While he sat at the table devouring the meal I had just served, my mind slipped away from the present…

It all began merely a week ago.

At that time, I was genuinely overjoyed—elated in a way that made everything seem weightless. I had just discovered I was expecting his children. Not just one. But twins.

I could still see the image on the ultrasound screen, the grainy shapes that confirmed a miracle. My hands had been shaking, my heart galloping. It felt like the universe had finally handed me a piece of happiness. A future. I had even crafted a silly little plan to surprise him—tucked the ultrasound printout into a tiny gift box inside my purse, thinking how sweet the moment would be.

That day, I arrived at his apartment earlier than expected, my face stretched in an uncontrollable grin, my stomach fluttering with anticipation. But just as I reached his front door, a sound stopped me. It was slightly ajar, just enough for voices to drift out into the hall.

I recognized his laugh instantly—Kenji’s.

“She’s so easy to deceive,” he said casually, his tone light, even amused. “I just act like I love her. This whole thing? It’s all payback for what her family did to Chloe.”

I stood there, paralyzed.

A male voice laughed in response from inside. “Man, that’s next-level vengeance.”

Kenji chuckled again. “She buys into it all—hook, line, and sinker. She really thinks we’re soulmates or whatever. She’s so desperate to feel loved, it’s pathetic. And honestly? She’s dull in bed. Like drinking lukewarm tap water. Nothing compared to my Chloe. She’s wild. Electric. I always finish with her.”

The cruel laughter that followed echoed like gunshots. I felt like someone had plunged a dagger into my chest and started twisting, but I still couldn’t make myself move.

Chloe.

The girl who had stolen my life.

And not by coincidence. Not by fate.

It was a deliberate act. A carefully executed theft.

When I was born, my parents celebrated me as their miracle—an only child born into privilege, into a legacy that turned heads in every room. But Marga, our loyal household maid, had secrets of her own. She was pregnant, too. No one knew. She hid the truth under oversized clothing and silent suffering. The father? A sweet-talking fraud who ran the moment responsibility knocked.

She gave birth hours after my mother did. Her daughter had no family name, no future, no inheritance. Nothing but disgrace.

So she made a horrifying decision. She switched us.

She handed her baby to my unsuspecting mother and took me away in the night. For the first few years, she raised me as her own, pretending to be a devoted guardian. Then she vanished—disappeared without warning or explanation. No letter. No goodbye. Nothing. I was dumped into the foster care system, passed from one indifferent family to the next.

Meanwhile, her daughter—Chloe—grew up wearing my clothes, sleeping in my bed, living in the world meant for me.

No one suspected a thing. Not until years later, when Chloe crashed her car.

Drunk. Reckless. Spoiled beyond redemption.

That night began the unraveling. A blood test after the accident raised questions. Quiet DNA tests followed. Investigations took place behind closed doors.

And then—me.

The daughter they had lost, and thought they’d never find.

They tracked me down in an orphanage. Brought me back like I was a miracle reborn. Their apologies were wrapped in every gift. Their guilt showed in every hug.

And Chloe?

She was ripped from the life she believed was hers. She didn’t go quietly. She screamed. She kicked. She threatened.

“You’ll pay for this!” she shouted at me. “You stole everything! Now I’m stealing it back!”

At the time, I thought it was just rage talking. A tantrum born from loss.

But watching Kenji now—chewing contentedly on the food I cooked with trembling hands and a broken heart—I understood.

She wasn’t bluffing.

She meant it.

Kenji had been part of her plan. Maybe from the very beginning. Maybe all of this had always been an act of revenge. I thought I was building something meaningful with him. I thought our relationship was genuine.

But I was wrong. I didn’t see the darkness inside him until it was too late.

Now I was carrying his children. And everything was unraveling because of Chloe, because of their shared past.

They didn’t know what was coming for them.

But I did.

I’m not the villain they’ve cast me as. I’m not the broken girl in their twisted little story. I’m rewriting the script. And this time? I’m in charge of the ending.

---

That night, while we lay in bed, he wrapped his arms around me like chains—tight and suffocating. His limbs were heavy across my abdomen, his breath brushing hot against my neck. A part of me ached to believe it was love. Another part of me wanted to scream.

He assumed I was deeply asleep.

So when he slowly began to ease away, moving with careful, practiced stealth, I didn’t flinch.

I waited.

Then I got up.

Barefoot and breathing in shallow bursts, I crept through the apartment like a ghost, the silence amplifying my heartbeat. When I heard the door click shut behind him, I followed seconds later, the cold night air smacking me awake.

I saw them by the iron gate.

Shrouded in darkness.

He didn’t hesitate.

He gripped her and kissed her like a man starved, fevered and hungry. She clung to him just as fiercely. Like animals reunited, devouring each other without shame.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

They didn’t stop at kisses.

They went further. Right there. Up against the fence like rabid strays, no care for the world around them. The same hands that had cradled my growing belly only hours earlier were now locked around her waist, pulling her in as if I never existed.

I wanted to look away. But I couldn’t.

I stood frozen, every breath burning, bile rising in my throat, fists clenched until my nails pierced skin.

Then I heard their voices.

Amid their chaotic movements, they spoke.

No words of affection. No romance.

Only strategy.

“I told you Celeste would fall hard,” Kenji groaned, low and mocking. “Completely. She never saw it coming.”

Chloe’s breath hitched, but her words were sharp. “So what now?”

Kenji’s laugh was chilling. “Now? I’ve got everything. I’m inside her world. The money. Her name. The company. All of it—it’s practically mine already.”

“And after?” she asked, her tone laced with venom.

He leaned into her, whispering with glee. “After I crush her. Tear her apart. And then I hand everything over to you.”

Chloe chuckled darkly, stroking his cheek. “Good boy. I’ve waited three years to destroy her. I want what she stole—every last jewel, every cent of that legacy.”

My vision blurred.

My knees trembled.

He had lured me in, made me fall. And now he was going to gut everything—my trust, my legacy, my love—and deliver it to the imposter who had already taken enough.

Chloe.

The girl who had lived my life in my place.

The girl who was never meant to exist in my chapter.

But this isn’t a tragedy anymore. Not for me.

They tried to cast me as the fragile one. The lost one. The fool.

But I’m no longer a pawn in their cruel fairytale.

They wrote the beginning.

I’m finishing the ending.

And they’ll regret the day they ever underestimated me.

I was lying flat on the stiff hospital bed, the antiseptic tang in the air making my head spin. The choice felt already settled, heavy like a stone on my chest. My brain kept screaming—just do it, get it over with. End the pregnancy. Two babies. A whirlwind of betrayal and lies. What reason was there to bring them into this madness?

Still, even as that voice rattled in my head, something deep in my chest protested. No one knew yet. I hadn’t told a soul. These tiny lives growing inside me—they belonged to me. They were connected to me in a way nothing else ever had been.

While the nurse began preparing the tools for the procedure, I couldn’t stop picturing the twins. What if there was still a chance I could keep them safe? Maybe I could figure it out, somehow. I wasn’t a murderer. I couldn’t let this happen.

Suddenly, I yanked the IV out of my arm without thinking. The sting of it snapped me into reality. Heart pounding, feet bare, I jumped off the bed and tore down the hallway. Voices called after me, the clatter of shoes and alarms behind me, but I didn’t stop.

I ran.

Out through the sterile lobby. Down the staircase. Through the automatic doors. Into the underground parking lot, where the shadows swallowed me whole.

That’s when I saw her.

Leaning beside her car, arms crossed over her chest. Her stomach barely showing beneath her high-end coat. When her eyes landed on me, they lit with cold fury.

“Oh, give me a break,” she sneered. “Are you actually following me now?”

I froze mid-step. “What... what are you doing here?”

She tilted her head with mock sweetness. “Doctor’s appointment. Eight weeks along. Baby’s doing just fine.”

The breath caught in my lungs. “Wait. You’re pregnant?”

Her grin widened like a blade. “Take a wild guess who the dad is.”

My knees almost gave out. “This was your plan all along.”

“You ruined everything I had,” she snapped, stepping closer. “My parents. My legacy. My future. So now I’m just reclaiming what you stole.”

I turned to walk away, pushing past her as she casually opened her car door. “Run, then,” she called after me, voice dripping with mockery. “That’s your specialty, isn’t it?”

I kept moving, trying not to cry, trying not to fall apart. But then—

A screech. An engine roaring.

I turned.

The headlights hit me like a wall of white.

Metal slammed into my body. I flew like a ragdoll. Landed hard on the ground—my skull cracked against the pavement. Pain erupted down my spine and into my belly. My vision spun in violent circles. My ears rang.

Blood.

Warm, thick, and everywhere. Flowing beneath me like ink spilling from a broken bottle. My limbs were useless. My hands instinctively clutched at my belly.

My children.

Chloe emerged from the car, her heels tapping across the concrete like she was stepping onto a catwalk. She knelt down beside me, took off her sunglasses with slow precision—and spit in my face.

“Look at you,” she said with disgust. “Bleeding all over the place. You’re even pathetic at dying.”

I opened my mouth, trying to plead, but my voice was gone.

She leaned in closer, her perfume suffocating, her words like venom. “You actually believed you mattered, didn’t you? That your DNA made you royalty? Please. You’re a walking accident. A theft in human form.”

Hot tears ran down my cheeks, my vision dimming at the edges.

“Oh, come on,” she continued with fake sympathy. “Save the tears. You should’ve cried before you let Kenji crawl between your legs. But then again, he always said you were a total bore. Like kissing a corpse. No spark. No passion. That’s why he always came back to me.”

She laughed. Harsh. Wild. Unhinged.

“You know what he used to say?” she said, mimicking his voice in a cruel tone. “‘She’s like flavorless soup.’ And then he’d hold me and whisper, ‘Chloe, you make me feel alive. Celeste just makes me feel... obligated.’”

A broken noise escaped me. I trembled uncontrollably, blood soaking my clothes. Then her phone buzzed.

She answered it like nothing had happened, her voice suddenly all sugar and sunshine. “Hey baby.”

Kenji’s voice echoed through the speaker. “Hey, beautiful. Did you get to the clinic yet?”

She turned her back to me like I was a dead insect. “Just arrived. Our little one’s already doing flips, I swear.”

Kenji laughed lightly. “I seriously can’t wait. I’ve never wanted to be a dad more.”

I let out a weak sob.

She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes devoid of any empathy. “Hear that?” she whispered down at me. “That’s what it sounds like when someone actually wants you.”

Kenji kept talking, oblivious. “Think it’s a boy?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she replied sweetly. “As long as it’s ours.”

“You’re gonna be the sexiest mom ever,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll be there in ten. Miss you already.”

She ended the call, dropped her phone into her bag, and looked back down at me.

“I warned you, didn’t I?” she murmured, slipping her glasses back on. “I told you I’d strip it all from you.”

Then, with the grace of someone stepping over trash, she walked away.

Leaving me broken, bleeding, and fading fast. My life pooling on the concrete. My babies slipping away with every second.

But someone came.

A voice I hadn’t heard in what felt like forever.

“Celeste! Don’t go to sleep, stay with me,” he called out, and suddenly I felt strong arms lifting me off the ground. “Keep your eyes open. You’re safe now.”

And just before the darkness dragged me under, I saw his face.

The only boy who had ever looked at me like I truly mattered.

But even that might have come too late.

I can’t recall much from the moment I lost consciousness. Just fragmented glimpses. Waves of pain. Overhead lights glaring like the sun. A hand holding mine—firm and insistent—begging me to stay awake, to fight.

When I finally opened my eyes, the sound of machines softly beeping greeted me. The acrid scent of disinfectant filled the air, sharp and intrusive. The hospital room was bathed in too much white, sterile and clinical. An eerie silence pressed in from all sides. My body felt wrecked, like it had been shattered and stitched together by someone guessing the pieces.

A doctor came in eventually, his expression heavy with a sorrowful kind of compassion I couldn’t bear to see.

“You were losing blood at a dangerous rate,” he began gently. “We did all we could... but to save your life, we had no choice but to terminate the pregnancy.”

I stared blankly at him, waiting for something more. An explanation. A miracle. But there was nothing.

Slowly, my hand drifted down to my belly—once full, now hollow. My stomach was flat. Lifeless.

Gone. Both of them.

My children.

Something deep inside me gave out. It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t scream. It was quiet—silent, like a frozen lake cracking under unseen pressure. A depth of pain that didn’t spill tears—it just sank.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t argue. I picked up the pen they gave me and signed the forms. My hand shook, but I managed to scrawl my name across the page.

All the while, as I lay grieving in a bed too white, too cold… they were rejoicing. Kenji. And Chloe.

Maybe that’s what pushed me to reach for my phone, fingers numb but moving on their own. I unlocked it and tapped into the hidden surveillance app I had installed days earlier.

What came up on the screen shattered whatever was left of me.

There they were—in my bedroom.

Fucking like animals. Desperate. Shameless.

On my bed. Tangled in my sheets. The same ones Kenji and I picked out together. The ones that still carried traces of my perfume. Chloe's legs were wrapped around his waist, her head thrown back in laughter. She wore my silk robe. The exact one that had gone missing after her last “visit.” Smudged with the shade of lipstick I had been searching for for weeks. Now I knew why it had vanished.

“Damn, baby, you’re so much better than she ever was,” Kenji moaned, gripping her tightly. “You’ve got me losing my mind over and over again.”

“She was always so… delicate,” Chloe gasped, raking her nails down his back. “Too sweet. Too gullible. It made me want to puke.”

Kenji groaned louder, his rhythm picking up. “She was too simple. This? This is raw. This is real.”

They eventually collapsed, slick with sweat, panting. Chloe rolled onto her side and lit a cigarette like they hadn’t just desecrated my world.

I watched, frozen in disbelief. Then, with hands that barely functioned, I pressed "Save." The video slid into a secure folder—hidden, protected, labeled, dated.

I wasn’t going to use it today. Maybe not even next month. But the time would come.

And when I returned? I’d make sure they remembered exactly what they did. Every second of it.

---

The next time I opened my eyes, the room was calm. Bathed in golden sunlight. The sterile air still clung to me, but something felt changed.

There were flowers—dozens of arrangements placed with care. A bowl of fresh fruit sat untouched near the window.

And a warm hand was holding mine.

I turned my head, slowly.

Not Kenji.

Zion.

My lungs forgot how to work. My heart clenched. The last person I ever imagined seeing again. The only person I had ever truly loved.

He looked a little older, more defined in the face, but the essence of him hadn’t changed. The same steady warmth in his dark eyes. The same quiet strength that once made me believe the world wasn’t entirely cruel.

“Hey,” he said softly, his voice like a blanket. “You’re safe now.”

My lip trembled. I tried to smile, and before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face.

The last time I saw Zion was at the orphanage. We had been just kids—teenagers clinging to each other in a place that had no time for softness. He was the son of the organization’s CEO, always dressed immaculately even in the dust and noise. But behind closed doors, he was mine. We created a secret world together—fragile, beautiful, and real.

We had fallen in love.

Until he vanished.

His parents whisked him away overseas—without so much as a goodbye. One day he was there, the next, gone.

Years later, he returned. But by then, I wasn’t there anymore. My birth family had come for me, and I had been taken before he ever came back.

“I thought I’d lost you forever,” I whispered.

He leaned in and wrapped his arms around me gently, like he thought I might shatter. I pressed my face to his shoulder, weeping in silence as something inside me began to mend, piece by fragile piece.

But it wasn’t only heartbreak I carried anymore.

It was fury. Pure, blinding truth.

They had taken everything. My children. My peace. My trust.

Kenji. Chloe.

And I wasn’t going to just lie down and accept it. I would make them pay.

When the hospital finally discharged me, I thanked Zion and we parted ways. That same night, I booked a plane ticket. Told Kenji I needed a break—a short trip away to clear my head. He kissed me on the forehead like he meant it, totally oblivious to what I had witnessed.

I nearly left without a trace.

Until I saw it.

A crimson lace bra and matching thong tossed casually across the bed. Not mine.

Hers.

Left behind on purpose. A final insult. A reminder.

I didn’t cry. Didn’t scream.

I zipped up my suitcase, lifted my chin, and walked out like the house still belonged to me.

Because one day soon… it would.

---

The moment my plane touched down, I barely had time to think before I spotted them—my parents waiting just past the arrival gate. My mother’s eyes shone with unshed tears. My father’s jaw was tight, his expression unreadable.

They pulled me into a hug, clinging to me like they were afraid I might vanish again.

“It’s good to have you home,” my father said, voice thick with restraint.

My mother gave a small, tense smile. “We know this is sudden, but the engagement meeting is happening today. We just… we wanted you here before it all gets finalized.”

I gave a quiet nod.

I didn’t care who the man was.

Not until my brother Tristan strolled up, grinning like he was in on the cruelest joke ever told.

“You’re gonna lose it,” he said, nudging me. “Your fiancé? He’s already here. Flew in from Italy this morning.”

I turned, barely hearing him—until my eyes met his.

Zion.

My first love.

The boy who had once held me in the dark.

The man who had just saved my life…

was going to be my future husband.