"Grayson, you're already married to Belle, and you have a child together now. You need to get your priorities straight," his mother said sharply.

"Go and bring Belle back. Apologize properly. As for your sister, I'll handle her. All this nonsense she's been spouting is nothing but the ramblings of a confused mind," she added, putting an end to any argument.

"Belle is still your wife, no matter what. Right now, she doesn't know what's going on, and you shouldn't be here. You should be out there finding her and bringing her back," she pressed, her expression darkening as she looked at the pair of them.

My heart grew colder with every word. So I was the only one kept in the dark? The sickening relationship between Grayson and Alice—was I the only fool who didn't know?

And now they wanted to keep deceiving me? I stared at these familiar faces, which now felt so alien and repulsive, and I couldn't help but feel disgusted.

If the accident hadn't happened, would they have kept lying to me my entire life?

"Mom, I'll apologize to Belle," Grayson said, his tone reluctant. "But right now, Alice's health is more important. Belle has already been found, and she's fine. She's back at her family's home and doesn't want to see me right now. I'll go get her once Alice's condition is stable."

"Grayson, this is unacceptable! You need to go find Belle immediately," his mother snapped.

Clearly, she didn't know that I was already dead. None of them did. They all thought I was still alive.

"Mom," Grayson said impatiently, "I already told you, I can't leave Alice right now. If you're worried, I'll call Belle. But I'm not leaving."

With a look of annoyance, Grayson dialed a video call.

In our seven years of marriage, Grayson had rarely called me, let alone made a video call. I was always the one calling him—always the one waiting, hoping he'd answer, only to be ignored or hurriedly dismissed.

Who would've thought I'd have to die to see him take the initiative to call?

His mother furrowed her brow, her concern evident. "She's pregnant, after all. She was caught in an earthquake. Who knows if something happened to her?"

The call connected, and the woman on the screen was me—or at least, she looked just like me.

I stared at the video, my eyes wide. It took a long moment before I realized that this woman wasn't me. She looked uncannily similar but wasn't me.

"Belle," his mother said, "we're all concerned about you. Don't be so unreasonable. Come back. I'll pretend none of this happened."

Grayson, clearly annoyed, tilted the phone so his mother could see the screen. Then, before the woman on the other end could respond, he hung up.

"She's fine," he said coldly. "She's always been lucky. This is just one of her old habits flaring up again. Ignore her for a few days, and she'll come to her senses."

The icy indifference in his voice sent a shiver through me. I couldn't believe these words were coming from the man I'd shared my life with.

The man I'd shared a bed with couldn't even tell if the woman on the screen was me.

His blatant favoritism toward Alice and his utter disregard for me were undeniable. He wouldn't spare even a shred of concern for me, but for Alice, his devotion was shamelessly obvious.

If she so much as frowned or coughed, he'd spring into action as though the sky was falling.

Once, during a thunderstorm, when the rain poured heavily, Alice called him in tears, saying she was scared. Without hesitation, he left my side, even though I was burning with a high fever, and stayed with her the entire night.

The next morning, when my fever had subsided somewhat, I confronted him in anger. But he only looked at me coldly and said, "Stop being unreasonable."

As I looked back, it all made sense now. His partiality toward Alice wasn't just favoritism—it was love. Because the person he truly loved was Alice, nothing and no one else mattered when she was involved.

Even his mother tried her best to persuade him to check on me, but Grayson wouldn't budge. Then his phone buzzed with a message notification. He glanced at the screen, his face tightening in anger.

"Mom, stop it already," he said, his voice rising. "She's incorrigible! Just because I saved Alice first, she's threatening me with divorce. She says if I don't kick Alice out of the house, she'll abort the baby. She's pure toxic, that's what she is!" His fury darkened his face, and his tone was sharp enough to cut.

Curious, I floated closer to him and peeked at his phone. Sure enough, the message was from me—or at least, it appeared to be.

But I was dead.

I turned my gaze to Alice, suspicion blooming in my chest. Who else but her could orchestrate something like this?

"You ungrateful son!" his mother exclaimed, her voice trembling with frustration. "Are you trying to drive me to my grave? If something happens to Belle or that child she's carrying, you'll have no place to hide your regret!"

"Mom, you worry too much," Grayson snapped. "She's just making threats now. What could really happen?"

I couldn't help but sneer internally. A husband of seven years, yet he didn't trust me or know me at all.

"Grayson," his mother persisted, her voice now tinged with anxiety, "go find Belle. I just can't shake this uneasy feeling. She's not one to act so recklessly."

I watched her, my mother-in-law, with a mix of gratitude and sorrow. Our relationship had always been decent—better than I ever expected. At least she understood the kind of person I was, far better than the man I had married. Seeing the gray hairs now peppering her head, I felt a pang of sorrow.

I didn't want to stay here, tied to this family and its deceit any longer. I didn't know when my soul might finally dissipate, and I had only one wish: to see my mother.

Ever since my father passed, she had been alone. I knew she wouldn't be able to bear the news of my death. The thought of her grief weighed heavily on me, but something held me back—something tethered me to Grayson.

And despite her best attempts to convince Grayson to go look for me, my mother-in-law failed miserably.

It was two days before my body was found. By the time they discovered me, my face and body bore numerous wounds, but my hands remained firmly clutched over my stomach, as though in a desperate attempt to protect the life I had been carrying.

When the rescue team retrieved my remains, their first thought was to contact my husband. But no one could reach him. They then turned to my mother and mother-in-law.

My mother arrived at the scene and, upon seeing my lifeless body, collapsed in grief, sobbing until she fainted. My mother-in-law, similarly overwhelmed, lost consciousness on the spot.

When the two women regained consciousness, they went together to obtain my death certificate and made arrangements to transfer my body to the funeral home. Throughout it all, they tried repeatedly to call Grayson, only to have every attempt met with the cold indifference of a disconnected line or a curt rejection.

My brother, Liam Pearson, stood by the cold storage at the funeral home where my body now lay, weeping like a heartbroken child. A man of over six feet tall, his shoulders shook with the force of his tears.

"Belle," he choked out between sobs, "I should've stopped you back then. I should've never let you marry that monster."

His voice cracked as tears streaked his face. "I should've told you to divorce him sooner. If I had... maybe you wouldn't have ended up like this."

His tears fell like rain, mingling with his anguish. I hovered nearby, watching his grief with a sigh that seemed to echo in the void. If only I could tell him it wouldn't have made a difference. Back then, I had been too in love with Grayson—blindly, recklessly in love.

No one could have stopped me. I'd have married him no matter what warnings I was given. My love for him had been like a moth to a flame, an all-consuming obsession. I had clung to this marriage with stubbornness, even when he accused me of deliberately causing Alice to miscarry and demanded a divorce. I had refused to let go.

But now, as I was looking back, it was all so laughable. Here I was, dead and gone, while my husband remained blissfully by his lover's side, indifferent to my fate.

My mother-in-law, visibly shaken, could offer no rebuttal to Liam's words. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying. As for my mother, she was beyond words, her tears flowing ceaselessly as though her heart had shattered. She swayed like a tree caught in a storm, and if it weren't for Liam holding her steady, she might have collapsed entirely.

The three of them, united in grief and burdened by the weight of my death, carried my death certificate to the hospital.