“Hold her down.”

The cold leather straps tightened around my wrists and ankles, pinning me to the steel operating table.

I thrashed against the restraints, my vision blurring with panicked tears. “Let me go! Dr. Evans, please! I’m pregnant! If you do this, you’ll kill my baby!”

Dr. Evans didn’t even look at me. He calmly snapped on his latex gloves.

“Mr. Salvatore gave strict orders, Katherine,” he said, his voice completely devoid of empathy. “Leo needs this blood. Your lies won’t stop the procedure.”

He picked up a thick, hollow needle. It wasn't the standard size for a safe donation. It was an aggressive extraction gauge, designed to pull blood as fast as possible.

“No! Damon!” I screamed, hoping my voice would pierce through the heavy doors of the medical wing.

But Damon wasn't coming. He was upstairs, comforting Chloe.

The needle pierced my vein.

The machine beside me hummed to life, and I watched in horror as my dark red blood rushed through the clear plastic tubing.

The extraction was too fast. Within minutes, a wave of dizzying nausea hit me. The room spun. My breathing grew shallow and erratic.

Then came the pain.

It started as a dull ache in my lower abdomen, quickly twisting into a sharp, agonizing cramp that tore a breathless gasp from my throat.

“Doctor…” I choked out, a cold sweat breaking across my forehead. “It hurts… please stop…”

Dr. Evans checked the monitor. He saw my blood pressure plummeting. He saw the warning lights flashing red.

He didn't stop the machine.

A sudden, wet warmth pooled beneath me on the operating table.

The cramping escalated into a violent, tearing agony. I let out a blood-curdling scream, my back arching off the table as my body began to violently reject the trauma.

The heart monitor flatlined into a continuous, piercing shriek.

Through my fading consciousness, I saw Dr. Evans step away from the table. He didn't reach for the emergency crash cart. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

He pressed it to his ear.

“Chloe, it’s done,” Dr. Evans said softly, his voice cutting through the blaring alarms. “The rapid extraction triggered a massive hemorrhage. The threat is eliminated.”

He paused, looking down at the pool of blood soaking the sheets beneath me.

“Actually, you’ll be pleased,” he added, a sickening smirk in his tone. “It wasn't just one. It was twins. Both are gone.”

Twins.

The word echoed in the sterile room.

Two tiny lives. Two pieces of me. Gone.

I lay there, drowning in my own blood, staring at the blinding surgical lights above.

In that exact second, the five years of blind, pathetic love I held for Damon Salvatore shattered into a million jagged pieces.

He had ordered his men to drag me here. He had authorized this. Damon had personally forced the procedure that slaughtered his own biological twins, all to save the bastard child of a wanted criminal.

The darkness swallowed me whole.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I opened my eyes.

The glaring lights of the ICU stung my vision. The room was dead quiet, save for the rhythmic pulse of the life support machines connected to my chest.

I slowly moved my hand down to my stomach.

It was flat. It was empty.

There were no tears. My eyes were completely dry. The woman who used to cry over Damon’s coldness had died on that operating table alongside her children.

A nurse quietly slipped into the room, checking my IV drip. Seeing my eyes open, she jumped slightly.

“You’re awake,” she whispered nervously. She reached into her pocket and pulled out my personal cell phone. “The bodyguards left this with your clothes. You… you have a lot of missed alerts.”

She placed the phone on my chest and hurried out of the room, clearly terrified of being caught speaking to me.

I picked up the phone. My fingers were pale and trembling with weakness, but my mind was terrifyingly clear.

The screen was lit up with a single, highly encrypted email notification.

It was from Arthur Sterling, the top-tier overseas lawyer who had managed my late grandfather’s estate.

I opened the message.

“Miss Katherine. You have reached your twenty-fifth birthday. As per your grandfather’s final will, the conditions have been met. The Sterling Trust is now officially unlocked.”

Attached was a bank statement.

One hundred billion dollars.

I stared at the string of zeros. For five years, I had lived like a beggar in the Salvatore mansion, relying on Damon’s scraps, hiding my true identity because my grandfather’s will forbade me from accessing the family wealth until I matured.

I scrolled down to the second attachment.

“Furthermore, the private investigation you requested into your parents' fatal car crash fifteen years ago is complete. The evidence is conclusive.”

I clicked the file.

Photographs, wire-transfer receipts, and recorded transcripts flooded the screen.

My breath stopped.

The brakes on my parents' car hadn't failed by accident. They were cut.

And the man who ordered the hit, the man who paid the mechanics and bribed the police to cover it up, was Elias Salvatore.

Damon’s father.

A suffocating, freezing silence filled my lungs.

I had spent five years of my life bleeding for this family. I had let them drill into my bones to save Damon’s life. I had endured endless humiliation.

I had just sacrificed my unborn twins for them.

And they were the butchers who had slaughtered my parents.

I slowly lowered the phone.

The physical pain in my abdomen was agonizing, but the hatred boiling in my veins was stronger. It was a cold, venomous fire that burned away every last trace of the weak, submissive wife I used to be.

Damon wanted to treat me like nothing. He wanted to build his perfect life with Chloe over the corpses of my children.

I wiped a single, stray drop of sweat from my forehead.

I wasn't just going to leave the Salvatore mansion.

I was going to tear it down to the foundation, and I was going to bury Damon and Chloe in the rubble.

Send my father’s men. City General. Now.

I hit send on the encrypted message and dropped the phone onto the sterile hospital bed.

The agonizing, hollow emptiness in my abdomen—the graveyard of my unborn twins—had completely numbed me to any physical pain. I didn't shed a single tear.

The weak, submissive wife who loved Damon had died on this operating table, her heart flatlining the moment he authorized the doctors to let my babies die.

The heavy door to my room suddenly clicked open.

It wasn't my men.

It was Chloe.

Chloe closed the door behind her and walked to the foot of my bed, a sickeningly sweet smile playing on her glossy lips.

“You look terrible, Katherine,” she said, her voice dripping with fake pity.

I stared at her, my eyes dead and emotionless. I didn't say a word.

Chloe chuckled, trailing a perfectly manicured fingernail along the cold metal railing of my bed.

“I just came to say thank you,” she whispered, leaning in closer. “Your blood worked wonders. Though, to be completely honest… Leo didn't really need it.”

My jaw tightened imperceptibly.

“He wasn't sick,” Chloe laughed softly, a cruel, melodic sound. “A slight iron deficiency, maybe. But Dr. Evans is heavily on my payroll. It was so incredibly easy to convince Damon that little Leo was dying.”

She stood up straight, smoothing out the silk of her expensive gown.

“I knew you were pregnant, Katherine. I couldn't let a biological Salvatore heir ruin my plans. So, I created an emergency. And Damon… well, Damon didn't even hesitate to drain you dry for me.”

She reached into her designer clutch and pulled out a folded piece of heavy-stock paper, tossing it onto my lap. A sleek silver pen followed, clattering against my leg.

“Damon and I have a dinner date right now,” Chloe said, checking her diamond-encrusted watch. “He’s booking the venue for our wedding as we speak. I want you gone before we get back.”

I looked down at the paper.

It was a legally binding agreement. A promise to disappear, to never contact Damon again, and to forfeit any claim to the Salvatore name or assets.

“Sign it,” Chloe demanded, crossing her arms, her mask of sweetness dropping into a vicious sneer. “You have nothing left. Your babies are dead. Damon hates you. Sign the paper, crawl out of this hospital, and disappear. Or I’ll make sure Damon finishes the job.”

I picked up the silver pen.

Without a single second of hesitation, I signed my name at the bottom of the page.

Chloe’s eyes lit up with absolute, intoxicating victory. She snatched the paper from my lap, blowing gently on the wet ink.

“Good girl,” she smirked, turning her back on me and walking toward the door. “Have a nice life, Katherine. Or whatever is left of it. Bye-bye.”

The door clicked shut behind her.

Less than two minutes later, the door opened again.

Six men filed into the room. The lead operative, a tall man with a scar across his jaw, bowed his head slightly.

“Miss Sterling,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Your father’s men are here. The perimeter is secured. We await your orders.”

I reached for the IV lines taped to my hand and ripped them out. A fresh trail of blood dripped down my wrist, staining the white sheets, but I ignored it.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. My body was weak, but the pure, unadulterated venom pumping through my veins kept me standing tall.

“Clear the hallway,” I said, my voice cold and steady.

I walked over to my belongings and pulled out a sleek, black velvet box I had prepared months ago. I handed it to the operative.

“Have this delivered to Damon Salvatore at his dinner venue immediately,” I ordered. “Today is our third wedding anniversary. It’s time he received his gift.”

Inside that box was the charred silver locket I wore the night I pulled him from the fire—the one Chloe claimed she had lost. Beneath it were Dr. Evans's real medical logs proving Leo was never sick, and a printed transcript of Chloe's texts to her criminal ex-boyfriend, Marcus Thorne, bragging about scamming the "Salvatore idiot."

“Consider it done,” the operative said, taking the box. “And your destination, ma'am?”

I looked toward the wall that separated my room from the VIP Pediatric Ward.

“Go to the pediatric suite next door,” I ordered, my eyes hardening into pure, unbreakable ice. “Take the baby with us.”

The operative didn't blink. “Understood. And if there is resistance?”

“I don't care,” I replied coldly. “If they killed my children, then I am taking theirs.”

Thirty thousand feet in the air, the private jet hummed.

Across the aisle, three-year-old Leo slept soundly, wrapped in a cashmere blanket.

I picked up my phone and snapped a picture of the sleeping boy. Opening an editing app, I quickly darkened the lighting, added a sickly pallor to his skin, and painted a harsh, dark purple shadow across his temple to mimic a severe bruise.

In the photo, he looked lifeless. Broken.

I attached the image to a message addressed to Damon.

I hit send.

Seconds later, my newly acquired phone vibrated on the polished mahogany table next to me.

The screen lit up.

Caller ID: Damon Salvatore.

A slow, chilling smirk spread across my face.