When my fiancée suffered kidney failure, I didn’t hesitate to donate one of mine to save her.

After she recovered, she hugged me tightly and swore she would remain faithful to me for the rest of her life. She promised she would never betray me.

But everything changed when her childhood friend drove drunk, hit my mother and fled the scene, killing her.

Holding his criminal record in my hands, I was on my way to report the crime when I received a chilling phone call from my fiancée.

“Xavier Ravenshade, bring the video back immediately. If you want to see your father safe and sound, you’d better do as I say.”

“If you insist on reporting this and ruining Alaric, I will throw him off the building without hesitation.”

She had my father dangling from a rooftop. If she let go… he would fall to his death.

My heart felt like it had been ripped in half. The pain was excruciating.

Still, I clung to hope—hope that she wouldn’t really go through with it.

But the moment I stepped into the police station, a video appeared on my phone.

My father, thrown from the building.

“Xavier, this is what happens when you disobey. Your mother is already gone. Why not just take the hush money and live a good life with me? Why must you fight me?”

——

I watched the video in horror, my father lying on the ground, writhing in pain, blood pouring from his mouth. The phone slipped from my trembling hands as I collapsed in shock.

I had given her a kidney. I had risked my life for her. And in return, she had destroyed my entire family.

There was no time to grieve. I scrambled to my feet, shaking uncontrollably. I shoved away the officer trying to help me and stumbled out of the station.

I still had the evidence that could expose Alaric Dreadmoor. I was so close to making him pay. But I couldn’t risk it, not with Selene Duskmoor. She would do anything to protect him. Anything.

I rushed home as fast as I could.

There was Selene, sitting in my living room, sipping wine like nothing had happened.

I stormed in and knocked the glass from her hand.

“Selene, what did you do to my father?!”

“You monster! You covered for a killer and tried to wipe out my entire family!”

I slapped her. I couldn’t control the rage. But she caught my hand and shoved me back onto the couch.

“I told you, your mother ran a red light and was accidentally hit by Alaric. It was just an accident. He’ll pay compensation. He’s still so young. Why ruin his life over something so… trivial?”

Trivial? Drunk driving. Killing my mother. Fleeing the scene. That’s trivial to her?

What, then, would she call serious? Alaric going to prison?

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My chest rose and fell with fury. My face burned red from the heat of my anger.

“To you, the lives of my entire family are worth less than a single tear from your childhood friend?”

My voice broke and the tears spilled down my cheeks, landing on the back of her hand pressed against my chest.

But she didn’t flinch. Her expression showed no sympathy, just impatience.

“Xavier, can’t you try to be a little more reasonable? Think about how I feel.”

“I never said anything like that…”

“But you did those things!”

I pushed her away with all my strength.

“Where is my father?! What did you do to him?”

“He’s fine. Just a broken leg. It’s been treated…”

Slap!

“Selene, you’re not human. You’re not even a person anymore!”

Blinded by rage, I struck her over and over, kicking and hitting her.

There was no love left. Only hatred. Pure, irreconcilable hatred.

Selene, we were done.

I picked up a vase and hurled it. I didn’t expect it to hit Alaric, who had just walked in.

“Ahhh!”

“Ms. Selene! Alaric is in so much pain!”

His cry pierced the air like a siren and for the first time, Selene reacted. She shoved me hard, slamming me onto the coffee table.

Bang! The glass shattered and my body fell into the shards.

Blood seeped out, but I didn’t feel a thing.

Instead, I laughed. Bitterly.

I remembered the time I accidentally cut my finger while chopping vegetables for her.

She panicked so badly she nearly fainted. She rushed me to the hospital and demanded the best doctor treat a tiny wound.

Now?

Now she had poured every ounce of her love into someone else.

“Xavier, don’t take this too far.”

“I’ve been lenient with you because of your mother’s death. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a limit.”

“Hahaha… lenient?”

“You threw my father off a building and crippled him and that’s your idea of leniency?”

I stood up, letting the glass shards dig deeper into my skin.

I wanted the pain. I needed it. I needed to feel something that would kill the love I still had for her. It was time to draw the line.

Seeing the glass embedded in my body, she looked startled.

“Xavier, don’t punish me with your body. The matter isn’t resolved and honestly… I don’t care.”

It didn’t matter.

Whether she cared or not had nothing to do with me anymore. What mattered was finding my father.

“Xavier, I really didn’t mean to kill your mother. I ran because I was scared. Please… forgive me.” “I’ll kneel. I’ll apologize.”

He dropped to his knees, at least, he pretended to.

But I remembered that night. I had gone to confront him and found him laughing with his friends.

He was smoking, bragging, calling my mother “an old hag.”

The car that had hit her and her blood still on it—was a gift from Selene. They joked about how she died. Laughed at her pain.

And I had once believed he was just a coward.

Slap!

“If you really feel guilty, don’t kneel before me. Go turn yourself in!”

He held his face where I slapped him and started crying pitifully, like I was the one bullying him.

Selene’s expression darkened. She raised her hand and hit me back.

Slap!

“You already injured him with the vase! Why do you have to go so far?”

“He apologized! Why are you being so ruthless?”

Because it wasn’t her mother who died. Not her father who was thrown from a building.

That slap? It severed the last thread between us.

I turned away, blood soaking through my white shirt.

She used to love when I wore white. She would run into my arms, have me lift her and spin her around, laughing, calling me her one and only.

Those memories flashed through my mind, then vanished.

“Selene, we’re done. You go your way, I’ll go mine.” “Fine.”

She helped Alaric, who was perfectly fine, out of the house.

I didn’t waste a second. I went looking for my father.

I searched every hospital in the city. Every single one.

But he wasn’t there.

That’s when it hit me—Selene must have hidden him.

I picked up my phone and called her, frowning in frustration. “Selene, where are you hiding my father? Don’t push your luck.”

On the other end of the line, she swirled a glass of wine in her hand, her voice cold as ice.

“Until you hand over the evidence, you’ll never see your father again.”

I couldn’t believe it. She was using my father’s safety as leverage. Had all her so-called love for me been nothing but an act?

Even though I hated her with every fiber of my being, my heart still ached from her heartless betrayal.

I closed my eyes in agony, my voice hoarse and dry. “Where are you? I’ll bring you the evidence right away.”

When I arrived at her place, I found out she had given the Stars Cluster apartment, once a gift for me to Alaric. As I stepped inside, everything that once belonged to us was gone, replaced by an entirely new aesthetic.

I clutched my chest, where only sorrow remained.

Then Selene came downstairs, hand-in-hand with Alaric. I raised my hand, holding the USB drive between my fingers.

“Selene, I brought what you wanted.”

“If you want it, then tell me where you’ve locked up my father.”

Alaric’s smile widened in triumph as he saw the USB in my hand. He knew that as long as Selene was around, there was no problem he couldn’t solve.

“He’s in my private hospital,” he said smugly.

As soon as I got the answer, I threw the USB drive at Selene’s face.

There was no time to waste. I turned and ran.

When I finally found my father’s ward, I froze in the doorway. One of his legs was gone.

I stood there, stunned, unable to believe what I was seeing. Tears streamed down my face, hitting the cold hospital floor. Every step I took felt like nails piercing through my feet. I was on the verge of collapse.

“Dad! How did you lose your leg? You only fell from the second floor! It shouldn’t have cost you your leg!”

My father stirred at the sound of my sobbing and opened his weary eyes to look at me.

“It was Alaric” he said weakly. “He forced the doctor to amputate my leg.”

“What? Him?”

He wasn’t satisfied with destroying my mother, he had to ruin my father too.

The fury in my heart ignited and I felt like tearing Alaric apart with my bare hands.

Just then, my lawyer called.

“Xavier, check the latest news.”

I picked up the remote and turned on the TV. All the news reports were spinning the same lie, that my mother had been drunk and crossing the street recklessly when she was hit by a car.

But my mother didn’t drink. And she didn’t cross the road. It was clear Selene had fabricated the video to protect Alaric.

They already had the crucial evidence, without it, they could twist the story however they liked.

I was shaking with rage and my father, watching the broadcast, was so devastated, he coughed up blood.

Since my mother’s death, my father’s health had worsened day by day. He had even been thrown from a building.

And now this.

I felt utterly helpless.

“Xavier,” he said weakly, “don’t blame yourself. Ordinary people like us can’t win against the rich and powerful. Just give up the appeal. I don’t want you to end up in danger too. I couldn’t bear it.”

But I couldn’t accept it. I refused to accept it. And yet, there was nothing I could do to touch Alaric.

As I walked out of the hospital, I heard people gossiping, cursing my mother, saying she’d tried to extort money and had gotten herself killed. They said she deserved it.

I lost control and lashed out, arguing back—only for them to recognize me as her son.