As soon as I gave birth, I was forced to give up my son to become my sister’s baby. It was all because she had gotten into an accident, lost her own child, and could no longer conceive. To keep her from spiraling into a deep depression, they decided my baby would be her cure.

I didn't even get to hear his first cry properly.

“Please,” I begged, reaching out with weak, bloodstained hands. “Let me hold him. Just once. Please.”

Sandro stepped in front of the nurse, blocking my view. His face was a mask of cold indifference.

“Stop making a scene, Candice,” he said, his voice flat. “You know the arrangement. Paula needs this baby more than you do. We can always make another one later. Don't be so selfish.”

Selfish? I had carried this child for nine months. I had bled, I had suffered, I had talked to him every single night.

I became hysterical. I thrashed against the bedsheets, screaming Sandro’s name, screaming for my baby, begging anyone in the room to help me. But the nurses just looked away.

A doctor rushed in. A needle pierced my IV line. Coldness rushed through my veins, stealing my voice, my fight, and then the world went dark.

When I woke up, the room was suffocatingly quiet.

No monitors beeping. No baby crying. No husband holding my hand.

Just the cold, sterile smell of disinfectant. I was entirely alone. No one had even dared to visit me.

I pushed the thin blanket off. Searing pain shot through my lower half the moment I moved, but I didn't care. I dragged my feet to the cold floor. My legs trembled, my vision blurred, but I kept going. I had to find my family.

I stumbled down the hallway, clutching my stomach, leaning against the white walls for support.

Then, I heard voices coming from another room at the end of the hall. The door was slightly ajar.

I crept closer, my breath catching in my throat.

Inside, the room was bright and warm. My sister, Paula, was sitting on the hospital bed, glowing, cradling a tiny blue bundle in her arms. Sandro was sitting right beside her, his gaze soft and full of adoration.

“Are you sure about this, Sandro?” Paula asked softly, tracing my baby’s cheek.

I held my breath, waiting for my husband to defend me. To say he loved me.

Sandro scoffed. A cruel, dismissive sound.

“Of course I’m sure,” he said, leaning in closer to her. “I never wanted a child with her anyway. But since the baby is here, I decided we could just take him. He will know you as his mother, and Candice will finally be out of the picture.”

Paula smiled, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“After all,” Sandro muttered, his voice dropping low, “I don’t care about her. I only care about you, Paula. I want us to be together. I regretted marrying her. It should be you.”

My knees gave out.

I hit the floor with a dull thud, but they didn’t even hear me. My hands clamped over my mouth to stifle the sob tearing its way up my throat.

He never loved me. He used me as an incubator for the woman he truly wanted.

I had been completely betrayed. I had no one left. No family. No husband. No son.

I didn't know what else to do. I just sat there on the cold tiles, my world shattering into a million unfixable pieces.

I had always thought Sandro was my safe haven. When my parents ignored me to praise Paula, Sandro was the one who held my hand. When I felt invisible in my own home, he made me feel seen. I married him thinking I had finally found the one person in the world who chose me first.

But now, the memories twisted into something ugly and venomous.

All those late nights he claimed he was stuck at the office. The sudden "business trips" that always seemed to happen whenever Paula was feeling down. The times I woke up in an empty bed, tracing the cold sheets while he was supposedly downstairs taking urgent calls.

He wasn’t working. He was with her.

Every gentle smile, every whispered promise, every time he touched my growing belly—it was never about me. It was always about Paula. I was just a vessel. A convenient, naive little fool who provided the perfect cover for their sick affair, and the perfect incubator to replace the child my sister had lost.

The realization clawed at my chest, suffocating me. I couldn't breathe. I was drowning in the sheer, cruel reality of it all.

“Mrs. Rossi?”

I flinched, looking up through blurred, tear-filled eyes.

A doctor stood in the hallway, looking down at me with a grim, heavy expression. He held a thick medical folder in his hands.

“What are you doing on the floor?” he asked gently, helping me sit up against the wall.

“My baby…” I choked out, my chest heaving. “They took my baby.”

The doctor’s eyes filled with a deep, pitying sorrow. He didn’t look at the room where my husband and sister were. He just looked at the folder in his hands.

“Candice,” he said, his voice dropping to a heavy whisper. “We ran the routine blood panels when you were admitted for delivery. We found something in your tests.”

I stared at him, my blood running cold.

“It seems you have cancer,” he said quietly. “And it’s already spread. I'm so sorry... you only have a few months left.”

“Mom, please,” I begged, my voice cracking as I fell to my knees on the cold marble floor of the living room. “I’m dying. The doctor said I have cancer. I only have a few months left. Just let me be with my son. Just for a few months. Please!”

My mother didn’t even flinch. She stood over me, adjusting her pearl necklace, her eyes filled with nothing but disgust.

“Stop this pathetic act, Candice,” she snapped, stepping away from me like I was a disease. “Cancer? Really? How low will you stoop just to get attention? You’re just faking this because you can’t stand that Paula is finally happy.”

“I’m not faking it! I have the medical papers—”

“Enough!” my mother hissed. “Paula is fragile right now. She lost her baby, and she needs peace. Stop acting like a lunatic and let your sister heal. You should be grateful we’re even letting you stay in this house.”

My heart shattered all over again. My own mother. The woman who gave birth to me was looking at me like I was a monster for wanting the child I had carried for nine months.

I dragged myself up and stumbled toward the hallway, desperate. I saw Sandro putting on his coat. He was getting ready to leave.

I grabbed his sleeve, my fingers trembling. “Sandro, please. Talk to me. He is mine. He’s our son. You can’t just erase me like this.”

Sandro yanked his arm away so violently I almost lost my balance. His eyes were ice.

“Are you deaf, Candice?” he sneered. “I told you, he is Paula’s son now. You are nothing but the surrogate. You agreed to the terms of service of this marriage the moment you signed those papers and took my money to save your father's failing company. You were bought and paid for. Now, stay at home. I have better things to do without you.”

He turned his back on me, walking up the stairs to fetch them.

The betrayal burned in my chest, a suffocating, toxic weight. My marriage wasn't a union of love. To him, it was just a transaction. A set of terms of service where I was the product, and Paula was the beneficiary.

A few minutes later, the house went quiet. I heard a soft whimper coming from the nursery upstairs.

My feet moved on instinct. I sneaked up the stairs, my breath catching in my throat. The nursery door was cracked open. I slipped inside.

There he was. My beautiful baby boy, lying in the crib, his little face red as he started to cry.

“Shh, sweet boy. Mommy’s here,” I whispered, tears spilling down my cheeks. I reached into the crib and gently lifted him into my arms. The moment his tiny body pressed against my chest, his crying stopped. He belonged with me.

“What are you doing?!”

A shrill scream shattered the moment.

Paula stood in the doorway, her face twisted in fake terror. “Help! Sandro! Mom! She’s stealing my baby!”

“No! I just wanted to hold him!” I panicked, holding my son closer to my chest.

Footsteps thundered up the stairs. Sandro burst into the room, his face dark with rage.

“Give him to her!” Sandro roared, lunging at me.

“No! He’s mine!” I screamed, stepping back.

But Sandro didn’t care. He grabbed my arm and yanked me hard. In the violent struggle, my grip slipped. The baby tumbled from my arms.

Time stopped.

I lunged forward, catching him just before he hit the floor, but his tiny head bumped hard against the wooden leg of the crib.

A piercing, agonizing wail erupted from my baby.

“My baby!” Paula shrieked, snatching him from my arms. “You monster! You tried to kill him!”

“I didn’t! Sandro, you pulled me—”

“Shut up!” Sandro struck me across the face. The slap was so hard I tasted blood. “If anything happens to him, I will kill you myself! Get the car, Paula! We’re going to the hospital!”

They ran out, leaving me on the floor.

Panic and adrenaline surged through my weak body. I forced myself up and ran after them, hailing a cab with shaking hands to follow Sandro’s car to the emergency room.

When I finally burst through the hospital doors, I saw them at the front desk.

“Sandro! How is he? Is he okay?” I cried, rushing toward them.

Sandro turned, his eyes blazing with pure hatred. “Get away from us!”

He shoved me backward with all his strength.

He didn't even wait to see me fall. He just turned his back, wrapping his arm protectively around Paula as they hurried down the pediatric wing.

My weak legs gave out. I stumbled backward, bracing for the hard impact of the hospital tiles.

But I didn’t hit the floor.

Instead, I crashed into a solid, warm chest just as I stumbled past the shadows of a corridor alcove. A pair of strong, steady arms wrapped around my waist, catching me effortlessly and pulling me completely out of sight.

I gasped, looking up, my heart pounding wildly in my chest.

The man holding me had sharp, striking features and eyes as cold and deep as the ocean.

My breath hitched. I recognized that face from the covers of every business magazine Sandro obsessed over. It was Elias Thorne. Sandro’s ultimate rival. The ruthless billionaire who had been slowly dismantling my husband's empire piece by piece.

He pressed a long, elegant finger to his lips, silencing my gasp as we watched Sandro and Paula disappear down the hall, completely unaware of us.

“Is this how Rossi treats his dying wife?” Elias murmured, his voice a low, dangerous velvet against my ear. “How pathetic.”

I trembled, tears spilling over my lashes as I looked up at the man my husband feared most.

Elias’s gaze darkened, his grip on my waist tightening just a fraction. “Tell me, Candice,” he whispered. “Do you want to make them pay?”

“Do you want to make them pay?”

I trembled, my weak hands clutching his expensive suit jacket just to stay upright. “Why… why would you care about me? I’m just a dying, discarded wife.”

Elias’s eyes, cold and deep as the ocean, narrowed. He didn't offer me a soft smile or words of pity.

“Because I despise Sandro Rossi,” he said brutally. “But more than that, I hate seeing someone accept defeat so pathetically. You have two choices, Candice. You can lay down on this hospital floor and die crying… or you can stand up and take back what is yours.”

His words hit me like a bucket of ice water. But my heart was still bleeding for only one thing.

“My baby…” I choked out, fresh tears spilling over. “Is he okay? He hit his head—”

Elias didn’t even blink. He simply snapped his fingers.

From the shadows, an assistant in a sharp black suit stepped forward and handed Elias a sleek medical tablet. Elias glanced at it, then tilted the screen toward me.

“Your son is perfectly fine. A minor bruise. Nothing more,” Elias stated flatly.

A massive wave of relief washed over me, but it was instantly shattered. Elias tapped the screen again, bringing up a live security feed from the doctor’s private office down the hall.

The audio crackled to life.

“Sandro, I’m so scared!” Paula’s voice echoed from the tablet, accompanied by loud, dramatic sobs. “She’s crazy! She tried to hurt him! What if she comes back and tries to steal him again?”

“Shh, it’s okay, Paula. I’ve got you,” Sandro’s voice replied, soft and sickeningly sweet.

“I can’t sleep knowing she’s out there. Please, Sandro. Get a restraining order. Keep her away from us!”

I stared at the screen in horror. Paula was faking a panic attack, burying her face in Sandro’s chest while he rubbed her back.

“I will,” Sandro agreed without a single ounce of hesitation. “I’ll have my lawyers draft it today. She will never come near our son again.”

Our son.

Hearing him say that—hearing him legally erase me from my own child's life—did something to me. The heavy, suffocating sorrow that had been drowning me suddenly evaporated.

In its place, a burning, absolute rage ignited in my chest.

My tears stopped falling. My trembling hands curled into tight fists.

Elias watched the shift in my eyes. A dark, satisfied smirk played on his lips. He handed the tablet back to his assistant and looked down at me.

“Marry me.”

I froze, staring at him in shock. “What?”

“Become my wife,” Elias said, his tone entirely business, yet dripping with a lethal promise. “If you agree, I will fly in the top oncologists in the world to fight your cancer. You will not die. More importantly, I will give you the wealth and the power to completely destroy Sandro’s company. You will ruin Paula’s perfect little facade. And you will legally take your son back.”

He stepped closer, his towering presence demanding an answer. “Do we have a deal?”

I thought of my mother’s disgusted face. I thought of Sandro’s cruel slap. I thought of Paula’s fake, venomous tears.

A spark of life—of pure, unadulterated vengeance—finally returned to my soul.

“I accept,” I whispered, my voice turning to steel.

An hour later, I returned to the Rossi mansion to pack my few belongings.

The moment I pushed the front door open, the sound of laughter hit me like nails on a chalkboard.

I walked into the living room. Sandro, Paula, and my mother were sitting on the expensive leather couches, drinking tea and celebrating the baby's return from the hospital. They looked like a perfect, happy family.

The laughter died the second Sandro saw me.

His face hardened into a mask of pure disgust. He stood up, grabbed a thick document from the coffee table, and threw it violently at my feet. The papers scattered across the marble floor.

“Sign it,” he barked. “It’s a permanent restraining order and a gag order. You are leaving this house tonight. You will never speak to us, and you will never see the boy again.”

From the couch, Paula adjusted the baby in her arms and gave me a sickening, triumphant smirk.

They expected me to break. They expected me to fall to my knees, to cry, to beg for scraps of their mercy just like I always did.

I didn't shed a single tear.

I stepped forward, my muddy shoes planting directly onto the restraining order.

Sandro’s eyes widened in shock as I closed the distance between us. I looked him dead in the eye, my gaze completely numb to the man I once loved.

I reached into my bag, pulled out a sleek black folder, and slapped it hard against his chest.

“I'm not here to beg, Sandro,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “I'm here to give you my divorce papers.”

Sandro stumbled back a step, catching the folder. He stared at it, stunned, before a cruel, mocking laugh erupted from his throat.

“Divorce?” he sneered, looking me up and down. “You have no money. You have no family. You really think a judge will let you take my son?”

I didn't answer him.

Instead, I raised my left hand. Slowly, deliberately, I slid the diamond wedding ring off my finger.

I dropped it.

It hit the marble floor with a sharp clink. I raised my foot and kicked it across the room. It skidded to a halt right at Paula’s feet.

“Keep the trash, sister,” I said coldly.

I turned my back on them, pausing just before I walked out the door.

“I'm coming back for my son. And when I do, I will take everything from you.”