Shaina stood there, reckless and fearless, seemingly unaware of how close she was to danger. Yet, I had to admit there was a kind of bravery in her that I respected. She reminded me of who I used to be.

I laughed. "Want to die, is that it? I'll grant your wish."

The click of the gun chambering made her tremble. Then, in the next heartbeat, a blade sliced through the air and plunged into my arm.

I had never expected Duncan to strike me on her behalf.

Pain seared so hot I almost dropped the gun.

I clenched my teeth and refused to let go. Duncan sighed, stepped forward, and locked his hands on my wrist.

With a sound like breaking wood, he snapped my wrist.

"Lauren," he said, voice low and steady, "I told you, I will not give you another chance to hurt her. Be good. After the baby is born, I will come back and make this right."

The gun hit the floor with a high, sharp ring.

I pressed my hand to the bleeding wound and let out a hollow, broken laugh. "Duncan, there's no need. I already said I'll step aside. Just sign the papers. Let us both go."

He took a step back and shook his head.

His gaze was steady, but there was a sadness in it I could not read. Before either of us could say more, a loud sound came from behind us.

Shaina fell to her knees, clutching her belly and facing away. Only then did Duncan notice the bright red across her back. His hands shook as he lifted her shirt.

Her back was a raw, mangled map of flesh. Across it, carved deep and bleeding, were two words: 'Cheap slut.'

I had carved them myself, just before he burst in.

Duncan stared at me in disbelief. His voice went cold. "Lauren, you are insane. How dare you do that to her?"

I laughed and replied, "And why do you suppose your mistress could just stroll into my house, insult me to my face, and walk away untouched? You know me, Duncan. Two letters, that was me going easy, for your sake."

Veins stood out on his forehead. I could see he had reached his limit.

He growled, "Lauren, kneel. Apologize to Shaina, and I will pretend none of this ever happened."

Pretend? Why should I apologize?

I was the one who had been betrayed. I was the one who had been hurt.

Seething with anger, I laughed again, bent to pick up the fallen knife, and without hesitation lunged toward Shaina's belly.

In a flash, Duncan snatched a gun from one of the bodyguards and fired. The sound filled the room. I did not feel the tearing pain of a bullet. Looking down, I realized why. A tiny tranquilizer dart had lodged in my chest.

My vision blurred. A bitter smile touched my lips. So in the end, Duncan could not bring himself to kill me. If I had been in his place, I would not have been so merciful. I would have aimed straight for the heart.

When I regained consciousness, I found myself lying on an operating table. Bright surgical lights blinded me, making the room appear to swim around me. I attempted to move, but pain shot through my back as if the skin had been stripped away.

I looked up and met Shaina's triumphant eyes.

"Does it hurt, Lauren?" she said, the sweetness in her tone a lie. "Good. It should hurt."

Shaina then pulled down her gown and showed the bandages on her back.

"Duncan said you owed me," she went on. "So he had the doctors perform a skin graft without your permission."

She smiled, insolent. "Oh, and he told them not to give you any painkillers. He said you should feel what I felt."

She tilted her head, as if the thought were casual.

"Even the skin on my back? He cut it from your body. Sorry, his knife work is poor. Looks like your wound got worse than we thought."

Her arrogance stung.

That sort of confidence only comes from one thing: Duncan.

He was the one who had given her the power to stand there and mock me.

I didn't respond to her, but my heart sank, heavy and cold.

A skin graft surgery?

And he used my skin?

Right then, I remember the first year of our marriage.

Duncan and I went abroad on a business trip. Our location was accidentally exposed. An enemy faction laid an ambush at the hotel.

The moment I stepped out, someone lunged at me with a knife. Luckily, I reacted fast and dodged in time. Even so, the blade grazed my arm, peeling away a bit of skin.

It was hardly a wound and just a tiny scratch, but it had driven Duncan into a blind rage. That very night, he stormed the enemy stronghold with only three men by his side. The one who had injured him didn't even have time to scream before Duncan sliced off his right hand. Three men faced off against over a hundred, yet Duncan moved in and out like a ghost.

When I saw him again, he was lying in the ICU, bloodless and pale.

I cried until I couldn't breathe.

Then, he'd pulled me into his arms like it was nothing.

"Lauren, don't cry. As long as I'm here, no one will lay a finger on you. I will protect you for the rest of my life."

How ironic. The man who swore to protect me was the one who now cut my skin off with his own hands. I closed my eyes, my lips twitching with a voiceless laugh.

Shaina had lost her patience. She reached out, gently stroking the wound on my back.

The next second, her fingertip dug straight into my torn flesh. She wanted to hear me scream, to watch me writhe in pain. But what she didn't know was that a woman like me, who's danced on the edge of blades for half her life, would never let someone like her step on me.

A cold smile curled on my lips. I grabbed a fistful of Shaina's hair and slammed her head against the operating table.

"You?" I sneered. "You think you're worthy of laying a hand on me? Crushing you would be easier than squashing an ant. You're still alive only because I think you're filthy. I didn't want to stain my hands with trash like you."

I leaned closer, my smile growing colder by the second. "But now, I've changed my mind."

Then, I pinned Shaina down, picked up the surgical scalpel, and pressed the blade to her back. Her shrill screams echoed through the operating room as I sliced off the patch of skin that once belonged to me.

"Since Duncan gave you this without my consent, I don't think it's too much for me to take it back."

The door swung open with a loud crash. The man who had once stood by my side through blood and fire now rushed in like a knight rescuing his beloved princess. I couldn't tell if I felt sorrow or regret; I just stood there, stunned, watching as they fell into each other's arms.

Duncan shoved her behind him, grabbed the scalpel from my hand, and, without hesitation, stabbed it straight through my other palm.

Pain exploded through my body.

"Lauren!" he snapped. "I arranged that surgery to help you, to atone for what I owe you. Why must you keep making things worse?! If you really hate me that much, then kill me already. Stop hurting innocent people!"

He was ruthless enough to cripple my second hand that I could not form words through the pain.

"Lauren," he said darkly, "I didn't hold back because I love you. It's because I owe you. But my patience has limits. If there's a next time, I promise that it won't end with just your hands."

His eyes held a cruelty that was no longer theatrical; there was murder in them. I did not know whether to laugh or to weep.

But in that moment, I understood that the man who once knelt before me at eighteen, swearing to marry me, the man who would've given his life for me at twenty-eight, that man was dead.

Shaina clung to his sleeve, her voice trembling through her sobs. "Duncan, she's crazy. Let's not deal with her anymore. Take me away, please. I don't want anything else. I just want you."

In response, Duncan held her gently, his eyes filled with tenderness. "Alright. Wherever you want to go, I'll go with you."

Those were the exact words he had spoken to me ten years ago.

At eighteen, Duncan Moretti had nothing—no status or power—just one of my father's lowest goons.

And yet, inexplicably, I fell for him completely.

When my father discovered the truth, he locked me in my room. The window was three stories high, and I jumped without hesitation. As a result, I broke three ribs and a leg.

In the hospital, with stubbornness burning in my eyes, I grabbed his shirt and begged him to take me away. Duncan was gentle then, just as he pretended to be now.

Later, he told me he wanted to get ahead, to stop being looked down on. So I walked that path with him, all the way to where we are now.

The promises that Duncan had failed to keep for me would now be fulfilled for someone else.

It was unfortunate they never had the opportunity.

My people arrived quicker than I anticipated. The couple who had dreamed of escaping together found their hopes dashed and were trapped, unable to move.

Duncan's eyes were bloodshot as he shouted hoarsely at me.

"Lauren! If you've got the guts, kill me with them! Do whatever you want to me, but leave Shaina alone!"

I pulled out the scalpel and tossed it at his feet.

A faint smile ghosted across my pale face. "Duncan, you know the rules. If you hurt me, someone has to pay."

The black muzzle of a gun pointed straight at his face.

He looked calm, as if ready to die. Then, blood splattered. Three of his fingers, severed and still clutching the bloody blade, landed at my feet.

He looked up at me, his eyes hollow.

"Lauren, I've paid you back everything I owed. Now, can I take Shaina and leave?" he asked.

A sudden emptiness washed over me, as if none of it mattered anymore. I waved my hand and signaled for the guns to be lowered. Let them go.

As they passed in the doorway, I smiled. "Duncan, you'd better take her and disappear. Far away. If I ever see either of you again, I'll make sure she begs for death."

I believed he would listen.

After all, from the moment my father plucked him off the street, obedience had been drilled into his bones. Still, I never expected him to bring Shaina back to the house we once shared.

It was the first home we bought together, small but full of memories. Even after years of vacancy, I could never bring myself to sell it.

Now, it has become their love nest.

Duncan had prepared everything for Shaina and the baby. The crib we had once dreamed about—after countless nights of imagining it—was built by his own hands. He packed up all of my things and threw them out to make space.

In the meantime, Shaina filmed the entire process and shared the video on her social media like a trophy.

I watched Duncan clear away our past with a blank expression.

My heart, though numbed, still ached.

At the end of the video, he picked up a wooden box and smashed it against the floor.

My breath stopped, pain tearing through me, as if my organs were glass.

He needed to know what was inside, because that wooden box was our child's urn—the same urn I had clutched while sobbing until I passed out.

After a long while, hands shaking, I tapped the little heart on the video.

Just as I had done that, Shaina called me on video.

"Oops, sorry, Lauren! I didn't mean to make you cry again!" she said, laughing. "Duncan says things from dead babies are bad luck. I'm going to feed it to the dogs later."

Her mockery cut through the screen.

I laughed coldly. "You try it. See if I don't kill you where you stand."

But Shaina only smiled.

"Lauren, Duncan's worried you'll come after me and the baby again. So he's put over a hundred people on guard. He bought the whole building—every floor. Everyone inside is ours. You might be dangerous, but I don't think even you can break through now."

"Oh, by the way," Shaina added casually, "there's something I've always been curious about… You didn't really think it was you who got rid of that bastard child in your belly, did you?"

The camera flipped, revealing the corridor outside, packed wall to wall with bodyguards.

Duncan truly did love her. But she had overestimated him, and she had underestimated me.

Thirty minutes later, I cut a bloody path through the building.

When I kicked the door in, drenched in blood, Duncan was inside, his hands busy giving Shaina a massage. The moment he saw me, he instinctively shielded her in his arms.

His gaze held nothing but pure disgust.

"Lauren, when will you stop? How long do you plan to keep pestering me? Look at yourself, do you even look like a woman anymore? You're disgusting. Don't think that chasing me all the way here means I'll go back with you. Either kill me, or get the hell out."

I had no interest in listening to more of his nonsense. I raised my arm and fired the gun. A bullet tore through his shoulder, and he cried out in pain.

The barrel of my gun was now pressed between his brows.

I studied the stunned, disbelieving look in his eyes, but my voice was cold as death.

"Duncan. I'm giving you one chance to tell the truth. How. Did. My. Baby. Die?"