. “You told me yesterday that Nivianne hurt you. Now she’s disappeared. Don’t lie to me, you’re retaliating against her!”

I choked for air but forced my eyes to stay steady. “I don’t know… I swear, I haven’t done anything.”

But Wilbert didn’t believe me. He never did.

Instead, he dragged Mark out like a broken doll. My brother’s arms were tied in that humiliating big character style, and they dumped him on the road in front of a car.

“Mark!” My heart dropped to the floor.

The headlights glared, and I barely had time to breathe before the engine roared and the car rolled forward. It crushed his leg with a sickening crack.

“Ahhh!” Mark screamed in pain. “Anika! My leg!”

My body shook violently. “Brother!” I screamed. “Wilbert, what are you doing! What are you going to do to him?!”

“I told you,” Wilbert said coldly. “From this moment, every minute the car will start again. First your brother’s limbs. If you don’t give me Nivianne’s location in three minutes, the car will go for his head.”

“Please, no! I don’t know anything! Why won’t you believe me, just once, believe me!” My tears blurred my sight. I had never felt so powerless in my life.

Mark writhed on the ground, his face pale with sweat. “Anika… don’t listen to him… just save yourself,” he begged through his pain.

But Wilbert only sneered. “One minute has passed.” He waved his hand. The car jerked forward again and this time it rolled right over Mark’s hand.

His scream tore through me. “My hand! Anika, I can’t move it!”

“No! Don’t! Please stop!” I fell to my knees in front of Wilbert. “I beg you, don’t hurt him anymore. If you think I did this, then punish me instead. Let me die if you want, but don’t touch my brother. Please… please believe me.”

Wilbert’s face showed no pity, only impatience. He raised his hand again and the headlights flared bright.

I shook my head violently. “No, please, no!”

The car roared and I saw it heading straight for Mark. I didn’t even think. I tore free from the guards holding me and ran forward with everything I had left.

“Anika, no!” Mark screamed, his voice hoarse.

But I was already in front of him, throwing myself over his body to shield him.

I heard Wilbert shout my name in panic, but it was too late.

My world went white the second the car hit me. I felt my waist slam, something inside snap, and then hot blood sprayed into my mouth. I tasted iron and panic and everything went fuzzy.

“Anika!” Wilbert’s voice sounded far away as he grabbed me and pressed his fingers at the corner of my mouth, wiping blood like it would fix what was broken. He kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over, like a prayer.

Then the secretary burst in, breathless and puckered, all business and show. “Sir, we found her,” she said, like it was a gift. “She’s out in the suburbs, hurt and scared. No one can get near her, but she called your name.” Wilbert froze, like someone had flipped a switch.

They loaded me and Mark into the ambulance and we screamed to the hospital. Halfway there the doors burst open and chaos exploded at the ER entrance. People shouting. A doctor pulled at a gurney. Every alarm sounded like a countdown.

“Nivianne needs help,” the secretary hissed, eyes all wet and very useful. “She’s screaming, she says her hand’s useless. One of the ER doctors is with Mr. Gu’s son already and the other—” She looked at Wilbert like she was waiting for a crown. “We can send someone, but it’ll be at least thirty minutes.”

I saw it in his face then. That split second where he weighed my soaked, broken body against the idea of his favorite doctor losing her hands. He hesitated. I could see gears turning like he was choosing which piece of meat to save.

My mouth wanted to laugh at how ridiculous it all was. Here I was, bleeding out, and he was thinking about a hand. I tried to force a smile and my lips barely moved. The blood kept coming and I felt myself drifting.

Nivianne’s voice suddenly cracked through the noise, thin and perfected. “W-wilbert, please. I am a doctor. My hands are my life. If my hand is ruined, I’m finished. Please, save me. I’m so sorry, I should have died today, I was lucky to escape.” She sounded like she meant it. She sounded like she was sobbing on cue.

That was all it took. Wilbert’s face snapped into motion. Of course it did. He turned away from me and handed my life over like a trivial expense. “Save her first,” he told the staff, voice flat and decisive. “She can’t lose her hands. Anika, wait a little longer.” He looked at me like I was a problem to schedule.

I wanted to scream. I tried to tell him, “I didn’t do anything, I didn’t—” but my words slurred into nothing. The room spun and his eyes stayed on me for the shortest of seconds, pity or calculation, I couldn’t tell which. Then he was gone, walking after the people who carried Nivianne, like she’d been the real casualty all along.

They wheeled me away anyway, but I heard their footsteps fade toward the other bed. I watched the ceiling tiles blur and thought, How am I supposed to matter when a staged sob and a perfect sobbing voice can buy a man’s entire conscience?

I had no strength left to fight him. Time dragged slow and cruel, and every second I thought my chest would stop rising. I really believed I was going to die on that table, but something in me refused to give up. My body clung to life until the doctors finally wheeled me into the emergency room.

.....

Six hours later, I opened my eyes in the same ward I knew too well. My throat was dry, my voice rough, and the pain still sharp, but I was alive.

The phone by my bed buzzed, and when I answered it, Wilbert’s grandfather’s voice came through, calm and heavy. “Anika, all the papers are ready. This is the last step. You won’t regret it, will you?”

I swallowed hard and whispered, “No. I can’t wait to leave. Book three tickets for me. Once it’s done, I want to disappear immediately.”

I was about to ask him to confirm the plan again when the door flew open. My blood ran cold.

“Anika, where are you going?” Wilbert’s voice cut through the room like a knife. He was leaning against the doorframe, watching me.

I quickly ended the call and set the phone down. My face froze into something cold so he wouldn’t see the panic I felt.

He walked in, trying to soften his tone. “Your body still needs time to recover. Don’t move around until you’re healed. I’ll only worry about you if you do.” He stepped closer, reaching out as if to brush my hair back. “Luckily, Nivianne’s hand wasn’t badly hurt. No bones broken. Just a bandage and she’ll be fine. If it had been worse, Anika, you wouldn’t have been forgiven.”

My chest tightened, but not from pain. So that was it. For a scraped hand, he had forced me to the edge of death, left me bleeding and forgotten while the only doctor was chained to her bedside. And now he stood here pretending to worry about me? Pretending that this was love?

It was almost funny if it wasn’t so cruel.

I stepped back out of his reach, my eyes cold, my voice sharp. “Get out.”

He blinked like he hadn’t heard me right. “What did you say?”

I clenched my teeth, forcing the words out again, steady and clear. “I said get out. I don’t want to see you.”

Wilbert’s face twisted so fast I thought he was about to explode.

“You’re really gonna yell at me first? Anika, you should be on your knees thanking me that Nivianne is fine. If something happened to her, do you even realize how serious that would be? You almost killed someone! You think you’re the victim here? Reflect on yourself! I’m not coming back again.”

He slammed the door so hard the walls shook. I let out a bitter laugh and closed my eyes. I was too tired to waste more breath on him.

.....

The day I got discharged, I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want him to know where I went. Instead of heading home, I walked down the quiet corridor to check on my brother and my father. My brother’s bones were shattered, and my father hadn’t opened his eyes in months. The brain aneurysm had left him trapped in silence, barely clinging to life. They shared a small ward, and every time I pushed that door open, I prayed for a miracle.

But this time something felt wrong. I froze at the doorway. A figure was standing at the bed, back to me, shoulders stiff. The more I stared, the more my stomach sank. I knew that body.

“Nivianne! What the hell are you doing!”

I ran to my father’s bedside and shoved her aside. A syringe hit the floor with a sharp clink, and when I looked up, I saw my father’s oxygen mask pulled halfway off his face. My whole body shook with rage.

“What did you inject him with? Answer me!” My fists clenched until my nails dug into my palms. “Wasn’t it enough that you ruined his life and left him like this? What else do you want from him?”

Nivianne jumped at first, then when she saw it was me, her mouth curved into a cold little smile.

“Enough? No. Not enough. As long as he’s still alive, people can drag up my mistake forever. If he dies, it all dies with him. And in a year or two, I’ll be the brilliant doctor everyone admires. No one will remember some surgery that went wrong. And even if you caught me here, what can you do? Wilbert believes me. He always will.”

Her words made my blood boil. I slapped her before I could even think. The sound cracked in the room, and she stumbled to the floor, eyes wide like she couldn’t believe I’d touched her.

“You… you hit me? Anika, are you insane?”

My vision blurred with anger and I lifted my hand again, ready to strike, but a grip like iron closed around my wrist. I turned and saw him. Wilbert. His face was stormy, eyes burning with disappointment, not at her… but at me.

“Anika! Enough!”

Nivianne scrambled up like a wounded kitten and ran into his arms, clinging to him and crying so hard her shoulders shook. “Wilbert, she attacked me. Please, don’t let her hurt me.”

He wrapped a steady arm around her and looked straight at me. His voice was cold, sharp.

“You’ve gone too far, Anika.”

I laughed, bitter and raw. “Too far? Why don’t you ask your precious Nivianne what she was doing just now? She was trying to kill my father. She wants to cover her mistake with my father’s life.”

For the first time, I saw him hesitate. His head turned slowly toward her, and there was doubt in his eyes.

And Nivianne, clever snake that she was, lowered her gaze, lips trembling, and whispered, “I… I would never. How could you believe her lies about me?”

Her voice shook like she was the victim, and I felt my chest tighten until I couldn’t breathe.

They tied me up and sent me to that so-called psychiatrist. I thought maybe it was real, but the second I saw the man’s eyes, I knew. He wasn’t a doctor. He was just some sick man Nivianne paid to break me.

That week felt like hell. He drugged me, he shocked me, and he used every twisted trick in his book. He knew how to hurt without leaving marks, how to make pain crawl under my skin until I wished I was dead. Every time I woke, it was to more pain. I begged God to just let me die in my sleep, but my body kept dragging me back.

When Wilbert finally came, I was so weak I couldn’t even stand straight. I looked like a ghost.

He frowned at me like I was some puzzle he couldn’t figure out. “Why do you look so pale?” he asked. His tone wasn’t worry. It was annoyance, like I had embarrassed him.

I stayed quiet. What was the point of talking?

Nivianne got out of the car, smiling like a cat that had just eaten the bird. “What else could it be? She’s pretending. She just wants to make you worry.”

He looked like he was about to say something, but then his phone buzzed. He checked it, and I saw his face change. He didn’t even hesitate. “Tonight is Nivianne’s birthday. Get ready. You’re coming with me.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the car before I could say a word.

I didn’t fight. My father and my brother were already safe, thanks to Wilbert’s grandfather. All that was left was my last step.

That night, we went to her yacht party. Music and laughter filled the air, but all I felt was hollow. I hadn’t even stepped far when Nivianne blocked me at the stairs.

She leaned close and whispered with a smirk. “Strange. Why aren’t you cured yet? I told the doctor to shock you harder. Or maybe the drugs he used on you expired? Tell me, how did it feel? Like ants crawling inside your veins? Like bee stings tearing your skin? Was it fun?”

I didn’t even look at her. I just kept texting Wilbert’s father about the plan. Tonight was the night.

She slapped my phone out of my hand, and it cracked against the floor. Her eyes glittered with triumph.

I laughed. “You’re very proud, aren’t you?” I leaned against the railing and looked her dead in the eye. “Do you really think you’ve won? You risked everything, schemed day and night, and still—Wilbert hasn’t divorced me. You know what he told me? He said he only keeps you around out of gratitude for helping him when he was younger. But his heart has always been mine. Once your usefulness is over, he’ll let you go.”

Her face turned white, then red.

I laughed harder. “Wilbert will never love you, Nivianne. Not now, not ever. He has never once looked at you the way a man looks at a woman. Childhood sweethearts? You’re nothing but his shadow. He’ll never love you.”

“Shut up!” she screamed, her mask cracking. She lunged at me, yanking my hair and slamming my neck against the railing. My back bent painfully, and I felt her grip tighten. My vision darkened, but I still managed to choke out, “I am Wilbert’s wife. You can’t change that. As long as I live, you’ll never take my place.”

That broke her. Her eyes went wild. “Why wouldn’t I dare? Your father, your brother—they’re ruined because of me already. One more won’t matter. Wilbert has always been mine. Always protecting me, always choosing me. How could I lose to you, a stranger who walked into his life?”

Then she shoved me.

I fell hard, my body twisting, the sound swallowed by the party music. The cold sea wrapped around me, and I let it. I pressed the tiny signal in my palm, the one I had kept hidden. My lungs burned, but I didn’t fight it.

This was it. My escape. From him. From her. From all the darkness.

And as the water dragged me down, I thought—finally, I am free.