“It’s pathetic how easy it is to manipulate people who love you.”

Jessica’s recorded voice echoed in the dead, heavy silence of the study.

I looked up from the phone, my eyes locking onto the man sitting behind the massive mahogany desk.

I knew he was Jackson. I knew he had faked his death in that yacht explosion, stolen his dead twin brother's identity, and orchestrated my entire living nightmare. But in my desperate, bleeding heart, I clung to one final, pathetic shred of hope.

We had been together for ten years. Ten years of shared meals, whispered secrets, and a life built side-by-side. I remembered the way he used to hold me when I was sick, brushing the hair from my forehead.

I remembered the way he promised he would always protect me from my family's coldness, swearing I would never be second best again.

Surely, that man wasn't entirely gone. Surely, the man I loved couldn't look at the undeniable proof of my mother's murder and let the killer walk free.

I dropped to my knees on the thick Persian carpet.

"Please," I begged, my voice cracking, tears threatening to spill. "Jackson... I know it's you. I don't care about the fake death. I don't care about the money, or the divorce, or even that you want her instead of me. Just help me. She killed my mother. You heard her."

He didn't flinch at his real name. He didn't show a single ounce of shock, guilt, or remorse.

He just stared at me. And in his eyes, I saw nothing but utter, chilling disgust.

He stood up slowly, walked around the desk, and stopped in front of me. He reached down and plucked the phone from my shaking fingers.

"You're hysterical, Monica," he said, his voice as flat and cold as a tombstone.

Before I could comprehend his movement, he turned to the crystal water pitcher resting on his desk. He picked up a half-full glass of water and, without breaking eye contact with me, dropped my phone straight into it.

"No!" I lunged forward, but he shoved me back by my shoulder.

I watched in horror as the screen flickered, short-circuited, and died beneath the water. The only evidence of my mother's murder. The only justice I had left. Gone in a single second.

"Your mother was a crazy old woman who lost her footing," Jackson said coldly, adjusting his expensive cuffs. "She slipped. The police already ruled it a tragic accident. I will not have you in my house slandering Jessica to cover up your own grief."

I stared at him, the betrayal slicing through me so deeply I couldn't breathe. "She confessed... You heard her..."

"I heard nothing but a grieving daughter's fabricated audio," he sneered, looking down at me like I was trash on his shoe.

Before I could speak, the heavy oak doors of the study swung open.

Jessica stood there, clutching her chest. The moment she saw me on the floor, her eyes widened in mock terror. She let out a breathless, dramatic gasp, her knees buckling slightly as she shrank back against the doorframe.

"Daniel!" she cried out, tears instantly pooling in her wide, innocent eyes. "Keep her away from me! She—she tried to attack me in the hallway! She blames me for Mom's death!"

She stumbled forward and collapsed into Jackson's arms, burying her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking with violent, fake sobs.

Jackson wrapped his arms around her immediately. His face softened into the gentle, fiercely protective look that used to belong entirely to me. He stroked her hair, pressing a kiss to her temple.

Then, his eyes snapped back to me, turning back to ice.

"Apologize to her," he demanded.

I froze. The blood of my mother was still dried into the fabric of my pants, stiff and dark against my knees. "What?"

"Get on your knees and apologize to your sister," he ordered, his voice echoing off the wood-paneled walls. "You terrified her. You accused her of the unthinkable."

"She killed my mother!" I screamed, my voice tearing my throat raw. "I will never apologize to a murderer!"

"You have no power here, Monica," he said, his tone dropping to a dangerous, lethal whisper. "The Hollden estate is currently frozen pending the investigation. I control the funds. I control the funeral arrangements. If you don't get on your knees and beg Jessica for forgiveness right now, I will have your mother's body thrown into a pauper's grave."

"An unmarked, mass plot," he continued ruthlessly. "No headstone. No funeral. No dignity. She will rot in the dirt with the nameless, and you will never know where she is buried."

I looked at Jackson. The man I had loved for a decade. The father of the child growing inside me. He wasn't just a cheat or a liar. He was a monster.

I looked at Jessica. She was peeking over his shoulder, a triumphant, wicked smirk playing on her lips while she continued to fake her quiet sobs.

My legs gave out completely.

The fight drained out of my body, replaced by a crushing, suffocating despair. I couldn't let my mother be thrown away like trash. I couldn't let her final rest be a desecration. She had paid for her mistakes with her life. She deserved a grave.

Slowly, agonizingly, I lowered myself to the floor.

The carpet scratched against my knees. The same knees stained with my mother's blood.

I wrapped my arms around my stomach, trying to protect the tiny life inside me from the sheer evil in this room.

"I'm... sorry," I choked out, staring at the floor, my spirit shattering into dust.

"Louder," Jackson snapped. "And look at her."

I lifted my head. My vision was blurred with tears, but I could clearly see the absolute victory in my sister's eyes. She had taken my parents, my husband, my life, and now, my dignity.

"I'm sorry, Jessica," I sobbed, the words tasting like ash and bile in my mouth.

"That's better," Jackson said coldly, turning his back on me to comfort the murderer in his arms. "Now get out of my sight."

"Jackson is dead. Don't use a bastard child to guilt me into hurting Jessica."

The slap echoed sharply off the sterile white walls of the hospital corridor. I stumbled back, my frail body colliding with the cold metal of a medical cart.

I slowly raised my hand to my cheek, staring at the man standing in front of me.

Just an hour ago, back at the estate, Jessica had suddenly collapsed onto the drawing-room sofa, clutching her stomach and putting on a flawless performance of agony.

She claimed the "stress" of my "attack" had caused her stomach ulcer to rupture. She wailed that she was bleeding internally, that she felt faint, that she was dying.

It was a lie. But Jackson hadn't hesitated. He had scooped her up in his arms, his face pale with genuine panic. And then, he had turned his lethal glare on me.

My blood type was a rare, perfect match for Jessica. I had been her personal blood bank since we were children.

When the nurses had tried to prep me for the draw, the sheer terror of losing the only piece of my family I had left finally broke through my frozen numbness. I had tried to stop him. I had grabbed his tailored sleeve, my eyes wide with desperate, pleading panic.

“I can’t! I'm pregnant with your—”

"And I will not let you use some bastard child from your dead husband to avoid your responsibility. You caused this. You will fix it."

"Mr. Ridge," the attending nurse interrupted, her voice trembling slightly as she looked at my pale, sunken face. "She's severely malnourished. Her blood pressure is dangerously low. Drawing the amount Miss Hollden is requesting could put her into hypovolemic shock. Especially if she is pregnant—"

"Draw it," Jackson commanded, not even glancing in my direction. "My fiancée needs it. Take whatever she needs."

I didn't fight anymore.

I stared blankly at the ceiling tiles as the thick needle pierced the fragile vein in my arm.

The machine beside me began to hum. I watched the dark red liquid travel through the clear plastic tubing, leaving my body to fill the collection bag.

It was the blood that was supposed to be nourishing my baby. It was my life force, being siphoned away to fuel the woman who had murdered my mother.

Minutes bled into hours. The bag filled, heavy and dark.

My vision began to blur at the edges. A freezing, bone-deep cold seeped into my extremities. My fingers went numb, and a loud, rhythmic rushing sound filled my ears.

Suddenly, the door to the adjacent VIP suite flew open. Another nurse rushed out, looking frantic.

"Mr. Ridge! Miss Hollden is crying. The IV needle pinched her vein when she moved, and she's very distressed."

"Jessica," he breathed.

He didn't even look at me. He didn't check the monitor to see that my heart rate was plummeting. He just turned on his heel and sprinted into her room, desperate to soothe a minor needle prick on the woman who had destroyed my life.

The attending nurse finally stopped the machine, looking at me with deep, pitying sorrow. She bandaged my arm and whispered that I needed to rest, that I shouldn't stand up yet. But she was quickly called away to assist with Jessica's "emergency."

I was left completely alone in the sterile, freezing room.

I needed to get out. I couldn't breathe the same air as them anymore.

I pushed myself up from the chair. The room violently tilted. Black spots danced across my vision, and my legs felt like they were made of lead. I stumbled out of the room, bracing my hand against the freezing corridor wall to keep from collapsing.

I made it halfway down the empty, echoing hallway.

And then, it happened.

A sharp, tearing cramp ripped through my lower abdomen.

It was a pain so sudden and so violent that it knocked the breath straight out of my lungs. I gasped, my knees buckling instantly. I hit the cold linoleum floor hard, my hands instinctively flying to my stomach.

"No," I whispered into the empty hallway. "No, please. Not you too. Please."

Another cramp hit, sharper and deeper than the last. It felt like my very insides were being clawed out.

I curled into a tight ball on the floor, shivering uncontrollably. The blinding fluorescent lights above me flickered, buzzing like a swarm of angry hornets.

Then, I felt the wet, terrifying warmth.

It slipped down my thighs, soaking into the fabric of my skirt.

I slowly pulled my trembling hand away from my legs and held it up to the harsh hospital light.

My fingers were coated in bright, fresh blood.

Not the blood they had stolen for Jessica. This was different. This was the end of my final reason to live.

I pressed my bloody hands against my face. I didn't scream. I didn't cry for help. The nurses were all in the VIP suite, comforting Jessica over a bruised vein. Jackson was holding her hand, kissing her tears away.

And I was lying on the cold, dirty floor of a hospital hallway, bleeding out the only piece of my heart I had left.

I closed my eyes, the freezing void inside me finally swallowing me whole.

“There is no heartbeat.”

I stared at the blank ultrasound screen in the sterile hospital room. My womb was as empty as my chest. The tiny life I had tried so desperately to protect had been flushed away on a cold linoleum floor, stolen by the man who had promised to love me forever.

I discharged myself against medical advice.

My body ached with a hollow, throbbing gravity. Every step felt like walking on broken glass. The IV puncture wound on my arm was bruised a deep, sickly purple. But I couldn't stay in that bed.

Today was my mother’s cremation.

The sky outside was a bruised, weeping gray. Freezing rain lashed against the pavement, turning the city into a bleak, washed-out painting.

I dragged my bleeding, broken body up the stone steps of the funeral home.

I expected silence. I expected the solemn, quiet grief of a crematorium.

Instead, I was blinded by flashbulbs.

Through the glass doors of the adjacent banquet hall, champagne flutes clinked. Laughter echoed over the smooth jazz playing from hidden speakers.

A massive, gold-lettered banner hung over the grand entrance: Celebrating the Engagement of Daniel Ridge and Jessica Hollden.

I stopped, the freezing rain soaking through my thin coat.

They had hijacked my mother’s funeral venue.

Jackson and Jessica were using the Hollden family tragedy as a backdrop for their triumph. They were seamlessly pivoting the press's attention from a sudden, suspicious death to a billionaire's whirlwind romance.

I ignored the flashing cameras and walked past the banquet hall, heading for the dark, forgotten crematorium wing in the back.

The room was cold and entirely empty.

Sitting alone on a cheap metal table was a small, plain wooden urn. Jackson controlled the funds. He had threatened to throw her in a mass grave, and this cheap box was his twisted compromise. It was all that remained of the woman who had died in my arms.

I slowly reached out, my trembling fingers brushing the rough wood.

"I wouldn't touch that if I were you."

I didn't flinch. I slowly turned around.

Jessica stepped out of the shadows. She was wearing a stunning, backless crimson dress—a stark, mocking contrast to the mourning black she should have been wearing for the woman who raised her.

Two massive, suited bodyguards flanked her.

She looked me up and down, her eyes lingering on my pale face and the dried blood still staining the hem of my skirt.

"I heard the news," Jessica smiled, a sweet, poisonous curve of her lips. "Such a tragedy. A miscarriage in a public hallway. You couldn't even keep a bastard child alive."

I didn't react. I just looked at her.

"It’s really for the best," Jessica sighed, stepping closer, her expensive perfume masking the smell of the crematorium. "Jackson and I don't need any loose ends. A baby would have just complicated the inheritance. Just like we didn't need that stupid old woman."

She glanced at the wooden urn on the table. Her eyes darkened with a sudden, vicious cruelty.

"Take it," she ordered.

Before I could move, one of the bodyguards shoved me aside. I hit the floor hard, my weakened body unable to resist the force.

The other bodyguard grabbed the urn.

"Jessica, don't," I whispered. My voice was a dry, broken rasp.

"Throw it out," she commanded.

The bodyguard walked to the open side doors leading to the back alleyway. The rain was pouring down in sheets, turning the dirt path into a thick, filthy sludge.

He raised the urn high above his head and slammed it down onto the concrete steps.

The cheap wood splintered with a sharp crack. A cloud of pale gray dust exploded into the damp air, instantly catching the wind.

Jessica laughed.

She stepped forward, her expensive red heels crunching over the broken wood. With a graceful, deliberate swing of her leg, she kicked the remaining pile of ashes straight off the steps and into the muddy rain.

The downpour hit the ashes, instantly turning my mother into a gray, unrecognizable sludge in the dirt.

"Enjoy the funeral, Monica," Jessica sneered, turning on her heel. "Don't forget to wash your hands before you leave."

Her laughter faded down the hall, swallowed by the cheering crowd in the banquet hall.

I lay on the cold floor.

I didn't scream. I didn't cry.

My soul simply died.

I crawled forward, dragging my body out the open doors and into the freezing rain. The mud instantly soaked through my clothes, chilling me to the bone.

I fell to my knees in the dirt.

My hands were bruised and shaking. The bandage on my arm tore open, bleeding fresh red drops that mixed with the gray mud.

I dug my fingers into the freezing sludge. I desperately scraped the wet, muddy ashes from the dirt, gathering whatever I could find. Dirt, rocks, water, and bone dust—I scooped it all up in my bleeding hands.

I pressed the cold, filthy mud to my chest, holding my mother against my empty womb.

I knelt there in the storm, covered in blood and ashes, and looked up.

Through the large glass windows of the banquet hall, I saw him.

Jackson was standing on a brightly lit stage. He was holding a microphone, smiling handsomely down at Jessica as she walked up to join him in her crimson dress. He wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. The crowd erupted into applause.

I looked at the man I had loved for ten years. The man I had mourned. The man who had drained my blood, killed my baby, and covered up my mother's murder.

The love inside me didn't shatter. It didn't burn.

It just evaporated.

It vanished into the freezing rain, replaced by a chilling, dead emptiness. A void so vast and so cold that it swallowed every ounce of fear, grief, and pain I had left.