After being discharged, I took a cab to Hamilton estate.

I stepped inside quietly, heading straight to the bedroom to pack what little still belonged to me when I heard the soft drag of fabric, followed by a low giggle echoing from inside.

Stephanie.

Standing in front of the mirror wearing my wedding dress.

The pearl-laced wedding gown that my grandma stitched on her deathbed, her last blessing to me when she realized that the Winslet household did not care for me at all and I was working five jobs in a row to accumulate some money to buy the silk fabric.

And now?

It hung limp on her frame, the front ripped open. She was using her hands to hold it together, her fingers curling into the delicate fabric like claws.

“Oh, here you are sister.” she beamed, twirling. “I was hoping you would have died but here you are, well guess what happened last night.”

My body stiffened. I already knew I wouldn’t like the answer.

She stepped closer, dragging the ruined hem across the floor. “Alexander took me to the rooftop suite of your favourite hotel. The one where you spent your last birthday alone in?” Her voice dripped with mock sweetness.

“He took me to your private suite with the balcony view.”

My stomach twisted. That used to be our place….the place where we spent our wedding night.

“We left the curtains open.” she said, her eyes glinting. “I screamed his name loud enough for the staff to hear.”

I tried not to flinch.

“Alexander said I taste sweeter and tore the dress open while I was still wearing it.”

My vision blurred.

Stephanie pulled back the sleeve, exposing red-purple love bites scattered across her collarbone, her chest.

“It got a little wild when I told him I was ready to start a family. He didn’t even hesitate.” She smiled, slow and smug. “Who knows? I might already be carrying his child.”

My fingers curled into fists. I was shaking.

“You are disgusting!” I whispered.

She leaned in, tilting her head with mock concern.

“Funny. That is different from what your husband thinks when he pushes my body and enter me again and again trying to impregnate me. Maybe I will finally give him what you could never.”

My last of the reason snapped and I slapped her hard.

The sound cracked through the room like thunder making Stephanie stumble in shock before she fell down with the impact.

“You!”

“Lavina?”

Alexander’s voice echoed.

He stepped in, brows furrowed, taking in the scene: Stephanie half-naked in my destroyed wedding gown on the floor, me standing in the doorway.

But Stephanie didn’t miss a beat.

“I am sorry sister!” she choked out, tears springing instantly to her eyes. “I was modelling the dress for a campaign… I swear, I didn’t mean to damage it! It just… ripped!”

“I-I am your culprit, I was the one who snatched your parent’s love but please forgive give sister, love cannot be forced…I-I can’t do anything else except….” She paused tears tumbling down her cheeks. “except dying……yes, once I die, everything will be yours…”

She got up instantly, picking up a fruit-knife.

“Stop” Alexander growled, lunging forward and yanking it from her. She let out a cry, twisted in his grip and then suddenly darted toward the nearest wall like she meant to crack her skull open.

Alexander caught her just in time, arms locking around her waist. She collapsed into his chest, sobbing like some tragic heroine from a cheap romance.

“Stephanie” he said firmly “I invited you here as my guest. If anyone has a problem with you, they have a problem with me!”

I watched them with numbness spreading in my heart, Stephanie clinging to Alexander, him protecting her like some wounded bird and my lips curled into a bitter smile.

When he turned to me his voice was colder than ice.

“Lavina, apologize to her!”

I merely looked at him numbly “Apologize? Alexander aren’t you even curious where I was last night?”

“I don’t care!” he cut in sharply. “You don’t get to hurt Stephanie! If you don’t apologize right now, I will block all your cards and shift your room to the servant quarters!”

My heart lurched.

My child had nearly died.

Our child.

And Alexander was busy soothing his mistress.

“That should humble you Lavina.” he added cruelly. “maybe I have spoiled you too much.”

I didn’t say a word.

Because in that moment, I realized the truth.

He never saw me as a wife, I was a pet, a maid he kept out of conveinience.

He thought taking away the money would crush me.

What he didn’t know was I had already been poor. Starving. Forgotten.

I only stayed because I loved him. I gave him everything my time, my youth, my soul while building his empire with my blood.

“Shift her to the servant quarters and don’t let her eat until she apologizes.” Before leaving, Alexander ordered the servants coldly.

Just like that I became a villainess in their lovestory.

The moment Alexander walked away with Stephanie, my phone buzzed to life with an anonymous number.

"Where was he? While you were losing consciousness in a storage room, where was your husband Miss Winslet?" The sheer anger in the male's voice made me freeze for a moment before I realized that there was only one person who would be angry like this.

Damien Stone.

“He was with...her.” My throat burned as I whispered.

"I can’t stay away anymore.” he answered his voice barely restrained.

“How long?” I whispered.

He didn’t hesitate.

“One week that's all. After that, I come to take you home.”

"Alright."

For days, I was a prisoner in my own home.

No locks. Just silence, and a house too large for a woman slowly unraveling.

Three times a day, the maid knocked. Her voice grew softer each time.

“Ma’am.” she whispered once through the door, almost trembling, “I know you did nothing wrong... Please eat something. Your hands are turning blue.”

But the head maid quickly intercepted, scolding harshly.

“You are not to disobey Mr. Alexander!” she snapped. “No meals until she apologizes.”

I never replied.

Only a few apples ever made it through. Slipped beneath my door in secret, wilted and cold yet I never once complained and ate them hungrily for the sake of my child.

Just sat by the window, wrapped in the same sweater I had worn since that night without a single blanket.

Counting backwards.

Three days have passed, four more days. Once the divorce agreement is approved by court I would leave. Burn every trace of this life behind me.

My phone never stopped buzzing.

Stephanie.

Her messages came like venom dressed in pearls each one designed to pierce.

On the morning I zipped my last bag, another message arrived.

[Stephanie: You never won our mothers, and you will never win Alex. One word from me, and he even forgot that you even exist.]

She was right.

Alexander never came home.

Not that night. Not the next.

But Stephanie made sure I saw him.

Every hour, a new video.

Him helping her into my favorite cashmere robe.

Him tying her hair into a ponytail in his farmhouse kitchen.

Him kissing her shoulder in bed.

Some clips were quieter and yet more sinister.

The way she filmed herself wearing his shirt, mouthing “I love you” before flipping the camera off with a wink.

Or the one where his voice whispered, off-screen “Steph if we have a daughter we will name her Hope, if it's a son Xavier.”

Once, I would have curled into my sheets and sobbed.

Now?

I just watched my reflection in the window, pale and calm as the morning sickness once again assaulted my senses and yet I slowly rubbed my belly calming down my child.

It was at that moment my phone buzzed with a message.

[ATTORNEY: “Congratulations! Miss Lavina not only your divorce is finalized but legally Alexander Hamilton is stripped off all his rights as a father, he will not have anything to do with the child in your womb.]

I wanted to be happy but tears tumbled my eyes as three years of marriage dissolved into dust. Cold bit through my sleeves as I walked towards the balcony, my hot breath coming in short pants fogging the air.

Each step I had taken to get there had felt heavier than the last.

My body ached from days without food, my legs trembling, head spinning with exhaustion.

But I needed air. I needed silence. I needed to feel something other than the bruising silence of that house.

And then.

A sudden crack ripped through the night.

Fireworks.

Loud. Violent and right above me making me startled.

I gasped and staggered back in panic making my heel caught on the uneven tile and just like that I fell hard.

A piercing pain ripped through my abdomen making me scream loudly.

My hands flew to my belly in terror.

I felt it. Warm. Wet. Spreading rapidly between my thighs.

The guards rushed forward, their faces finally shifting from apathy to alarm.

“Get the family doctor!”

A guard pulled out his phone to call Alexander.

“Sir! It’s Madam! She fell from the balcony, she’s bleeding badly. We need the doctor right away! Please-”

But before he could finish, Alexander’s voice cut in, sharp and cold through the speaker.

“I know her tricks damnit, this is just another act to avoid accepting her wrongdoings. Lavina is not to leave the house under any circumstance until she learns her place!”

The call disconnected.

The servant stared at the phone, stunned and ashamed.

I looked up at the CCTV camera at the balcony, tears of fury blurring my vision.

“I apologize!” I rasped, voice shaking as I clutched my stomach. “I am sorry for ever meeting you, for choosing a heartless man like you, for ever loving you Alexander Hamilton!”

Another firework exploded in the sky pink, then gold, then white.

Thousands of drones lit the sky at that moment in a formation.

[HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHANIE] was wriiten in air.

A miserable tear dribbled down.

So today was the day I was exchange with Stephanie at the hospital….it was my birthday as well.

“My baby…just save my baby.” Those were the last words, the only 'gift' I begged for before I lost my consciousness completely.

“Madam.? Madam?!"

"Hurry! Her body’s going cold!” one cried. "We didn't knew but while everyone was starving her, miss Lavina was already pregnant!"

I regained consciousness after three days with the doctor telling me that the entire country was turned upside down and the best doctos of the world were called to my rescue that night.

It was after eight hours of rigorous procedure that my child and I survive.

Tears welled in my eyes, but I blinked them away before they could fall.

While I was lying liflessly staring at the ceiling Alexander rushed inside my ward.

He stood there, breathless, eyes wide with panic. His coat was still damp from the drizzle outside, his hair slightly tousled like he had rushed the whole way.

Behind him, one of the guards looked conflicted, guilt twisting his features.

“Sir, madam lost so much blood-” the guard began, but I cut him off instantly, my voice low but firm.

“I fainted.” I said. “From exhaustion and malnutrition.”

Alexander’s steps faltered. His gaze dropped to the IV in my arm, to the dull darkness beneath my eyes, and the faint tinge of blue still clinging to my fingertips.

“You haven’t been eating?” He asked, voice soft.

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“Lavina all you had to do was just say sorry once, how was I supposed to know that it wasn’t just another tantrum?" He said his voice tinged with blame.

"You should have called me. I was in China and took the nearest available flight to reach here was in two days-”

“It doesn't matters...you were so busy so how could I bother you.” Taken aback by my response Alexander felt a tinge of guilt.

On the table beside me sat a small, clumsily arranged bunch of wildflowers. A ribbon tied around them awkwardly.

A maid had left them earlier with a note: Belated Happy Birthday ma'am.

Alexander followed my gaze, confusion crossing his features.

Then realization hit. His lips parted, and he looked stunned.

He forgot my birthday.

His face went pale.

Within the hour, the gifts began to arrive laced with guilt not love.

One by one.

He had clearly rushed the orders the moment he had found out. Expedited deliveries. Premium couriers. No expense spared.

A set of antique brushes for oil painting, a velvet case with a sapphire-studded pendant, just like the one I had admired in a magazine years ago but never bought.

A limited edition novel from my favorite author, signed, with a personal note scribbled inside from the writer.

They sat unopened at my bedside, untouched.

Alexander didn’t complain, instead poured soup from a flask into a bowl and brought the spoon to my lips. "Eat. You need strength.”

At this moment his phone buzzed with Stephanie's name on screen.

"What? I am coming." As soon as the phone hungup, Alexander stood keeping my food aside.

"Stephanie's dog has trouble in breathing, I need to go...just eat something and rest Lavina." He turned around and was about to leave when I held his sleeves with my trembling fingers.

"For the sake of being husband and wife for three years....for this one time can you stay beside me?"

"Lavina I..."He hesitated but as soon as another message beeped his tone sharpened. "Lavina..this is important. Just rest and regain your strength alright?" Alexander twisted his hand out of my hold and left without taking another glance.

A small miserable smile graced my features.

At the end he will always choose her above me.

Hours passed and my phone beeped with incoming messages.

[Damien- Lavina, this is Alexander Hamilton's real face]

I tapped onto the file and a video played showing 'Jules Selection', one of the most luxurious bridal boutique in the city. The kind I once dreamed of entering.

Stephanie stood in front of a full-length mirror, twirling in white lace and crystals with Alexander beside her.

[“Alex, I want this one.” she said, beaming.

“Ofcourse, choose whatever you love, we are going to get married aren't we.” he said. “Tomorrow is the family dinner hosted by grandfather and I will announce our wedding.]

My heart felt numb.

So it wasn't that her dog was sick, Alexander just needed an excuse to leave.

[But Alex...what about sister Lavina?" Alexander visibly flinched at the question before his jaw clenched.

"She will cry, obviously but honestly, I am done playing house with her. It is already getting a headache thinking about her tears at tommorow’s dinner but Stephanie the woman I truly love is you.”]

I didn’t sleep that night.

Not because of the monitors beeping softly beside me but because the silence inside me was louder than anything in the room.

I had loved Alexander Hamilton with every inch of myself.

And he had left me… for a dog.

No, not even that.

He had used it as an excuse to run back to the woman he chose again and again.

When the morning sun finally slipped through the blinds, I was already awake, dressing slowly. Mechanical. Detached.

The doctor entered with my discharge papers in hand, smiling gently. But I had no smile left to return.

“Could you… do something for me?” I asked, holding out a cream-colored envelope.

His brows furrowed slightly as he took it. “What is this?”

“My last gift to Alexander Hamilton.” I said, voice low

He opened it just a little. His eyes widened at the bold header: DIVORCE DECREE. Signed. Final.

“Lavina...what about the baby? You don’t have to rush-”

“My child deserves better.” I whispered. “From this moment on, we are done waiting for a man who never chose us.”

My phone beeped that moment.

[Damien Stone: Waiting for you. It's time we meet.]

Walking outside, the first thing I did was to drop all the birthday gifts from Alexander right into the thrashcan before taking out my sim and tossing it in the bin.

"Lets not meet ever again Mr.Hamilton."