I looked at Timothy as he raged at me while defending Natalie. For a moment, I couldn't even tell whose husband he was supposed to be.

We'd shared a bed for three years. Why would he believe another woman's one-sided story over mine?

I felt something inside me break.

"You should be thanking Natalie that you even got to marry me. If you didn't look somewhat like her, do you think I would have married you?"

My face went deathly pale.

When I first married Timothy, everyone in the city's elite circles said he was madly in love with me. He built quite a reputation as a devoted husband.

I thought I was the princess deeply loved by her prince in a fairy tale. I imagined countless times what our happy family of three would look like after the baby was born.

But today, I finally understood. In Timothy's heart, I was nothing more than someone else's replacement. The person he loved had always been Natalie.

He just suffered in silence because she married Caleb first and had suppressed his feelings all this time. All the physical agony I felt couldn't match the devastation of those words.

"Tim, my stomach hurts so much. Can you take me somewhere to rest?"

Natalie, nestled in Timothy's arms, suddenly clutched her belly with a pained expression. Timothy's face filled with panic.

He immediately swept Natalie into his arms and left the sauna room. As I lay on the floor, barely clinging to life, all hope drained from me. After seeing Timothy's true nature, I completely lost the will to survive.

The sauna's temperature kept climbing, practically roasting me alive. Suddenly, the baby kicked hard from inside my belly, making me jolt.

The baby. I still had my baby.

If Timothy hadn't dragged me away from the hospital delivery room, our child would have been born by now. Neither my baby nor I had done anything wrong. My child shouldn't have to suffer like this!

I cradled my pregnant belly with both hands and endured the burning floor as I crawled toward the door. With blood-soaked hands, I pounded on it.

"Help! My baby's about to be born! Please, I'm begging you, help me get to the hospital…"

Every time my hand hit the scalding metal door, it made a sizzling sound and smoke rose from my skin. My hands became raw and mangled before someone finally responded from outside in an irritated voice.

"Quit making noise! Mr. Langford already took Ms. Thornton upstairs to rest. If you disturb them, he'll kill you!

"He had your birth canal sewn shut and locked you in the sauna to stop you from giving birth. Stop trying to make your son the family's eldest grandson!"

I truly understood what it meant to be kicked while one was down. Timothy had discarded me like trash, and now even his household staff felt free to trample on me.

I knew these people feared Timothy, but they feared his grandfather and the Langford family patriarch, Oliver Langford, even more.

"Grandpa and Grandma care deeply about the baby I'm carrying. I don't matter, but if anything happens to this child and you just stand by watching both of us die, you won't escape responsibility!"

The maid, Paula Jensen, turned pale. She knew Grandpa valued my baby. If something went wrong, she really couldn't bear that responsibility.

But she didn't dare let me out on her own either. She immediately went upstairs to report.

"Mr. Langford, Mrs. Langford says she's so hot in the sauna that she's going into labor. Should I take her to the hospital now?"

Timothy was in the bedroom with Natalie. The mention of me clearly irritated him.

"That sauna only goes up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit."

Perhaps worried about an accident, he reconsidered and started to say, "Go check the sauna temperature—"

But Natalie cut him off before he could finish.

"Tim, my skin is sensitive. I can only handle 104 degrees maximum. You set that sauna temperature specifically for me. How could it possibly be higher?"

Timothy stopped mid-sentence. His face darkened as he said coldly, "That woman is just using the baby to play victim. If I don't teach her a lesson, she'll never learn! Ignore her!"

He then pushed Paula out and shut the door. Paula returned downstairs after being turned away. She walked to the sauna room and cursed at me through the crack in the door before leaving.

My white clothes were already soaked through with blood. No matter how much I begged for help, no one paid attention.

The sauna was so hot that it felt like I might burn alive there. Blood from my belly flowed steadily out through the crack under the door.

Looking at the blood pooling beneath me, I knew the baby was gone. Finally, my body gave out completely, and I collapsed into endless darkness.

Several hours later, a maid passed by and jumped at the sight of blood everywhere. She was about to go upstairs to report again when Timothy's annoyed voice drifted down.

"Go tell Susan I'm giving her one chance to admit she was wrong. As long as she kneels and apologizes to Natalie and takes care of her properly through the rest of the pregnancy, I'll send her to the hospital after Natalie gives birth."

The maid pointed at the blood seeping under the door, her voice shaking. "Mr. Langford, your wife… I think something's really wrong. She hasn't made a sound for half an hour. We knocked and called out, but she won't respond."

Timothy froze for a moment, but quickly recovered his composure.

"What are you panicking about? I know her better than anyone. She's just pretending. She realized using the baby to manipulate me won't work anymore. Now she's playing dead. If I don't let her suffer enough to remember this lesson, she'll keep disrespecting Natalie."

The maid's legs went weak, her face deathly pale. "But I heard her say that she's bleeding and lost the baby…"

Natalie, cradled in Timothy's arms, pretended to be fragile. "Susan is really something. She knows how badly I want a child. I spent three years with Caleb taking endless herbal remedies to get pregnant and never could. Now I've finally conceived with you, and she's cursing her own baby like this!"

Watching Natalie cry in his arms, Timothy hated me even more. "Seems the punishment isn't enough yet. She still dares to mock Natalie by using the baby! She thinks she can fool me with the baby, does she?"

His voice dripped with fury. "Tell her if she uses the baby as an excuse one more time, I'll make sure that child never sees the light of day!"

The maids exchanged uneasy glances but didn't dare speak.

"Are you deaf? Go tell her!" Timothy snapped.

"Sir, you should really go check the sauna yourself."

The maids barely dared to breathe, their voices trembling.

Timothy's expression turned tense, but he quickly laughed mockingly. "More theatrics? A shameless woman like her will do anything for sympathy!"

Timothy was this confident because whenever he was upset in the past, I always apologized first. I'd lost all self-respect, quietly cleaning up after him and Natalie finished their affairs.

"Sir, the sauna temperature seems to have malfunctioned. It's reached 356 degrees Fahrenheit now! The temperature was too high. Mrs. Langford couldn't withstand it. There's only blood left…"

After hesitating, one of the maids finally revealed the truth that both the baby and I were dead.

"What?" Timothy jumped to his feet.

"She's too stubborn to die that easily."

His face darkened like a storm cloud. "How could the temperature I programmed malfunction? What did she bribe you with to lie to me like this?"

Timothy kicked a chair aside in frustration, his teeth clenched. "Get out of my way! I'm going to see what tricks she's trying to pull now!"

But when he kicked the sauna door open, everyone recoiled from the wave of scorching heat that rushed out.