Rage detonated in my chest. I snatched the soup bowl from the table and hurled it to the floor beside her.

Porcelain exploded, sending shards flying. Hot broth splashed onto her calves.

"Elise James!" Thomas Gilbert roared, surging to his feet. Before I could react, his hand connected with my face.

The force of the slap knocked me to the ground. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears, and the metallic tang of blood bloomed in my mouth.

"You vicious woman! You dare attack a student? Do you call yourself a professor's wife with behavior like that?"

It was the first time I had seen Thomas lose control so completely. Even on our wedding day, he had remained composed, not shedding a single tear of joy.

"It's my fault." Hazel Fox's voice was small and trembling. "No matter how Mrs. Gilbert treats me, I should endure it. Teacher, please don't fight for my sake."

Her words seemed to snap Thomas out of his trance, but only to redirect his fury.

"No apology, is that it?"

He grabbed the clay pot from the table and upended it over me.

The broth looked lukewarm, but the temperature was searing. The moment the liquid coated the back of my hand, my skin screamed in protest, turning an angry red.

Thomas didn't even look at me. He scooped Hazel up in his arms, panic etched onto his features as he rushed toward the exit.

Before leaving, he threw a cold sentence over his shoulder:

"Since Hazel is hurt, you can taste what being scalded feels like, too."

The burn on my hand throbbed, but it was nothing compared to the hollow ache in my chest. The Thomas Gilbert who used to cook for me clumsily—who insisted on making me noodles even after burning his own fingers—was dead.

*"Cooking is too dangerous,"* he had once said, his eyes full of tenderness. *"From now on, let me do it."*

Now, he used the soup I had lovingly stewed to mutilate me.

I looked at the mess of food scattered across the floor and felt like a clown in a tragedy of my own making.

I pulled out my phone and texted the doctor:

*[I'm coming in for the abortion today.]*

The doctor replied instantly, urging me to reconsider. But the image of Thomas and Hazel kissing in the emergency room lobby burned in my mind.

I shook my head, my resolve hardening into ice.

Thomas once claimed he despised public displays of affection. At our wedding, he hadn't even kissed the bride. Yet for Hazel, he was willing to shatter every principle he claimed to hold.

My father had been a cheater. I would not let my child have one, too.

Climbing onto the operating table, my limbs felt heavy, as if filled with lead. When I climbed down, my womb was empty.

"Elise? What are you doing coming out of Obstetrics and Gynecology?"

I froze. Thomas was standing there, eyeing the department sign suspiciously.

My stomach churned. I forced a mask of calm onto my face. "Cramps. I was picking up painkillers."

I tried to sidestep him, but he caught my arm, yanking me back. The sudden motion sent a jolt of agony through my abdomen, and I doubled over.

That was when he noticed the blistering skin on the back of my hand. A flicker of guilt crossed his face. He reached out to check it, but I violently shook him off.

"Go keep your Hazel company."

Hearing the sarcasm dripping from the words "your Hazel," Thomas's expression frosted over.

He looked down at me, his gaze imperious. "You know nothing. Hazel's family comes from money. If I mentor her well, my career path clears up significantly. I'm doing this for our family, Elise."

He paused, his lip curling. "And you—making a scene in front of my students. You're lucky Hazel is generous and isn't pressing charges. Come with me. You're going to apologize to her."

A laugh bubbled up in my throat. He was cheating, yet he still managed to package it as a noble sacrifice for his career.

"Then let's divorce. That way, you can't blame me for holding Professor Gilbert back from his promotion."

Thomas stiffened. When the weight of my words settled, he scoffed.

"You want a divorce? Don't joke. Without me, do you really think you'd live this comfortably?"

He pulled out his phone and transferred $100 to my account. The note read: *Buy burn ointment.*

"Fix that hand. A scar that size is hideous. You're both women, yet your hands don't have half the elegance of Hazel's."

He reached into his pocket and handed me a smartphone.

"Hazel doesn't use this one anymore. You can have it."

Having dispensed his charity, he turned and jogged back toward Hazel's ward without a backward glance.

Three years ago, after my first miscarriage, Thomas stayed by my bedside for a month. When I cried from the pain, he wept harder than I did.

Three years later, he caused both my miscarriage and my injury, yet he felt nothing. He dismissed me with a hundred dollars and a discarded phone.

He bought Hazel the newest model, while I was only fit for her scraps.

Unfortunately, I have never liked secondhand goods—whether phones or men.

I tossed the device into the nearest trash can. As it fell, the screen lit up, revealing the lock screen wallpaper: Thomas and Hazel, smiling radiantly in front of the Lover's Rock at A University.

A sanctuary we once cherished had become the backdrop for his affair.

I drove straight to the university. Ignoring the stares of students, I found our names carved into the stone monument and began to scratch them out.

I gouged at the rock, one cut after another, desperate to erase my past with Thomas.

When the names were finally illegible, I collapsed to the ground, drained. A young couple walked by, fingers intertwined.

A bitter, self-mocking smile touched my lips.

How did we end up here?

We were once the campus myth, the couple everyone aspired to be. Now, the myth was a joke.

Thomas's old vow echoed in my memory—

*'If I, Thomas Gilbert, ever betray Elise James, may heaven strike me down, and may I face ruin and disgrace!'*

Did he really just want to climb the social ladder? Or was I simply too boring?

I shook my head. It didn't matter anymore.

The fault lay with him, not me.

The signs had been there for months; I had just refused to see them. The sudden interest in his appearance. Staying late at school on weekends. The flowers he brought home, which he pruned with obsessive care. The way he changed his profile picture to a cartoon. The secret smiles directed at his phone screen.

I rubbed the raw skin on my hand. The nurse had warned me that delaying treatment would leave a permanent scar.

Good.

This scar would be my reminder: never make the same mistake again. Love is fleeting. A career is the only thing a woman can truly rely on.

On the way home, my phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number.

It was a photo. A familiar large hand rested possessively on a woman's belly. A red string—a blessing charm—was wrapped around their joined wrists.

Thomas had gone to a temple to pray for that specific charm after we lost our first baby. He had told me, *'As long as we keep this red string, our baby will find its way back to Mom and Dad.'*

Now, he had given our baby's blessing to another woman.

The audacity was breathtaking.

*[I'm pregnant with Thomas's child. Youth really does make conception easier than it is for an old hag like you.]*

*[You still don't know who I am, do you? You're just like your useless mother—superfluous. A waste of space.]*

*[So what if you're an A University professor? Thomas will handle everything for me. My dad will ensure he climbs another rung on the ladder.]*

*[Elise James, if I were as much of a failure as you, I'd kill myself.]*

The realization hit me like a physical blow.

Hazel Fox was my half-sister. My father's illegitimate daughter.

The mistress's child had returned to steal my husband.

Tremors racked my body, but then, a laugh tore from my throat. Loud. Manic.

*Perfect.*

Thomas Gilbert, you've touched the one person in this world I despise the most. You and she can go to hell together.

Suppressing the bile rising in my throat, I scrolled through Hazel's social media feed. I archived everything. Every post, every photo, every check-in was evidence of Thomas's infidelity.

The most recent post was a video captioned: *"The happiest day."*

Below it, a comment read: *"Happy wedding."*

Hazel had shamelessly replied: *"Thank you."*

And Thomas had liked the video.

I took screenshots of it all.

When I arrived home, I photographed the pile of luxury gift boxes stacked by the door.

In the living room, my mother-in-law flicked an apple core onto the floor, waiting for me to clean it up.

"Why are you back so late?" she snapped. "Hurry up and make dinner. You upset my son and drove him away, and I haven't even punished you for it yet!"

In the past, I swallowed my pride for Thomas's sake. Now that I was discarding the son, the mother meant nothing to me.

"If you want to eat, cook it yourself."

I walked past her and bolted my bedroom door. Ignoring Mrs. Gilbert's shrieks and curses from the hallway, I focused entirely on compiling the evidence into a PDF.

Knowing the internet's short attention span, I also recorded an explanatory video, narrating the timeline of their affair.

Once the upload was queued, I packed my bags and left that suffocating cage forever.

Thomas didn't come home for three days. He stared at their WeChat conversation, his brow furrowed. The chat window was dead silent.

In the past, Elise would have sent him messages about breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Now, not even a punctuation mark.

Hazel handed him a bento box, feigning guilt. "Teacher, you always apologize to Mrs. Gilbert. Maybe I should apologize for you this time? Seeing you living at the school breaks my heart."

Thomas scoffed. "Absolutely not. I won't be the first to bow my head this time. She owes *you* an apology. When she finally crawls back home, I'm going to teach her a lesson she won't forget."

Suddenly, a student burst into the office, breathless.

"Professor Gilbert! It's bad! Your wife is livestreaming! She's exposing evidence of infidelity and domestic abuse! The whole campus is watching!"

Inside the sealed warehouse, death ticked away in stereo.

My son and the golden retriever belonging to Claire Travis—my husband's "one that got away"—were strapped to separate time bombs.

My husband, Leon Weiss, the city's chief bomb disposal expert, could only save one.

I clawed at his arm, nails digging into the fabric of his uniform. "Save David! He's your own flesh and blood!"

Leon's gaze flickered. For a fraction of a second, conflict warred behind his eyes.

Claire Travis wept, shaking her head as she looked at him. "Leon, A-Jin is the only thing my father left me... but you should save David..."

Leon slammed his fist against the wall. His eyes squeezed shut. A heavy breath escaped him.

"I'll choose based on proximity."

The blood drained from my face.

Claire's dog was three steps away.

My son was five meters deep in the shadows.

Leon didn't hesitate. He lunged toward the dog, fingers already working the decoder before his knees hit the ground.

"Leon!"

I screamed, charging at him, fueled by pure adrenaline. Without looking up, he backhanded me. The force sent me crashing to the concrete.

Helpless, I watched the red light on the dog's vest extinguish.

Across the room, the countdown on my son's chest leaped to the final ten seconds.

——

"No—!"

Ignoring the agony radiating through my body, I scrambled up and sprinted toward my son.

Two steps. That's all I managed.

Strong arms tackled me from behind, slamming me onto cold cement.

"Stay back!" Leon's voice was a vicious growl against my ear. His grip was iron. "It's too late to disarm. If you go over there, you'll trigger the mechanism early!"

"Do you want to kill us all?"

Not far away, my seven-year-old son sat tied to a chair, alone in the dark. His small chest heaved with sobs.

"Dad, save me! Dad!"

Each cry was a serrated blade twisting in my heart.

I wrenched myself free, blinding panic overriding all logic.

I ran.

But I was too slow. The timer hit zero.

*Boom.*

Sparks erupted. A massive shockwave lifted me off my feet and threw me backward. The world dissolved into choking smoke and ringing silence.

As the gray haze slowly drifted apart, the scene before me shattered my soul.

Leon was crouched on the ground. Those hands—hands that refused to touch mundane chores, hands insured for millions to disarm explosives—were tightly covering the golden retriever's ears.

Claire was tucked safely in his embrace, her shoulders trembling delicately.

And my son...

My son was buried under a pile of rubble. His fate unknown.

I lay on the freezing ground. The high-pitched ringing in my ears drowned out the world. I didn't know if, in that final second, my son had called out for me.

"David... David..."

I stumbled into the ruins. My fingertips shredded against jagged concrete, turning bloody, yet the physical pain was nothing compared to the evisceration of my heart.

Under a twisted steel beam, I found him.

His small body was coated in gray dust. His chest was a mess of blood, his breathing ragged and shallow. But when his eyes found mine, he let out a faint, weak whimper.

Air rushed back into my lungs. I gathered him into my arms, tears blurring my vision.

Leon stood nearby. He didn't even bend down. A cursory glance, and then—

"He's fine. He can still be saved."

His tone was indifferent. Clinical.

A tremor of pure rage rolled through me. "Leon Weiss, how can you be so cold-blooded?"

"He is your biological son! Does he mean less to you than one of Claire's dogs?"

Leon frowned, impatience dripping from every syllable. "I told you, I chose by proximity. That was a professional judgment to maximize the success rate."

A pause. Then, quieter:

"Besides, if he hadn't been running around, how would the criminal have strapped a bomb to him in the first place?"

My heart seized.

Our son had been blown up. He was bleeding in my arms.

And his father showed zero concern—only blame.