Chapter4

My best friend, Raven, flew into New York, pleading with me until she was blue in the face to take the alimony and sign the divorce papers.

"I won't," I snapped. "If I sign now, aren't I just stepping aside for that repugnant bitch?"

"Why does her trashy brat get to legitimately inherit the Vance empire when my baby didn't even get a single glimpse of this world?" Bitter and relentless, I swore I would make them pay.

The agony of losing my child. The humiliation of losing to a vulgar woman I had never even considered a rival. The despair of being dealt a fatal blow by the husband I had deeply loved for over a decade. Every night, endless pain and tears engulfed me. I tormented that shameless couple like a madwoman.

I hired someone to spray-paint Oksana’s brand-new Porsche bright red. Nate immediately bought her a custom bulletproof SUV, even equipping it with encrypted license plates. I leaked their sordid scandal and her ultrasound reports to all the tabloid sites. Less than an hour later, Nate’s top-tier PR team scrubbed the videos and news off the internet completely. I ambushed Mila at the gates of her private school, violently demanding justice for my dead baby. Nate's response was assigning her two armed, retired Special Forces bodyguards to escort her to and from school, never leaving her side.

On the day I finally broke, I shattered an expensive crystal goblet and pressed the jagged shard against my own throat. I hysterically demanded that Nate hand over Mila—that murderer—and give my baby justice.

He looked at me and merely let out a faint sigh. "Stop making a scene and let it go. Elle, the baby is gone."

"If you keep throwing these tantrums, I wouldn't mind withdrawing the trust fund's legal protection over your father's corporate tax audit. I doubt you want to see him rot in federal prison at his age."

He was actually using my parents' life's work to threaten me.

Trembling all over, my grip loosened. The glass shard dropped onto my foot, drawing blood that instantly seeped into the priceless Persian rug. The last ounce of fight drained out of me.

Nate carried me to the sofa, silently kneeling down to treat my wound. His embrace was just as warm as it used to be. Yet, all I felt was a chilling terror. Finishing the bandage, he didn't even bother washing his hands before rushing out the door. I knew he was heading to the guest room to see Oksana. She had complained about severe morning sickness earlier that day.

Mila intentionally texted me photos and videos every single day. Nate wearing an apron, cooking Eastern European borscht for Oksana. Nate kneeling on the floor, washing her feet. He even hired a professional to teach him prenatal massage, simply because Oksana’s thick calves were getting a little swollen.

“You defeated, pathetic bitch. Clinging to Nate is useless.”

“Once Oksana gives birth to the heir, you're dead.”

“When the time comes, I’m going to strip you naked and throw you into the slums. I’m sure the homeless men there will love a piece of you.”

I stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor, looking down in pure despair. Nate was carefully supporting a heavily pregnant Oksana as they strolled across the lawn. A picture-perfect family of four. Meanwhile, sitting on my nightstand was only a cold, miniature urn.

A fully formed fetus, with facial features already developed, sent into an incinerator and reduced to ashes. Painfully little of it. No one would remember that unborn soul. Except the mother.

My heart was slashed open repeatedly, then thrown into a meat grinder. Whether I lived or died depended entirely on the whims of Oksana and her sister. How did it ever come to this?

In the beginning, it was just me taking pity on a low-class refugee, offering a sliver of kindness. Later, everyone forced me to keep being kind. Severe depression and PTSD utterly destroyed me. I lost my mind.

In my delirium, I constantly recalled those days from many, many years ago—an eighteen-year-old Nate tutoring me in an Ivy League library. Ruffling my hair, he smiled and told me that it didn't matter if I got into trouble, because I had him. No matter what happened, he would fix it for me.

He didn't fix this for me.

After another hysterical episode where I smashed the antiques in our house, Nate called in the bodyguards and had me forcibly committed to a private psychiatric facility.

Two years later, citing "wife's mental instability and prolonged separation," he filed for a forced divorce. Outside the Manhattan courthouse, he silently handed me a check with a staggering figure as compensation. I didn't take it. I just turned and walked into the gray, drizzling rain. With that, a grand fairytale that began in our adolescence collapsed into a foul, decaying ruin, ending in an unceremonious blur.

Seven years. Spanning an entire ocean, the time was enough to wash my very soul clean.

Seven years without seeing him, until an afternoon outside an elite private academy, when Nate grabbed my hand once again. The man's voice trembled uncontrollably, sounding almost manic.

"Elle, if I said I regretted it..."

"Would you give me another chance?"

It was absolutely absurd. Just because you regret it, I'm supposed to weep tears of gratitude and forgive you? Utterly disgusted, I flung his hand off. My Louboutins clicked sharply against the pavement as I spun on my heel.

School had just let out. Completely ignoring his lurking presence, I smiled and walked toward my daughter, Luna.

"How was your first day of school, sweetie?"

"It was so fun! Maman, the teacher is really nice, and the kids are too!"

Nate stood rooted to the spot, watching us walk away. The setting sun stretched his desperate, pathetic shadow long across the concrete. Luna skipped happily beside me, her loose ponytail bouncing.

"Mommy, who's that sad-looking man? Why does he keep staring at us?"

I squeezed her warm little hand. "No one. Just a stranger who mistook us for someone else."

Luna's tiny hand grew slightly sweaty in my palm. She looked back for the third time, her voice carrying a childlike confusion: "Mommy, he's still looking."

I gave her soft palm another gentle squeeze, never turning back. Not even once.

Seven years ago, on a street just like this, he had fiercely shielded the murderous Mila in the exact same way, ushering her into a car as the tinted windows reflected my deathly pale face. Now, his profound, lingering gaze was like a bandage applied far too late—utterly useless for a heart that had long since scarred over.