The garbage truck dropped me off near the villa area. My legs, battered from beatings in prison and worn down by relentless labor, throbbed with every step. The nerve damage meant long walks were agonizing, but there was no other way.

When I finally reached the villa and opened the door, the sound of cheerful voices greeted me.

"Auntie, try this. I baked these cookies myself. Tell me if they taste good," Irene's sweet voice floated from the living room.

I stepped inside, limping, and saw her feeding cookies to Mrs. Bolton, who smiled warmly at the gesture. Gilbert sat on the sofa, watching the scene with a faint, tender smile—a smile that once belonged to me.

The moment he noticed me, the warmth in his eyes vanished. The room’s cozy atmosphere froze, replaced by tension.

“Amelia,” he spat, his tone sharp and laced with disdain. “Where have you been fooling around? You just got out of prison, and now you can’t even come home on time? What’s that smell on you? It stinks. Go clean yourself up.”

The man who once cared for me so tenderly now looked at me as though I were dirt beneath his shoes.

Mrs. Bolton’s expression mirrored his contempt. Once, she welcomed me into this home with open arms. Now, her eyes were cold, brimming with disgust.

I limped to the bathroom, the weight of their stares pressing against my back. After washing off the stains of the day, I returned to the living room, where Irene awaited me with a plate of cookies.

“Amelia, try these,” she said, her voice saccharine. “I baked them myself with eggs and milk. They’re my best batch yet.”

I took the plate but didn’t eat. The word egg triggered a visceral reaction. Memories from prison flooded back—being forced to the ground, licking eggs crushed into filth. My stomach churned violently, and nausea clawed at my throat.

“Amelia, you don’t like them?” Irene’s voice was laced with feigned innocence, her eyes glinting with malice. “They’re really good. Everyone says so.”

Before I could respond, Gilbert’s temper flared.

“Amelia,” he barked, “don’t put on airs. Irene baked those for you out of kindness. The least you can do is show some gratitude. Stop being so ungrateful!”

Ungrateful. The word stung, but I was too weary to argue. I had no airs left to put on—prison had stripped them all away.

“I don’t like eggs,” I said quietly, my voice devoid of emotion.

“Don’t talk nonsense. How could I not know you don’t like eggs?” Gilbert snapped, his voice dripping with impatience. “You’re just looking for trouble, aren’t you? Blaming me for everything?”

Before I could respond, he grabbed my hand in frustration, jerking it so hard that the plate of cookies toppled to the floor, the sound of them shattering echoing through the room.

I remained silent. It was a habit I’d developed in prison—silence was safer than words. Seeing my lack of reaction, his anger faltered, as though he didn’t know where else to direct it.

An awkward tension filled the air, broken only by the loud growling of my stomach. It betrayed me, exposing the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything since my release.

Mrs. Bolton’s eyes flashed with disdain as she spoke, her words thinly veiled in mockery. “Amelia, we assumed you’d eaten outside since you were gone so long. We didn’t save you a plate. There are some leftovers in the kitchen. Why don’t you make do with those?”

Moments later, the nanny brought out a bowl of cold rice and a dish that looked like a haphazard mix of scraps. She placed it on the table with an indifferent expression, as though feeding a stray dog.

I stared at the rice for a moment, my chest tightening. It had been so long since I’d seen clean, untouched white rice. In prison, rice wasn’t food—it was a weapon of humiliation, spat on or thrown to the floor for me to scavenge. Eating slowly meant eating nothing at all.

Driven by hunger, I sat at the table and began eating ravenously, shoveling food into my mouth as though it might vanish at any second.

“Look at yourself, Amelia,” Gilbert sneered, his tone laced with contempt. “Do you even remember what it means to be a lady?”

I paused briefly, my hand trembling. The words stung, but I swallowed them down along with the rice. The truth was clear, I wasn’t a lady anymore. I wasn’t the noble daughter of the Byrd family. I wasn’t anything but the murderer everyone believed me to be.

Nobility couldn’t fill an empty stomach. I didn’t need their approval—I just needed to survive, to live for my father.

I ate until my stomach felt like it would burst. The pain was unbearable, and I clutched my midsection, rushing to the bathroom. Moments later, I was hunched over the sink, retching violently.

“So disgusting.” Irene wrinkled her nose as she glanced at the mess I had just vomited. Her tone was sharp, her expression filled with disdain.

She had never endured the darkness of prison, never known the depths of hunger or the value of survival. She couldn’t possibly understand how precious life was to me now. Every breath, every moment, was something I’d clawed my way back for.

The life she so effortlessly enjoyed now—the comfort, the warmth, the love—it should have been mine.

As the nausea subsided, a dull ache throbbed in my stomach. I couldn’t even remember when this pain first began. During the worst days, I’d drink cold water just to numb it.

Dinner ended in suffocating silence. I was about to retreat upstairs to my old room when Irene stepped in front of me, her smile sweet but her eyes cutting.

Mrs. Bolton followed, handing me a document with an air of cool finality. “Amelia, let’s be realistic. Your current situation is no longer compatible with Gilbert’s status. He’s a director in the group now, and your criminal record is... unfortunate. It’s unbecoming. This is a divorce agreement. If you sign it, we’ll still help you get back on your feet.”

The words sliced through me like shards of ice. Everything they had—the life they lived now—was built on what once belonged to me. And now they wanted me to quietly disappear, as though I had never existed.

From the moment I stepped out of that prison, not one of them had truly cared about me. They didn’t ask how I survived or even if I was okay. I was the innocent one in all of this, but to them, I was just a stain on their perfect image.

Gilbert, seated at the table, glanced briefly at the document. His expression remained unreadable as he spoke. “I don’t agree to divorce.”

Mrs. Bolton and Irene froze, their shock evident.

“My position in the group is still precarious,” he explained casually. “If I divorce now, it could cause unnecessary complications.”

I let out a bitter laugh. How naive of me to think, even for a second, that he might harbor a shred of guilt, a flicker of care for me. He wasn’t fighting for me—he was protecting his own image, his future.

They didn’t care about me. Not my pain, not my survival, not my existence. All they cared about was themselves, their plans, their perfect little world.

Suddenly, I felt drained, as though my body and soul had been hollowed out. Without a word, I turned and headed for the stairs.

Before I could take a step, Irene’s sickly-sweet voice stopped me again. “Amelia, your room is downstairs now.”

She pointed toward a small, inconspicuous door tucked into the corner of the villa. It was a storage room once—a place for forgotten things.

This villa had been a gift from my father, my name etched into the property deed. But since my imprisonment, Gilbert had taken over everything. Now, even my most basic right to a room was stripped from me.

I stared at the door for a long moment, swallowing the lump in my throat. For now, even this would have to do. As long as my father was alive, I could start over.

The room was cramped and cluttered, filled with discarded items. My belongings were tossed carelessly into a corner, covered in a thick layer of dust, as though they too had been forgotten.

Determined, I grabbed a basin and set out to clean. As I passed by the study, faint voices drifted through the slightly ajar door.

"Amelia is back now. If you don’t divorce her soon, are you planning to let Irene stay by your side without a name or status?" Mrs. Bolton’s sharp voice carried from the study, cold and calculating.

After a pause, Gilbert’s voice followed, steady and indifferent. “She still has her father’s shares in the group. They account for a significant proportion. Divorcing her now would jeopardize my position.”

“Fine,” Mrs. Bolton replied, her tone softening with calculation. “Wait until you secure the shares, then divorce her. But when are you planning to tell her about her father’s death?”

Father’s death.

The words felt like a punch to the chest, leaving me breathless. My legs weakened, and for a moment, I couldn’t move. My mind struggled to process what I had just heard.

Irene’s voice jolted me back to reality. She stood behind me, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “Amelia, is something the matter? Why don’t you go inside?”

I turned to face her, my body trembling. It took every ounce of strength to steady my voice. “When... when did my father die?”

The walls seemed to close in around me, and my heart felt as though it was being crushed.

“Oh,” Irene said lightly, as if she were discussing the weather. “Your father passed away about a week after you went to jail.”

The ground beneath me seemed to shift. My vision blurred with tears, but I forced myself to stay upright.

Gilbert stepped out of the study then, his expression shifting the moment he saw me. He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped as he noticed the storm brewing in my eyes.

I stumbled forward and grabbed his arm, clutching it tightly as if it could anchor me. “You promised,” I choked out, my voice trembling with anguish. “You said that if I went to jail for her, you would take care of my father. You swore it to me!”

My voice rose, raw and desperate, as tears spilled down my cheeks. “How could he die? How could you let this happen?”

My trembling voice broke as I asked, desperate to believe it wasn’t true.

Gilbert’s eyes flickered with something that resembled heartache, but it was gone in an instant.

Irene leaned close, her voice sickeningly sweet in my ear. “Amelia, I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. I only wanted to visit Uncle Byrd that day, but I couldn’t help myself—I accidentally told him you were in jail. I didn’t realize it would upset him so much.”

Her words hit me like a blow, and the grief I’d been holding back erupted. I spun around, my voice shaking with fury.

“Why would you say that to him? You knew he had heart disease! Why are you so cruel? You already have everything—why couldn’t you just leave us alone? Why couldn’t you leave him alone?”

Before I could say more, Gilbert stepped between us, shielding her. His voice was cold and cutting.

“Amelia, enough. Your father is gone. Stop taking your anger out on others. If you want to blame someone, blame his bad luck—not us.”

I froze, his words slicing through me like a blade. Bad luck? He had treated my father like a son. My father had given him everything, and this was how he repaid him—with cruelty and indifference.

Tears burned my eyes as I glared at him. “Gilbert, are you even human? How dare you speak of my father that way? Without him, you’d be nothing.”

Irene stepped forward, her expression painted with mock concern. She reached for my hand. “Amelia, don’t be angry with Gilbert. This is all my fault. Please don’t take it out on him.”

Her false kindness was the final straw. I pushed her away, unable to contain my rage. “I went to jail for you! I lost everything because of you! Why can’t you just leave me alone? I owe you nothing—you’re the ones who wronged me!”

I didn’t push her hard, but Irene still fell back, clutching her arm as a small scratch appeared.

Gilbert rushed to her side, his face dark with anger. He knelt to check her injury, then turned to me, his voice seething with fury.

“Amelia, you’ve gone too far. This isn’t your prison cell. Apologize to Irene now.”

Before I could respond, he shoved me back. The edge of a cabinet caught my stomach, and a sharp, searing pain shot through me.

I gasped, clutching my abdomen as beads of sweat formed on my forehead. The room spun, and I sank to the floor, unable to focus on anything but the pain.

Gilbert noticed my state, his anger momentarily giving way to concern. He took a hesitant step toward me.

“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded, his tone hard but laced with unease.

I couldn’t answer. The pain was unbearable, stealing my breath and leaving me unable to speak.

Irene noticed that Gilbert’s gaze lingered on me, and panic flickered across her face. She quickly clutched her injured arm, her voice trembling with false selflessness.

“Gilbert, if Amelia doesn’t want to apologize, it’s okay. I’m fine, really... but my arm hurts a little.”

Gilbert hesitated for only a moment before turning fully toward her. Without so much as a glance back at me, he scooped her up in his arms.

“I’ll take you to the hospital,” he said, his tone gentle yet decisive.

And just like that, he walked out. No hesitation, no second thought, no trace of the man I once knew.

The sharp, unrelenting pain in my stomach blurred my vision, and I watched helplessly as the door closed behind them.

“Gilbert,” I whispered hoarsely, “I can’t love you anymore. I don’t want to.”

As the words left my lips, a coppery taste flooded my mouth. Blood surged up my throat, and darkness consumed me.