Hayden sneered. "Did you really think Wendy was penniless when you built your little startup back then?"

I looked at Wendy in disbelief. My lips trembled.

"What… what does he mean by that?"

Wendy's expression turned cold. She looked at me with disgust. "So what if I supported him a little? He was young. He doesn't have a family to back him up."

I thought back to all the drinking at dinner parties, all the hospital visits I'd made, and all the surgeries I'd undergone.

It was all proof of my efforts to give her a better life.

I had always thought she was struggling and didn't want to burden me.

But the truth was that she had already fallen for someone else, even going so far as to spend a fortune on one of Hayden's projects.

I couldn't believe it. I had been pursuing Wendy for ten years, but she had already betrayed me nine years ago.

I forced myself to focus. Saving my mom was the only thing that mattered.

The doctor showed me a notification on his phone.

Her oxygen levels had temporarily increased, but her heart rate was still dropping.

I glared at Wendy. "I've already apologized. When are you going to save her?"

Wendy looked at me as if I were a joke.

"When did I ever say I was going to save her? Keeping her oxygen on is already me being generous."

My head went blank.

"You promised me! You said that if I apologized, you would treat her!" I screamed.

Ignoring the pain in my body, I crawled toward her and grabbed her pants. "Wendy, please. Don't do this. My mom has been nothing but kind to you. Just help her this once! Please!"

A sharp slap cut through the air.

"Who do you think you are, Finn? Did you really think you could order me around?" she growled. "Whether your mother lives or dies has nothing to do with me. She should've known this day would come the moment she called Hayden a homewrecker."

As if he had just received permission, Hayden stepped forward and kicked me hard.

My head hit shattered glass. Blood immediately started pooling on the floor.

Wendy stared at me for a couple of seconds, then withdrew her outstretched hand.

I was desperate to save my mom, but I couldn't move.

Hayden wasn't done. He approached me and looked down at me, then stomped on my chest. Blood spilled from my mouth. It even began to ooze from my eyes and nose.

"Look at him, Wendy. What should I do with him?"

Wendy hummed a response. "Do whatever you want. You can practice on him if you like."

She was letting Hayden treat me like a test subject.

I struggled to speak. "L-Let me go."

"You want to leave? Fine," Hayden snorted. "This watch looks decent. Give it to me as payment."

My gaze landed on the old watch on my wrist. I'd had it since my company was founded.

Wendy had used three months of her salary to get it for me.

"As long as the watch keeps ticking, I'll love you forever," she said.

It had been running perfectly for ten years, but somewhere along the way, she had changed her mind.

I held onto it for dear life, refusing to let Hayden touch it. "No! Don't touch it!"

Wendy walked over when she saw us struggling.

"It's just a broken watch. Why are you protecting it like that?" she said, forcefully prying my hand open. She ripped the watch off and threw it into a nearby trash bin.

"Hayden, if you like watches, I'll get you a Patek Philippe. We don't need this junk."

She had clearly forgotten that our names were engraved on the watch.

I gritted my teeth and glared at her. "Have you really forgotten about that watch?"

Wendy looked at me hesitantly, then walked over to the watch. She lowered her gaze. The worn back revealed the deep engraving: "WLFK."

Her expression faltered, but Hayden noticed it and pulled her into his arms. "Wendy, my hand hurts. Look."

Sure enough, Wendy's attention shifted to him. She took out some antiseptic and carefully dabbed it on his hand.

"You're so careless. What if you get a scar on your pretty hands?" she scolded.

Wendy's face darkened as she turned back to me.

"You're just a spoiled rich kid, Finn. You're only doing this to get my sympathy," she spat. "You could never understand Hayden.

"When he was in college, your mom rejected his graduate application. She looked down on him for being an orphan! She deserves everything that's happening to her now."

That was when I finally understood everything. She was doing all this to avenge Hayden.

But that had nothing to do with my mom.

Hayden was skipping classes, fighting, and causing trouble at school. His record was a mess.

My mom rejected him for a valid reason. Yet he even went so far as to report her for keeping a male college student as a lover.

If my company hadn't already started turning around and if I hadn't had the money to hire lawyers for the case, my mom's reputation would've been completely destroyed because of him.

I lost the will to argue when I noticed how Wendy only listened to Hayden.

He walked up to me and forced me to listen to him. "Don't you get why Wendy hasn't divorced you all these years? It's because she was helping me get revenge. Do you have any idea how satisfying it is to hear her scream my name in bed?

"Also, I caused your father's death. I told him you'd been kidnapped. If he hadn't panicked, he wouldn't have run a red light."

Back then, my dad believed a rumor and drove up the mountain in a blizzard. I had always thought it was just an accident.

My eyes were bloodshot as I stared at him.

I could no longer control the twisted look on my face. "Hayden! I want you six feet under just like my dad!"

I used all my strength to pull myself up.

I reached for the shattered glass and tried to stab him with it, but the moment I picked it up, the attending physician stopped me.

"Mr. Kirkland, your mother just flatlined!"