Chapter1

On the day my father was framed for embezzlement, Noah pulled the engagement ring off his finger and shoved it into Cassandra's palm.

"Ella, I can't cover for your father's mess. Rather than dragging me down to hell with you, it's better if you go suffer at that cripple's house for a few years. Once the storm blows over, I might look back on our past feelings and help you out."

When he said this, Cassandra stood right behind him. My best friend, wearing the floral dress I had helped her pick out, didn't even look at me. She lowered her head to study the engraved words inside the ring. It was what Noah had engraved last Valentine's Day: "The only one in this life."

On the afternoon he and Cassandra registered their marriage, I gripped shards of broken glass, pointing them directly at my husband Sebastian's throat. That cripple sat in his wheelchair, the blanket over his legs covering his atrophied muscles, but his eyes gleamed like two sharp knives.

"Do it," he said. "Do you dare?"

The door was kicked open.

Cormac stood in the doorway, his overcoat dusted with snow. It was exactly this kind of weather the year my father kicked him out of the house.

"Sebastian, she belongs to me tonight."

He threw a bank card onto the floor and hauled me up. The glass shards in my hand slashed the webbing of his thumb, but he merely reached up to wipe the blood away.

"Ella, stay alive. Just consider it living for my sake."

Later, he took me to the hospital for my third abortion. I lay on the hospital bed and heard Noah's voice drifting from the other end of the corridor.

"It's not like you don't know what happened back then. We personally stuffed the evidence against Cassandra's father into Ella's father's drawer. Now they're digging up the past, and you expect me to admit it?"

He paused.

"If I admit it, what happens to Cassandra? That cripple's old man was a victim's family member. If I didn't push Ella out to take the fall, Cassandra would have been the one to marry into that family. Could she endure that kind of life?"

Whatever was said on the other end of the phone, he laughed, keeping his laughter very low.

"Cassandra's hands are made for writing. She has never even washed a bowl. How could I ever bear to make her serve a madman?"

When he said "how could I ever bear it," his tone sounded like he was stating an absolute truth. Just like back then when he said, "Ella, I will marry you."

Someone was crying in the corridor. It wasn't me, but my eyes were wet too.

"I owe her," Noah's voice drifted over again. "I can't give her a proper title in this lifetime, but I can protect her. As long as Ella doesn't appeal the case, Cassandra will stay safe forever. Even if it's wrong, I accept it."

His assistant muttered something. The voice was too soft, so I only caught a few words: "body is giving out" and "can't get pregnant again."

"But regarding Ella, Sebastian has been getting worse lately. It's not like you don't know how many times he has pawned her off to others. Waiting like this, when will it ever end?"

Noah remained silent for a long time. Then he said, "Wait until Cassandra gets her degree abroad. Wait until she establishes a firm foothold there. Wait until..."

"Wait until what?" the assistant's voice rose sharply. "Wait until she's dead?"

No one spoke.

Then I heard Cormac's voice.

"No."

Who was he speaking to? The other end of the line?

"Ella cannot appeal the case," Cormac said slowly and methodically. "If she finds out, Cassandra's father will go to prison. Sebastian's case will also be reinvestigated. By then, everyone in this circle will be dragged down with them."

"But..." it was the assistant's voice.

"I said, no," Cormac interrupted him. "If she finds out, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to her. But as for revisiting the case, whoever brings it up will go meet God."

The voices drifted further away. I knelt on the floor. My stomach didn't hurt anymore; my heart hurt. It felt as if someone was churning a blunt knife inside it.

My phone lit up.

Sebastian sent a message: "Come out when you're done. There's a car waiting at the entrance. Don't let Cormac tag along."

My finger paused on the screen before I typed two words: "Another day?"

He immediately called me back.

"Are you fucking bargaining with me?" his voice squeezed through his gritted teeth. "When your father killed my dad, he wasn't bargaining with my dad, was he?"

I heard the sound of his wheelchair rolling across the floor, along with the noise of him pouring water into a glass.

"Cormac slept with you a few times, and you actually think he's protecting you? He's just looking for someone else's shadow in you."

I didn't say a word. Tears fell onto the back of my hand, stinging bitterly.

"If you're not back by eight, you know the consequences."

The line went dead.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. The faces of those men surfaced in my mind once again. My father's former colleagues, his business partners, and Sebastian's racing buddies. When they came, they brought fruit baskets and medical records, saying, "We're here to take care of our sister-in-law." When they left, they slipped cash under my pillow.

Sebastian said this was "compensation." Compensation for his father's death, and compensation for the debts my father owed. When he said those things, he sat in his wheelchair and looked up at me, his expression twisted like a madman's.

I opened my eyes and picked myself up from the floor. The person in the mirror had disheveled hair and an unbuttoned hospital gown, displaying a fresh burn mark below the collarbone. Sebastian pressed his cigarette butt there last night.

I remembered the day my father was taken away. He turned to look at me from inside the police car. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Later, he had his lawyer pass on a message: "Stay away from Cormac. His kindness towards you comes with an ulterior motive."

Before I passed out, the last thing I saw clearly was the blindingly white light at the end of the corridor. It felt as if I had never walked out from beneath that light.