Chapter 2

Travis froze, his gaze locking onto Renee like a vice.

Renee, standing at the top of the stairs, flinched violently. Big, fat tears welled up in her eyes instantly, the corners turning red—she looked the very picture of fragile, helpless innocence, ready to be broken at any moment.

On one side, the mafia boss whose fingers trembled with heartache yet couldn’t bring himself to strike. On the other, the delicate mistress, her eyes mournful, begging him in a soft, trembling voice.

The sight was utterly absurd. Hilarious, even.

If Travis was so fond of playing the devoted amnesiac, then as his wife, I’d be happy to play along until the very end.

Travis’s Adam’s apple bobbed painfully. His feet felt like they were filled with lead as he dragged himself step by heavy step toward Renee.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and finally raised his hand.

A slap—neither too hard nor too soft—landed squarely on Renee’s pale, delicate cheek.

Renee let out a sharp cry of surprise, clapping a hand to her face. Tears cascaded down her cheeks like broken pearls, and she stared at Travis in disbelief.

“Not enough.” I crossed my arms over my chest, the words ice-cold.

Travis’s back went rigid. He closed his eyes again, the vein in his temple throbbing violently. I could even see the muscles beneath his suit straining to their breaking point with the effort of holding himself back.

The next second, his eyes flew open, and he struck without mercy—backhand, then forehand.

SMACK! SMACK!

The sharp, brutal sound of the slaps echoed through the entire mansion.

Travis had put every ounce of his strength into those two blows, sending Renee crashing to the floor. Her once pure, pretty face swelled up before my eyes, and a thin trickle of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth.

She crumpled onto the carpet, clutching her swollen cheek, and finally broke down into hysterical sobs. She scrambled out of the mansion’s front door on her hands and knees.

I watched her fleeing back with no emotion in my eyes, then turned to head upstairs to my room.

“Helen.”

Travis called after me suddenly, his voice raw with barely concealed reproach and pain. “What happened to you? The nineteen-year-old you was never this cruel.”

I stopped and turned to look at him as if he were a complete stranger.

“And the twenty-eight-year-old you isn’t nearly as pure and innocent as the nineteen-year-old you was.” I gave him a cold, empty smile that never reached my eyes. “Travis, the reason I’m this cold, this cruel, this insane woman is all thanks to you and Renee—the versions of you that are yet to come.”

Three slaps? That was nothing.

It could never make up for the life they’d destroyed. It could never bring back the ability to have children they’d brutally taken from me. And it could never, ever atone for the death of my daughter—who’d never even gotten to open her eyes and see the world.

I had terminal cervical cancer. My days were numbered. So I was going to make sure those two bastards suffered every single one of them. Even if I was going to die, even if I’d already signed the divorce papers, I was going to make them bleed before I took my last breath.

After that, Travis was uncharacteristically quiet for a few days. To keep up his “nineteen-year-old” act, he forced himself to hold back, not daring to contact Renee in front of me.

Until a few days later, when Renee’s daughter’s birthday arrived.

That’s right—she’d had a daughter with Travis behind my back, and she was turning three.

That afternoon, I walked past the study with a glass of water. The door was ajar, and I could hear Travis’s lowered voice inside, followed by Renee’s heart-wrenching sobs on the other end of the line.

“Travis, I can take it when you hurt me. For our future together, I’ll put up with you hitting me, yelling at me—anything!” Renee gasped through her tears. “But Nina’s your biological daughter! She’s been asking for her daddy every single day. It’s her third birthday today—can’t you even come and spend it with her?”

“Haven’t you spent enough time with that dying lunatic?!”

Travis’s knuckles turned white around his phone, his eyes filled with pain and conflict for the mother and daughter. Just as he was about to give in, I slammed open the study door and walked in, my face completely blank.

Travis jolted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

The pain and conflict vanished from his face in an instant, replaced by a harsh, forced snarl. “Get lost! I told you I don’t know you! Stop calling me and harassing me!”

“Or I won’t hesitate to throw you out again!”

He snapped the words out, then hung up in a panic. He looked up at me, trying to force a smile that looked more like a grimace.

I watched him hang up calmly, as if I were watching a clown perform a sad little one-man show.

I didn’t call him out on his lie. I just said flatly, “Come with me somewhere.”

Travis hesitated, instinctively trying to refuse. “Helen, I have some urgent business with the crew later—can’t we…?”

“This place is important.” I cut him off. “Travis, the nineteen-year-old you never made excuses to turn me down. You said you’d climb up and pluck the stars from the sky if I asked you to.”

Travis froze.

For a long moment, he stood there, then finally forced the words out through gritted teeth, as if every syllable pained him. “Fine… I’ll go with you.”

I drove Travis out to the family cemetery on the outskirts of Chicago.

A fine, cold rain was falling, wrapping the entire cemetery in a suffocating silence. I knelt down and carefully wiped the dust from my parents’ headstones with a handkerchief, then laid out their favorite desserts.

Then I stood up and walked to the tiny, unmarked grave next to my parents’—nothing more than a small mound of dirt, not even a proper headstone.

I knelt down in front of the little grave, pulled a candy out of my pocket, unwrapped it slowly, and placed it on the cold, damp earth.

Travis stood behind me the whole time, completely distracted. Every few minutes, he’d sneak his phone out of his pocket and glance at it, his brow furrowing deeper and deeper. I knew Renee was blowing up his phone, begging him to come. He was dying to get back to his other daughter, the one who was celebrating her birthday.

“Helen, I don’t remember today being your parents’ anniversary.”

Travis finally snapped, shoving his phone back into his pocket, his voice thick with impatience and resentment. “We could have come to visit their graves any time. Did it have to be today?”

I knew exactly what he was really thinking. What he wanted to say was: Did you have to drag me to this godforsaken place on my own daughter’s birthday to ruin it?

I didn’t turn around.

I just stared at the little muddy grave, letting the cold rain hit my face.

“Of course it’s not my parents’ anniversary.” I pushed myself up slowly, brushing the mud off my skirt. “Today is the anniversary of my daughter’s death. The one who died the day she was born.”

All the color drained from Travis’s face in an instant.

His annoyed expression froze solid, and his pupils dilated violently in shock.

Looking at him, I felt a bitter, ironic laugh rise in my throat.

There it was, Travis. You forgot to keep acting.

The nineteen-year-old Travis had no idea this child existed. He had no idea I’d ever been pregnant, that I’d lost a baby. If he were really nineteen, his first reaction would have been confusion, shock—asking me, “What baby?”

But that wasn’t what I saw.

All I saw was raw, unmistakeable guilt. Agony, written all over his deathly pale face.

That one look told me everything.

He’d never lost his memory. His whole “nineteen-year-old” act had been nothing but a pathetic, transparent lie from start to finish.