Five months after my husband, Ian Goldman, is declared dead, my mother-in-law takes me to the hospital.

She registers me for an induced abortion. With reddened and tearful eyes, she tries to persuade me to terminate my pregnancy.

She says, "Sofia, he's gone. You have to move on with your life. End the pregnancy now, and I'll find you a good husband."

I clutch the consent form in my hand without saying a word.

Then, all of a sudden, a childish voice rings in my ears. "Mom! Don't get rid of me! Dad isn't dead at all!"

I freeze like I've been hit by a bolt of lightning. The abortion form slips from my fingers and falls to the floor.

"Dad is at the care center in the suburbs of the city. They're almost done brainwashing him into becoming someone else's husband! In our previous life, you believed Grandma and never went to find Dad. I was never born.

"When Dad eventually learned the truth, he almost lost his mind!"

Without a second thought, I rush to the care center with my heavily pregnant belly.

Just as a nurse stops me outside a training room, I see a woman holding Ian's hand.

She is speaking to him in a gentle voice. "Don't be nervous, Captain Goldman. You can only start over once you forget the people from your past."

I lift my foot and kick the tightly shut door wide open with a loud bang.

I barreled into the room, with one hand on my pregnant belly. "Ian Goldman, get your hands off her!"

The crash of the door slamming open startled the two people inside, causing them to jolt apart.

My eyes were red as I stared at the man in the hospital gown in front of me, now so thin and haggard that he was barely recognizable. My heart twisted so badly that I trembled from the pain.

However, the image of Jessica Shaw holding his hand just now was like fuel on the fire raging in my chest. It blew apart the last of my rationality.

I closed in on Ian step by step, my voice shaking, but every single word as sharp as a knife. "I spent five whole months searching for you under unbearable pressure, and I cried myself dry over you. But what have you been doing? You've been hiding out here, getting all cozy with another woman!"

Ian looked like he'd been struck by lightning the moment he saw me. He panicked and tried to yank his hand back, but all he did was knock over the glass of water on the table. It fell and shattered across the floor.

He stared at me with wide eyes, a wild, dizzy joy flooding his gaze. It was as if he'd found something he thought he'd lost forever.

But the next second, his eyes dropped and fixed themselves on my huge baby bump. He braced himself on the coffee table and dragged himself to his feet, his veins bulging at his temples.

He forced a few broken, hoarse syllables out of his ruined throat. "Whose… baby… is… it?"

The question was like a knife straight through my heart. I was carrying his child, his flesh and blood, and the very first thing he asked when we finally reunited was whose baby it was?

In my head, my son's childish voice exploded in a furious roar.

[I'm so mad that I could explode! That bad lady messed up Dummy Daddy's brain! Don't cry, Mommy. It's not Daddy's fault! It's all that Jessica woman's fault! Daddy thinks he's been missing for almost two years. Jessica told him you took the firm's death compensation and remarried long ago. He thinks you're pregnant with someone else's kid!]

My overwhelming hurt instantly crystallized into bone-deep rage. My cold gaze locked straight onto Jessica.

She finally recovered from the shock and stepped forward, putting herself between Ian and me, the perfect picture of professional calm. "Ma'am, I need you to leave. Captain Goldman is suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder. His emotions are extremely unstable right now. Your shouting and hysterics are a dangerous trigger."

Then, she turned and reached for Ian's arm, her voice turning sweet and gentle. "Captain, take deep breaths. Don't look at her. Your memories are still jumbled; this is all just a hallucination. Let me handle it."

She looked exactly like a wife shielding her man.

"A dangerous trigger? A hallucination?"

I let out a cold laugh, forcing myself to ignore the dull, dragging ache in my lower belly as I advanced on her, one step at a time.

"Open your eyes wide and take a good look, Dr. Shaw. I'm Ian's lawfully wedded wife! We have a marriage certificate, and the baby I'm carrying is his flesh and blood!"

A flicker of panic flashed in Jessica's eyes, but she quickly smoothed over her expression and forced herself to stay calm as she sighed. "Ms. Jewell, the care center's records clearly state that Captain Goldman's wife had signed the waiver to stop the search efforts.

"She also took the firm's compensation before remarrying. You need to stop making a scene for money. Otherwise, I'll have to call security."

[As if! The bad lady is lying!] My son's voice fired off in my head. [Mommy, take her down! The blue folder on the desk behind her big butt says she's Daddy's fiancee. She's totally shameless!

[She used the fact that her uncle is the care center's deputy director to bribe the admin and secretly changed Daddy's marital status in the system!]

Armed with that very specific intel, I sidestepped Jessica without hesitation, went straight to the desk, and yanked out the dark blue file.

"What are you doing? Put that down! That's the patient's private information!" she cried. Her face changed instantly as she lunged for it.

I swung the folder back and cracked it across her face, giving her a hard slap. The papers burst free and scattered. The hard plastic cover scraped a glaring red mark across her perfectly pampered cheek.

"I took the money and got remarried, huh? I'm causing a scene, huh?"

I pointed at the forms all over the floor and raised my voice, letting it ring down the hallway. "Then explain something to me, Dr. Shaw. Why does my husband's rehab file list you as his emergency contact? And under relationship, why does it say that you're his fiancee?"

After I threw the file at Jessica and demanded answers, the hallway went dead silent.

She cupped her stinging face, panic flashing in her eyes. But within seconds, she gritted her teeth and switched to victim mode.

"Ms. Jewell, Captain Goldman's memory is still stuck before the fire. He's in a state of severe insecurity. I listed myself as his fiancee as part of PTSD treatment—emotional substitution and desensitization therapy."

Her eyes reddened as she raised her voice. "You're the one who signed the waiver giving up the search and rescue. Now that you've found out Captain Goldman is alive, you've come back to take advantage of him! Security! Get this crazy woman out of here!"

Several burly security guards moved in immediately and grabbed my arms roughly. One of them snarled, "Come on, get moving. Don't cause a scene here!"

As they shoved and dragged me, I slipped and slammed my lower back hard into the doorframe. A sharp pain twisted through my lower abdomen. My face went white, and cold sweat instantly beaded on my forehead.

[Mommy! Mommy, are you okay?]

My son's voice turned shrill with panic in my head.

The stabbing pain in my belly and the humiliation of being manhandled hardened into something fierce and unyielding the moment I heard him.

"Don't touch me!" I shouted.

I didn't know where the burst of strength came from. I ripped my arms free from the guards' grip, clenched my teeth against the pain, and pointed to the papers scattered all over the floor.

"Emotional substitution therapy?" I let out a cold laugh. "Dr. Shaw, if this is all legitimate treatment, then why did you erase Ian's married status from the system? Why did you need your uncle, the deputy director, to help you forge Ian's entire rehab record? Are you treating a patient or just feeding your own filthy little fantasies?"

"I-I'm not… I only did that to prevent the patient from being triggered by remembering his past…" Jessica stammered. Her face turned chalk white, and she backed up, babbling incoherently.

The nurses and executives around us turned toward her, their looks shifting in an instant. Their gazes went from trust to shock and finally to open disgust.

"What are you all standing around for? Get her out of here!" She panicked and screeched at the guards.

One of the guards hesitantly moved toward me again. As he reached out to grab me, a hand clamped down on his wrist.

It was Ian. He hadn't even put on shoes. He stepped in front of me in his bare feet. His pale face hardened with fury as he shielded me completely with his body.

He stared down at the guard with bloodshot eyes. He could barely form words, but the look in his eyes made his warning clear.

My eyes and nose stung as I stared at his broad but all-too-thin back. Half of the bitterness churning in my chest suddenly melted away.

One of the care center's senior executives took one look at the scene and glared at Jessica, his expression darkening. Then, he hurriedly waved the security team back.

"Enough! Since she's a patient's family, how can she be thrown out? Alex, take Ms. Jewell to one of the VIP family apartments and get her settled in right now," he said.

The temporary family units at the center weren't big—there was only a bedroom and a living room—but at least they were clean and quiet.

On the walk over from the main building, Ian trailed me like a tall, silent watchtower. He was never more than a step away from me. His eyes stayed locked on me, as if he feared that I'd vanish into thin air the second he looked away.

As soon as we stepped inside, things went strangely quiet.

Ian didn't sit down. Instead, he started pacing around the apartment. His cold, hard face didn't show much, but his gaze was razor-sharp, like he was running some kind of high-risk security sweep.

Very quickly, he went out to the balcony and came back with a couple of discarded cardboard sheets and a pair of scissors. He half-squatted on the floor and silently started cutting.

I was wondering what he was doing when I saw him pick up the curved pieces of the cardboard. He walked over to the sharp corners of the coffee table and the edge of the cabinets. One by one, he carefully taped the cardboard on, layer after layer, forming a makeshift bumper on every pointy corner.

He couldn't talk because his throat was wrecked, so he could only use this clumsy way of quietly checking every single thing in the room I might bump into.

[Wow. Even if Dummy Daddy's memories are scrambled, his instinct to love you hasn't changed one bit, Mommy!]

In my head, my baby boy's voice finally lost that earlier sharpness and turned soft again. [In my last life, after I was gone, Daddy did the same thing. He stayed up late, wrapping all the sharp corners in the house one by one, crying while he did it.

[Mommy, don't let his cold face fool you. He's even walking on tiptoe around you right now because he's afraid of startling you.]

Looking at Ian's tall back as he half-crouched on the floor, the nerves I'd pulled tight all day suddenly and inexplicably loosened a little.

When he finished the last corner, he stood up and walked to the table to pour a glass of warm water. He brought the glass over to me and held it out.

His eyes stared deep into mine. His Adam's apple bobbed hard a couple of times, like he was trying to force some words out. But in the end, nothing was said.

Ian frowned in frustration, and the tips of his ears quietly flushed red. He just awkwardly pushed the glass into my hands, insisting that I take it.

I took the water and sipped at it slowly. He stood beside me with his back straight, looking like a loyal guard dutifully guarding his post.

However, peace was usually just a brief reprieve before the storm broke.

…

Early the next morning, our short-lived warmth was shattered by a knock at the door.

The person at the door wasn't from some expert task force here to drag anyone away. It was Mr. Jackson, the director of the international crisis response firm where Ian worked. Jessica was behind him.

"Ms. Jewell, I'm sorry to bother you." Mr. Jackson's expression was grim, and he held a folder in his hand. "Because you suddenly showed up yesterday, Captain Goldman's heart rate and other metrics spiked in a highly abnormal way.

"Also… we received a call this morning from his mother—your mother-in-law—back in their hometown. She sent over a video and a signed statement."

My heart sank. I had a bad feeling about this.

Jessica pushed her glasses up her nose and said in a flat, businesslike tone, "In the video, your mother-in-law clearly states that in the first month after Captain Goldman went missing, you took 80,000 dollars in death compensation and started preparing to marry Jim Lane, who lived next door. As for the baby you're carrying… the father is questionable."

"That's nonsense! I never took any money, nor would I ever marry anyone else!" I shook all over with rage.

"The firm will investigate what really happened. But right now, to stabilize his condition, Captain Goldman has to go for a routine evaluation," Mr. Jackson said, with a sigh.

Ian couldn't follow all the complicated back-and-forth, but he sensed the threat on instinct. He moved to stand in front of me, shielding me as he glared straight at Jessica.

"Ian." Mr. Jackson pressed a hand down on his shoulder, his voice turning sharp. "Follow orders. It's just a checkup."

The word "orders" hit Ian like a branding iron. His whole body went rigid.

He turned to give me a long look; his eyes were full of unease. But in the end, he still let them lead him away.

There was no way I could just sit there. Supporting my baby bump, I hurried after them to the Memory Rehabilitation Department.

Through the observation window in the door of the evaluation room, I saw something that made me see red.

There were no high-tech machines inside at all. All Jessica had done was set a digital tablet down in front of Ian. On its screen, a recording of my mother-in-law, Molly Ward's shrill, venomous voice played on a loop.