"She's not doing well. I need Dr. Dickerson over there right now. Stop making a scene."

As he spoke, he grabbed Felicity Dickerson by the arm and tried to drag her away. He didn't even glance down at the blood soaking through my pants.

Dr. Dickerson wrenched her arm free, her voice sharp and urgent.

"Absolutely not. You cannot stop a D&C midway through. The patient is at risk of infection, hemorrhaging, or worse."

Louis didn't care. He let out a cold laugh.

"Daphne is just jealous of Kathy. This has nothing to do with you. You're coming with me. Now."

No matter what Dr. Dickerson said, he hauled her away by force.

I watched his retreating back, and something inside me collapsed.

"Louis, I want a divorce."

I saw him falter. His steps hitched for just a fraction of a second. But then he kept walking without looking back.

A few seconds later, Kathy's voice drifted from the room next door.

"Louis, you pulled another patient's doctor away like that. Won't she be upset?"

His reply was soft, tender.

"So what if she is? As long as you're safe, nothing else matters."

Kathy giggled, pleased with herself.

"I knew it. You care about me more than anyone."

A searing, ripping pain tore through my body.

The nurse who came to check on me went pale, her voice trembling.

"Mrs. Henson, you're hemorrhaging. I'm getting Dr. Dickerson right now."

Hemorrhaging. That explained the dizziness, the way the room swam, the frantic hammering of my heart.

But I heard it clearly when the nurse rushed to the next room. Louis's voice, low and hard.

"Hemorrhaging? It's a trick. She's faking it. Dr. Dickerson stays right here. If anyone tries to move her, I'll take it straight to the hospital director."

He was convinced I was lying. Meanwhile, I was slipping into shock from blood loss.

The nurse eventually found a doctor from another department. They barely managed to save me.

When I woke the next day, Louis was sitting by my bed.

For one foolish moment, I thought he'd come because he finally cared. Instead, he stared at me with a deep crease between his brows.

"Why are you still in the hospital? What exactly do you want? Why do you insist on making life difficult for a pregnant woman?"

The anger hit my wound like a fist. I pressed it down, forced my voice steady.

"Louis, have you forgotten that I went to the hospital for a prenatal checkup? Kathy is pregnant, and I'm not? Is that what you think?"

I held his gaze.

"I was two months along. But the baby is gone now. Because of you."

The color drained from his face. Then, in the next instant, his palm cracked across my cheek.

"You're out of your mind, Daphne! You'd make up anything to come between me and Kathy!"

The blow caught me completely off guard. I tumbled off the hospital bed and hit the floor.

The surgical wound from yesterday felt like it was tearing open.

Louis saw the agony on my face. He reached for me instinctively.

"Are you okay? Did you hit anything?"

I shoved him away with every ounce of strength I had.

"Get away from me. Don't touch me!"

In that moment, I felt a revulsion toward him I had never known before.

He stared at me, stunned, unable to form a single word.

His phone cut through the silence, shrill and jarring.

He didn't answer it. Instead, he straightened up and spoke in a rush.

"If you want to lie here, suit yourself."

"Kathy's in a bad mood. She's pregnant, after all. I'm going to take her out to clear her head."

I said nothing. He walked out without a backward glance.

A bitter smile twisted my lips. How had we ended up here?

Louis and I had grown up together. Childhood sweethearts. We started dating at eighteen, and the day I graduated college at twenty-three, we got married.

I never imagined that three years in, I'd discover he'd been keeping Kathy Hughes on the side like a caged songbird.

I'd been ready to divorce him. But then, out of nowhere, he was diagnosed with leukemia.

The very night of his diagnosis, Kathy took off with tens of millions of his money and fled the country.

For the sake of the twenty-some years we'd known each other, I chose to stay and take care of Louis. When the donor match came back positive, I donated my stem cells.

I nursed him through everything for two years. Changed his bedpans, cleaned up after him, held him together. It took that long before his condition was finally under control and he could be discharged.

The day he left the hospital, he swore to me with every ounce of conviction he had. Said I was the only woman he'd ever love. Said he'd never stray again.

And then, at that hotel, he slipped out of our bed in the middle of the night and went to Kathy's room.

Back then, I let him fool me. I believed him when he said nothing had happened between them.

Now I knew better. From that night until now, they'd been carrying on behind my back. God only knew how many times.

How else had Kathy gotten pregnant? And why else would Louis be so devoted to a woman who'd abandoned him when he was dying?

I dragged myself back onto the hospital bed.

The pain from the wound was unbearable. I blacked out almost immediately.

I was jolted awake by my phone buzzing with notifications.

Kathy had sent a video.

In the footage, the woman was sitting in our bathtub. Louis was patiently feeding her fruit salad, then running his hands over her shoulders in a massage that left nothing to the imagination.

"Daphne, your husband was worried I might get depressed during my pregnancy, so he invited me over to your place as a guest. You don't mind, do you?"

I didn't reply. Not a single word. I just saved the video in silence.

A few minutes later, another message came through. This time, a photo.

It was my mother's roses. The ones she'd planted before she died.

I'd kept them alive on the balcony. Whenever I missed her, I'd go out there and sit with them, letting the sight of those blooms bring her back to me for just a moment.

"These flowers are so ugly. I went ahead and pulled them out for you."

My chest seized.

I fired off a message immediately:

"No! Don't touch them!"

I threw myself out of bed, dragging my broken body through the discharge paperwork as fast as I could.

I called Louis on the way home. Over and over. More than a dozen times.

He didn't pick up once.

I unlocked the front door and found Kathy standing there with a smug look on her face, still holding a single rose in her hand.

"Who told you to touch my flowers? What the hell is wrong with you?"

I was out of my mind with rage. I stormed up and slapped her across the face.

I raised my hand to do it again, but Louis caught my wrist and shoved me hard. I went sprawling to the floor.

The back of my skull cracked against the wall with a dull, sickening thud.

Kathy wiped the smile off her face in an instant. Her voice turned thin and trembling.

"Daphne, I was just trying to help you prune the flowers. Why are you so hostile toward me?"

"Louis and I are really just friends now. That's all we are. Please stop being so jealous, okay?"

Louis held her in his arms and looked down at me, his eyes cold and flat.

"Daphne, do you have to act like such a vicious shrew? You're disgusting."

I fought through the splitting pain in my head and pulled myself to my feet. I walked toward the balcony.

When I saw that every last rose was gone, something inside me snapped.

I grabbed the pruning shears and went looking for Kathy.

Louis stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

"Get out of my way! She destroyed the roses my mother left me. I'll kill her!"

Kathy dabbed at her tears, but in the space where Louis couldn't see, she flashed me a taunting little smile.

I knocked Louis's hand aside, lunging for that woman, ready to cut that lying mouth to ribbons.

A large hand seized a fistful of my hair and slammed me face-down onto the cold glass coffee table.

"They're just flowers, Daphne. If you lay a finger on Kathy, I will personally make sure you end up in prison."

Louis's voice was colder than I'd ever heard it.

I looked up at the man pinning me down, and all I felt was that I was staring at a stranger.

He knew those roses meant more to me than anything else in this house. They were the only thing my mother had left behind for me.

He used to help me tend to them.

Now Kathy had destroyed them, and Louis was actually taking her side.

Louis seemed to realize he'd gone too far and finally let go of me.

But the very next second, Kathy swayed and collapsed to the ground in slow motion.

Louis saw it happen. His pupils contracted.

He looked at me coldly and left me with a single sentence:

"If anything happens to Kathy or the baby she's carrying, I'll make you pay with your life."

He scooped Kathy into his arms and rushed out.

I listened to his footsteps fade into the distance, numb in body and soul.

Louis, you care so much about Kathy's safety. Have you ever once cared whether your own wife and child lived or died?

Obviously, he didn't. Otherwise, he would have known our baby was already gone.

I dragged myself up and went to the bedroom to retrieve two things.

The first was the prenuptial property agreement Louis had signed the day he was discharged from the hospital. If he ever betrayed me again, I could file for divorce at any time and claim all of our jointly owned assets. The agreement had been notarized. It was legally airtight.

The second was Louis's medical report from this month.

These two things would soon become bullets aimed straight at Louis's heart.

I was genuinely curious whether Kathy would still treat him like a prize catch once she found out.

This house had been transferred into my name after Louis was discharged.

Now I contacted a real estate agent and listed it well below market value.

I booked a flight to Northport for later that day.

Then I started packing my essentials, ready to leave.

What I didn't expect was Louis appearing at the door just as I stepped outside.

He saw the suitcase in my hand, and his face turned dark as a storm.

"You triggered Kathy's depression, and now you're trying to dodge responsibility by going on vacation? How can you be this selfish?"

He actually thought I was going on vacation.

I shot back: "Selfish? I had a miscarriage because of you two. I nearly died on the operating table. Kathy destroyed the roses my mother left me, and I'm not even allowed to hold her accountable?"

"Louis, if we're talking about selfish, the selfish one here is you."

"I donated stem cells for you. I gave up everything to take care of you until you were discharged. And this is how you repay me?"

Louis didn't show an ounce of guilt. Instead, he said with undisguised impatience:

"Miscarriage? Nearly died on the operating table? Do you actually believe your own lies now?"

"And can you stop bringing up that old crap every single day?"

Looking at the raw contempt in his eyes, I suddenly realized how ridiculous I looked arguing with him.

I nodded slowly and said, meaning every word:

"You're right. It's all in the past. Louis, we're done."

Louis laughed. He thought he had me all figured out.

"Done? This is just another one of your tricks to drive a wedge between me and Kathy."

"Your mother's gone. I'm all you have left now. You'd never actually leave me."

A chill spread through my chest.

So that was what he thought. No wonder he'd been so fearless all along.

But he was wrong.

I didn't bother arguing. I stepped around him to leave, but he grabbed my arm and held on tight.

"No. You're not going anywhere."

"Kathy is miserable right now because of you. You're going over there and apologizing to her."

"Once you've cheered her up, I'll personally drive you to the airport."

"And if I don't?" I asked calmly.

Louis was silent for a moment. Then, his voice turned ice-cold: