Vince's POV

“I’m begging you,” I said, my voice trembling. “Please let me divorce her. I swear, I won’t stand in the way of her first love’s son becoming the heir. I just want my children to grow up safely.”

My mother-in-law was already in tears, nodding over and over. “I know… At first, we only agreed to adopt you as a godson to repay your father for saving my life. That’s all I ever promised. But it was Luisa who fell for you. She was the one who confessed. She was the one who insisted on marrying you. She loved you so much… So, how did it turn into this?”

Her voice cracked with anger. “I know it now. It’s all that bastard Albion’s fault. If he hadn’t come back out of nowhere, none of this would’ve happened.”

I let out a bitter laugh. Yeah. How did things get this twisted?

That girl, who once stood at her coming-of-age ceremony blushing and vowing to love me for life, who said if she ever betrayed me, she deserved to be torn to pieces, was now the one tearing me apart for another man.

“Please… Mom,” I whispered hoarsely, gritting each word.

Hearing the last bit of breath in my plea, my mother-in-law finally nodded.

“Alright! When you two got married, I made her sign a divorce agreement just in case things ever went south between you. I’ll go home and get it expedited right away. Tomorrow, I’ll announce publicly that your children are my only heirs. As for that ungrateful daughter of mine and that illegitimate child, I’ll cut them off completely.”

She left immediately after that to handle it all.

As such, I was left lying in a hospital bed, the pain in my body and my heart crashing down on me like a tidal wave. I couldn’t stop crying out.

Her assistant, on the other hand, stayed behind, anxiously glancing toward the door, waiting for the doctors Luisa promised to send.

Finally, someone arrived.

But it wasn’t a doctor.

It was just a delivery guy.

He froze when he saw the blood-soaked emergency room, then quickly handed over a small bag and slipped a bandage out.

“Miss Luisa said it’s just a flesh wound,” he mumbled. “Nothing life-threatening. She said to stop bothering her on her wedding night.”

The assistant’s eyes filled with rage as she threw the bag across the room.

“Sir, I’m taking you to a hospital in another city. Hold on. Please, just hang in there.”

I screamed and writhed in pain, then everything went black.

When I woke up again, a bucket of ice-cold water was splashed over my body, shocking me awake.

Standing over me was Luisa with her face twisted in disgust.

“Drop the act,” she sneered. “You know I’m announcing Albion’s son as my heir tomorrow, and yet you still ran off to another city for treatment! What, hoping everyone would think Albion’s abusing you?”

Behind her, Albion stood holding the child in his arms, putting on a show of innocence and hurt.

“Mr. Carr,” he said gently, “I know you hate me. But if you want revenge, take it out on me. Why did you have to involve Luisa's mother and try to take my child away? The assistant was yelling right before she got dragged off, said your mother-in-law went back to file papers to adopt my child and I didn’t deserve to be the heir’s father.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. My throat burned. All I could do was shake my head in desperation, tears in my eyes.

“I… didn’t. Luisa… please, bring the doctors back. The babies… they won’t hold on much longer…”

“You’re lying again!” she snapped, frowning impatiently. “My mom left the hospital in such a rush and she took a lawyer to work overnight. You think I don’t know you’re behind this? You think stealing Albion’s kid will magically make you the heir’s father? Aren’t your two brats already born safe and sound? What more do you want? Faking their deaths now to win sympathy? Just to fight over the heir position? You’re disgusting!”

Vince's POV

Pain tore through every inch of my body. The blood on my skin had long dried, sticking to me like glue and reeking of rot.

Because of that, Albion gagged and covered his nose, looking as though he might vomit. “Mr. Carr, you know I can’t stand the smell of blood. You refused to clean yourself up on purpose, didn’t you? Just to make me faint?”

Hearing that, Luisa shot me a look of pure disgust. “Look at you. You smell like a corpse and you look insane. You’re a total embarrassment.”

She waved her hand, and the bodyguards started dumping buckets of cold water over me again and again until I turned pale and my body trembled uncontrollably from the cold. Only then did she tell them to stop.

But Albion wasn’t done playing the victim.

“Mr. Carr,” he whimpered, “please… don’t take my son away. If you’re really going to steal him from me, then I’ll just jump out this window!”

He then staggered toward the ledge, putting on a show, and Luisa immediately rushed to hold him back.

Finally, she snapped.

She spun around and kicked my hand away from where I was clinging to his pant leg. Leaning down, her voice dropped cold and sharp, “You think talking my mom into backing you makes you worthy of being the heir’s father? Think again. You’re never going to take what belongs to Albion and his child. I’ve already had the old estate locked up. I don’t care what you’re plotting. It’s over.”

“Also,” she hissed, “I’ve warned you how many times. Don’t touch Albion or his child. But you never listen. So now I have no choice but to use more permanent methods.”

After that, she turned to the guards and barked, “He pushed Albion to the brink. He needs to pay the price. Go pull the oxygen tube from his father. Then throw this trash off the building.”

“No!” I screamed, my voice ripping through my throat. “Luisa, are you insane?! That’s my father! He saved your life!”

She scoffed. “So what? He only did that to get my favor. So that you'd marry into a wealthy family and your child with me could inherit my family fortune. Well, congratulations. You got what you wanted. I married into your world. I carried your children. But your babies… they just weren’t fast enough. They were born after Albion’s son returned. I’ve paid my debt. I don’t owe your family a damn thing anymore.”

“Do it!” she ordered the guards.

I lunged at the guards in a frenzy, trying to stop them. But they beat me down hard, ripping my clothes in the process.

My dried wounds tore open, blood gushing out like a dam had burst, soaking the floor in seconds.

I curled up on the ground, screaming in agony.

Luisa stepped forward, ready to drag me again, but then she suddenly froze.

Her eyes landed on something that had fallen from my shredded clothes—a crumpled ICU emergency notice, the kind issued during a newborn’s critical rescue.

Seeing that, her face went pale.

She dropped to her knees beside me and grabbed my shoulders, then turned to Albion and the guards, her voice panicked and sharp.

“What is this?! I told you to bring him to the press conference not to beat him half to death! Who did this?! And this medical notice, where did it come from?! Albion, you said you hired a professional to care for the babies. You said they were fine!”

Albion’s face twitched. But within seconds, he forced a look of shock and quickly pulled out his phone.

“I swear, I didn’t know anything about this. The babies were perfectly fine when I left. I—I knew Mr. Carr might try to frame me, so I asked the nanny to record a video. Here, look.”

He handed over his phone. On the screen was a grainy, poorly edited video of a baby who was clearly over a month old.

The footage was so fake that it was laughable.

The guards, relieved to have something to latch onto, immediately jumped in.

“We would never lay a hand on Mr. Carr. He probably faked this himself—maybe used special effects makeup to trick you, worried you'd punish him for what happened to your boy toys earlier.”

Vince's POV

Luisa glanced at the video on the phone and immediately believed it.

Hearing the bodyguards back up the lie, her fury boiled over. Without warning, she lifted her heel and slammed it down on my head.

My skull hit the floor with a sickening thud, and blood gushed instantly.

“You dare lie to me?” she growled. “You faked your wounds? Faked an ICU emergency notice? Just to make me feel guilty?! You’re disgusting. Absolutely disgusting!”

She stomped down again, once, twice, over and over, each blow crashing into my gut like a hammer.

With every kick, my blood splattered across the floor, mixing with my screams.

“Stop… please… don’t…” I could barely speak. My throat felt like it was tearing apart. My body grew colder and stiffer by the second.

Eventually, I couldn’t even beg anymore. I just curled up in the spreading pool of my own blood, trembling silently.

Luisa tossed aside her bloodstained coat like it was trash and turned to Albion, suddenly all soft apology.

“I’m sorry, Albion. You shouldn’t have had to smell something so vile. I’ll clean him up, and when I’m done, let’s go on that island honeymoon I promised. It's my way of making it up to you for doubting you, okay?”

But Albion’s eyes shimmered with tears as he gently shook his head, voice trembling like a kicked puppy.

“Forget it. Mr. Carr hates me so much… If you take me away now, what if he tries something else to break me and my son apart?”

He looked down in sorrow and added timidly, “Maybe I should just leave with the baby. Let your children be the heirs.”

His words were perfectly timed—pitiful, innocent, and expertly manipulative.

And it worked.

Luisa’s expression darkened like a storm rolling in. Her voice turned gentle, but her tone was icy. “Don’t worry. I won’t give him any more chances to hurt you or the child.”

She raised her hand and snapped, “Lock him up in the basement. Throw those two brats in there with him. Once the press conference is over and I’ve officially declared your son as the heir, then they can come out.”

The guards dragged me out of the hospital like I was roadkill.

Behind me, a long trail of blood smeared across the marble floor.

I was barely conscious. My body was on the verge of shutting down. But I clung to the last thread of breath and begged, “Please… Luisa… what I asked your mother to do… it was about the divorce, not about stealing your son’s place… My kids… you already had them killed once. If you drag them out of the ICU and lock them in some cold basement… they really won’t survive this time.”

Breathing hardly, I continued, “I’ll give you the divorce. I’ll give up everything—my shares, my inheritance. I’ll even sign whatever you want, take the kids far away, and never show up in your life again. Just please, don’t touch my father…”

Tears and blood dripped down my face, falling to the floor one by one.

But Luisa waved her hand dismissively. “Fine. As long as you behave and stay put in the basement, I won’t—”

A deafening crash suddenly cut her off.

I looked up and watched in horror as my father’s body fell from the upper floor and slammed into the ground right in front of me.

His once-kind eyes were now bulging, bloodshot, and lifeless, staring blankly at the ceiling.

“Dad!!” A scream tore out of me, ripping my soul apart.

I crawled toward him, using my elbows and knees, smearing blood in my path.

But just before I could touch his fingertips, a guard yanked me back by the collar.

“Take him away,” Luisa said softly, turning her head as if the scene bored her. “He was already a dying man. This way, he’s finally free.”

“Luisa, you're not human!” I screamed like a madman. “You killed your own children, and now you’ve killed the man who saved your life! You’re going to hell for this!”