Chapter 1: Chapter 1
I’ll never forget the day Alex was born. I had a difficult birth, bleeding so badly. When I woke up, Ethan was holding the baby, telling me that our baby was perfectly healthy.
“Do you really not have any feelings for Sophia at all? You’re so bewitched by Victoria, have you lost your mind?”
“My only regret is that we met too late.”
“Would a woman who truly loves you let you get blood on your hands? Snap out of it!”
Our decade-long love story was nothing but an elaborate trap.
On our seventh wedding anniversary, I opened his phone and found his messages with my enemy Victoria:
I continued to scroll through his chat history, my fingers trembling on the screen.
“Carter Group will be yours soon. Marrying Sophia was just a means to an end.”
Ethan’s replies made my chest tighten:
In the bedroom, Ethan was sleeping soundly, a smile still playing on his lips.
The cold words stabbed my heart like daggers.
“Sophia will find out sooner or later. Stop now before it’s too late. If this blows up, it will end badly for everyone.”
The son I’d loved for six years was his mistress’s child.
For over a decade, I’ve been nothing but a clown, a puppet dancing to his tune.
“I’ve taken care of the brakes. Her parents are dead, no one can stop us now.”
Just yesterday, his friend had tried to reason with him:
What he didn’t know was that in my daze, I heard a nurse whisper, “What a shame.” The truth is, my own child didn’t survive. He replaced him with Victoria’s child!
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He protected me through those dark days, and after rescue, I begged my parents to adopt him.
When Alex was sick, I stayed up all night at his bedside, and Ethan seemed moved to tears. It was all an act.
“We have a child together. She’s Alex’s biological mother. I can’t abandon her.”
“Don’t worry about it. Sophia is wrapped around my little finger. She hasn’t suspected a thing in so many years, and she won’t start now. This is the last time. As soon as I get the shares, I’ll be done with her.”
When my parents passed away, he acted devastated, crying with me all night. And the whole time, the murderer was right beside me.
Laughable. Utterly laughable.
“Victoria has never been a good person, not even when we were kids. She’s making you bring down the Carter Group; it’s obvious she’s just using you.”
The man I’d trusted with my life was my parents’ killer.
When I was eight, Ethan and I were kidnapped to a remote private island.
So, from the very first day of our marriage, he had been plotting to betray me.
“What I have with Victoria is true love. She’s in a difficult position. She’s been burdened by her family’s vendetta since childhood, and this was the only way she could ask for my help. I understand.”
All these years, he convinced me to focus on our family, to give up countless major projects. I thought it was because he cared about me, but it turns out he was simply paving the way for Victoria.
