Murdering Love

The year we loved each other most, Alexander Hughes took a bullet for me, had his legs shattered, and nearly lost his life.

I hid the truth from him, trading my own life for his, only to be branded by others as a filthy woman who had been passed around by countless men.

But in the year we hated each other most, Alexander forced me to have an abortion, cut off every path of survival for my family—just to make his childhood sweetheart smile.

I refused to give in. I fought back tooth for tooth, leaving Alexander besieged from all sides.

We should have been lovers for a lifetime, yet we became enemies locked in endless schemes.

Three years later, at a Hughes family banquet, Alexander walked in with Isabella Reed, heavily pregnant, yet his gaze lingered only on me.

“The Hughes family banquet isn’t something just any stray cat or dog can walk into.”

Stray cat or dog? Was he talking about me?

By seniority, he should be calling me aunt.

The moment Alexander spoke, the room fell silent.

When I said nothing, he released Isabella’s hand.

“What right do you have to be here?”

“With your status now, do you deserve to stand in the Hughes family’s hall?”

What didn’t I deserve?

I was no longer the woman everyone spat on and scorned three years ago.

I swept my gaze over the crowd.

“No one here dares say I don’t belong.”

It was the truth.

But Alexander took it as provocation.

He strode toward me, seized my wrist, and dragged me toward the door.

“I said you don’t belong—so you don’t.”

His steps quickened, his grip bruising my wrist.

As we passed, Isabella suddenly let out a cry and collapsed to the side.

“Claire, how could you push me?”

Alexander panicked at once.

“You venomous woman, I knew you came here today with ill intent.”

With a violent shove, he threw me aside as if I were trash.

All eyes turned toward us.

He rushed to cradle Isabella, who sobbed in his arms.

“Alexander, I can’t believe it’s been three years and Claire still won’t let me go.”

The onlookers wore mixed expressions.

Alexander, busy comforting Isabella, didn’t notice I had walked back to stand before them.

I looked down on them from above.

Thinking I meant to strike again, Alexander shielded Isabella.

“What are you trying to do now?”

But I merely glanced at them, expressionless, then walked past and returned to my seat.

Everyone was stunned.

They had expected me to erupt like I had three years ago.

After all, I had once loved Alexander madly.

Back then, everyone knew I was his most cherished treasure, his goddess.

He had even taken a bullet for me, endured kidnapping and humiliation, nearly dying in the process.

And I, too, had given him everything.

But all of that changed the moment Isabella returned from abroad.

Her presence turned our love into a cruel joke—made me into the cruelest joke of all.

So when Alexander appeared with Isabella, pregnant and glowing, the others were already waiting for a spectacle.

What had just happened only stoked their eagerness for drama.

Yet while I sat there calm and composed, Alexander grew restless.

Why had I changed?

Isabella, seeing his eyes still fixed on me, suddenly spoke.

“Alexander, my stomach hurts. Claire must have come here to harm our child.”

At her words, his agitation flared alive once more.

Yes—that must be it.