I casually picked up the baseball bat leaning against the wall and swung it hard at his leg.

The crack of bone mixed with his screams, yet not a bit of pity rose in me. I enjoyed his pain, as if it were a song for my broken love.

Before the second hit could land, the door flew open. A cold wind rushed in, filled with anger.

The dark mouth of a gun aimed at me, and Athena’s voice cut through like ice.

“Waylon, let him go. I don’t want things between us to get uglier than they already are!”

With one hand, she held the gun; with the other, she pulled him close into her arms.

Her eyes softened, her voice turning gentle.

“Don’t be afraid, I’m here.”

A familiar line. Ten years ago, walking through blood toward my broken self, she had said those same words.

I laughed through the tears. “And if I say no?”

She laughed too.

“You’ve already taken his child, that’s enough. Let him go. Let’s act like nothing happened. That’s the best ending we’ll ever get.”

I knew her too well, and I could see the killing intent hidden under her smile; she truly wanted me dead.

Along this road, we had supported each other, and she had once poured all her tenderness into me, almost making me forget how many bodies she had stepped over to reach where she stood today.

No anger, only shame. I grabbed her hand and pressed the gun against my forehead.

“Do it then, kill me!”

“Athena, you know my nature. If I walk out alive today, you’d better be ready to collect the corpse of your pretty boy!”

The sharp click of a bullet being chambered cut through the air.

Athena’s bloodshot eyes locked on me as her fingers tightened around my throat.

“You think I don’t dare?”

“I can let go of the child’s matter, but him, you cannot touch!”

“Waylon, don’t push me!”

I stared back at her with a blank face.

The tense standoff broke with the sudden shrill ring of a phone. Athena let go of me and pressed answer.

When she hung up, her smile softened once more.

She gently stroked Nolan’s head, her eyes brimming with doting affection.

“The child is fine. You’ve caused enough trouble. Leave now, and don’t come back again.”

Nolan’s eyes were bloodshot as he limped toward the door.

A single dismissive sentence, as if to end everything, far too easy.

I lifted my chin, and the bodyguards instantly blocked Nolan’s path.

Athena shot me a cold glance.

Between us, a single look was enough; our tacit understanding needed no words.

Then her lips curved faintly as she beckoned Nolan over. “Come, apologize to Waylon before you leave.”

He stiffened, resentment and grievance clouding his face. Yet he still obeyed, moving reluctantly to stand before me.

He bowed.

“Mr. Gasper, I was too impulsive. I came at you without knowing the truth.”

“Hurting you was my fault. But you also lost a child, you should understand how I feel, right?”

“A father who can’t even protect his own child, what difference is there between that and trash?”

He called it an apology, but every word was a blade to the chest.

I raised my hand and struck him hard across the face.

“The last person who dared speak to me like that, their bones have long since rotted away!”

“How many lives do you think you have, to provoke me so recklessly?”

Nolan clutched his face, crying like a wounded deer on the verge of death.

I sneered and delivered another backhanded slap, the sharp crack echoing through the room.

Nolan stood unharmed, yet I collapsed to the ground.

Athena stepped forward, her heel grinding mercilessly into my hand. Her coldness was so foreign it pierced straight into my bones.

“I told you, don’t touch him!”

“Waylon, why must you cling to an innocent and refuse to let go?”

My face was swollen from the slaps, my mouth heavy with the taste of blood. A bloody smile spread across my lips.

Over the years, no fewer than a hundred people had fallen by my hands.

She knew I was never one to let things slide, yet she also knew I would never harm the innocent.

Athena gave me no chance to speak. She kicked me aside, lifted Nolan into her arms, and walked away.

When the bodyguards rushed to help me up, pain shook me to the core. Meeting their puzzled gazes, I managed a helpless smile.

Only when I turned did they see the knife buried in my back.

A slap alone could never have left me so fragile. But when I fell, by sheer chance, I landed right onto the dagger lying on the ground.

The doctor said the wound was only an inch from my heart. A little deeper, and I would have died right there before Athena’s eyes.

After the wound was stitched, I refused the doctor’s advice to stay in the hospital, since even three stabs back then hadn’t kept me down, walking on the knife’s edge had long been my habit.

When I returned to the villa, Athena was waiting on the sofa in the living room. She lit a cigarette and signaled for me to sit across from her, then after a long drag, she looked at me with a half-smile.

“When my son came home, three of his fingers were broken!”

I raised my eyes toward the bodyguard, who lowered his head, not daring to meet my gaze. I let out a cold laugh.

“My men were careless. So what, does Athena want me to pay with three fingers of my own?”

Athena laughed too, but her smile was as sharp as a blade.

“Nolan blamed himself so much that he tried to jump off a building. When I stopped him, I fell down the stairs, and the child in my belly was gone.”

“Waylon, this was my second child, and he was killed by you. Don’t you think you should apologize to him as well?”

I snatched the cigarette from her hand and lit one for myself. In the smoke, I laughed, empty of remorse.

“You should know, me not doing it myself was mercy enough. Just a bastard, nothing more. Dead is dead. Or do you still expect me to pay with my life, Athena?”

I told someone to bring the divorce papers and pushed them across to her.

“Either sign the divorce papers,” I said, “or between you and him, one of you must die. Surely Athena can choose without my teaching?”

Athena laughed, tore the papers to pieces, and tossed her phone in front of me. “I knew you wouldn’t apologize.”

“No matter. I prepared a big gift for you!”

“Waylon, I had someone pull your brother’s oxygen tube!”

I froze, unable to take in her words. On the screen, my brother, fighting for breath, slammed into me and shredded whatever was left of my calm.

My only brother had been in a hospital bed for three years, and Athena knew the reason better than anyone.

The gang fight three years ago was merciless; of everyone Athena brought, only she and my brother survived.

They tied them to the top of a water tank over ten meters high and forced me to choose: whoever I didn’t pick would be dropped to drown, the other I could take away.

Everyone expected me to choose my brother; he was my blood, my last kin, but my hands shook as I pointed to Athena; keeping her alive had become my obsession.

I'll never forget my brother's look then, hopeless and without blame.

By the time our men broke the tank, he had already suffered brain damage from the drowning.

Athena found the best doctor, put a gun to his head, and forced him to save my brother.

The doctor had said the chance of the coma patient waking was slim, but as long as life hung by a thread, there was always hope, and she had sworn she'd care for my brother forever, yet now, for another man, she had cut that thread herself.

I pulled out a gun, aimed at her head, and fired. She didn't move, and I didn't hit her; my hand shook so badly that the bullet only grazed her cheek, leaving a red streak.

Athena calmly wiped the blood away. "Waylon, if you really wanted to kill someone, don't tremble!"

"Don't act so surprised, and don't hate me. Do wrong, pay the price. You killed my child, I killed your brother, fair, isn't it?"

Fair? What right did she have to talk about fairness? She betrayed me. She was the one who sent me to hell.

Athena bent down and kissed away the tears slipping from the corner of my eyes.

"Waylon, you should be more sensible!"

"I won’t divorce you, but I will give him a wedding and make his identity public!"

"This is what you owe her; you should repay it!"

But what she owed me, how could she ever repay?

She left in such a rush that she never noticed. Behind her, my eyes burned red, filled with nothing but hatred.

I had already given her chances. Since we could not divorce, the only path left was widowhood.

Those who betrayed true feelings did not deserve a good ending.

The wedding came even faster than I had imagined. My brother’s bones were barely cold when the invitation arrived.

Nolan delivered it himself, flanked by dozens of bodyguards. "Waylon, what’s the use of dragging your feet and refusing to divorce? Athena will still marry me!"

"All you have is a piece of paper; what I have is her heart!"

He smiled gently, a strange, mocking edge on his face, while I didn't even look up, I kept feeding the fish.

Nolan reached out, grabbed my hand, and snatched the fish food; he didn't wait, but with a smug look, he had someone bring a gift box. "Waylon, this is a present I specially prepared for you."

I lifted the lid, and my breath stopped. Inside were three blood-stained fingers, with my brother's mark. "Waylon doesn't know yet, but actually, your brother has already woken up, right?"

"These fingers were cut off while he was conscious!"

"He cried so badly; before he died, he kept begging Athena to let him see you one more time!"

I smashed the fish tank with my bare hands and grabbed a shard of glass to stab at him.

The men he'd brought held me down tight. Athena had loved him madly, and she had sent her best men.

He relished my boundless hatred and helplessness, his smile growing even more triumphant.

“Waylon, in love, the one who is not loved is nothing but a mistress. You lost long ago!”

“Do you know when you first began losing?”

He bent down, his lips grazing my ear, and something inside me went cold.

I knew our relationship had long since rotted, but I hadn’t expected the truth to cut this deep.