"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.

Through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the banquet hall, the world inside looked like a golden, glittering fairy tale.

I knelt in the freezing mud outside, clutching the filthy ashes of my mother to my chest, and watched them.

On the grand stage, Jackson and Jessica stood at the center of it all, the picture-perfect billionaire couple.

Jackson raised his glass for a toast.

But as the cameras flashed, I saw his smile falter. His hand twitched, lowering the champagne flute.

He rubbed the center of his chest, his brow furrowing as a sudden, inexplicable panic seemed to grip him.

He scanned the back of the ballroom, his eyes darting toward the dark windows where the storm raged.

For a fraction of a second, it was as if his soul knew what he had just lost. It was as if the ghost of his murdered child had just brushed past him.

But then Jessica placed her manicured hand on his arm. She whispered something in his ear, her diamond ring catching the light, and Jackson’s mask of arrogant perfection slipped right back into place.

He didn't know yet. But he was about to.

The heavy double doors at the far end of the ballroom swung open.

A courier in a crisp, dark uniform walked down the center aisle, pushing a silver cart. Resting on top of the velvet cloth was a premium, oversized gift box wrapped in a thick, blood-red silk ribbon.

"Ladies and gentlemen, a special delivery!" the announcer beamed. He picked up the pristine white envelope resting on top of the box. "A wedding gift… from the sister of the bride."

A collective aww rippled through the crowd.

Jessica’s eyes lit up with a triumphant, wicked gleam. She thought I had broken. She thought this was my white flag, a public surrender from the pathetic, defeated sister who had finally learned her place.

She stepped down from the stage, her crimson dress trailing behind her. She approached the box, making sure the reporters had the perfect angle. With a graceful, theatrical pull, she untied the red silk ribbon.

She lifted the lid.

For one second, the ballroom was perfectly still.

Then, Jessica’s smile froze. The color instantly drained from her flawless face, leaving her as pale as a corpse. Her eyes widened to the point of tearing, locking onto the contents of the box.

A piercing, blood-curdling scream ripped from her throat.

She stumbled backward, her high heels twisting beneath her. She crashed into the silver cart, knocking the box onto its side.

The crowd gasped as the "gift" rolled out onto the pristine white marble floor.

It was a large, heavy glass jar.

It was filled to the brim with dark, clouded blood. And suspended within that crimson fluid was the unmistakable, fragile, heartbreaking form of an aborted fetus.

Pandemonium erupted.

Guests shrieked, covering their mouths in sheer horror. Glasses shattered against the floor. The reporters, driven by ruthless instinct, began snapping photos in a blinding frenzy of white flashes.

The announcer, trembling in shock, dropped the envelope. The heavy cardstock fluttered to the floor, landing right beside the jar.

The words, written in thick, dark blood, were facing upward, captured instantly by the zooming lenses of the press.

Someone in the front row read it aloud, their voice carrying over the chaos.

"Congratulations on your engagement, my dear husband, Jackson Ridge. Here is the child you killed."

The name echoed through the cavernous hall like a death knell.

On the stage, the man pretending to be Daniel Ridge stopped breathing.

Jackson stared down at the jar. He stared at the tiny, lifeless form of his own child, suspended in the blood he had forced out of my veins.

His reality shattered. The illusion of his dead brother's identity, the billions of dollars, the flawless escape—it all crumbled to dust under the blinding flashbulbs.

The press was already screaming the name Jackson, the realization of the greatest fraud in high society dawning on them in real-time.

Jackson fell to his knees on the edge of the stage, his hands gripping his hair, his mouth open in a silent scream of absolute, mind-breaking horror.

I didn't wait any longer.

I stood up from the mud. I picked up the heavy red metal canister I had taken from the crematorium's maintenance shed.

I walked to the front entrance of the banquet hall.

I kicked the heavy oak doors open with everything I had left.

The massive doors slammed against the walls, the sound cracking like a gunshot over the screaming crowd.

The ballroom fell into a dead, terrified silence. Hundreds of heads turned toward the entrance.

I stood in the doorway, a nightmare walking into their fairy tale.

I was drenched in the freezing rain. My hair was matted to my face.

In my left hand, I held the jagged, splintered remains of my mother's wooden urn, pressed tightly to my chest.

In my right hand, I held a heavy canister of gasoline.

Between my fingers, a red emergency flare sputtered and hissed, casting a violent, hellish glow over my pale face.

The crowd scrambled backward, parting like the Red Sea, leaving a clear, unobstructed path between me and the stage.

Jackson looked up.

"Monica..." he choked out, his voice trembling with a terror he had never known.

I uncapped the canister and let the gasoline pour out, the sharp, toxic smell flooding the lavish ballroom, pooling over the white marble and soaking into the velvet carpets.

I looked dead into my husband's eyes.

"You wanted to burn your past to be with her, Jackson?" I said, my voice echoing like a judge delivering a death sentence. "Fine. Let's burn it all to the ground."

I dropped the flare.