Chapter 2

What none of us saw coming was that her high school sweetheart would choose to end his life that exact same day.

Nyla was consumed by gut-wrenching regret. She convinced herself that Asher and I had colluded to mess everything up, deliberately ruining her reunion with him. She even pinned his death directly on us. Her grief turned into a poisonous hatred directed entirely at my son and me.

To punish us, she staged a car crash, faked a permanent disability, and spent three agonizing years tormenting us. As if that wasn't enough, she hired a dead ringer for her ex to act as our live-in doctor just to keep him by her side.

Now, solely because Kieran’s face looked ninety percent identical to her dead ex, Nyla bought every single word coming out of his mouth. She concluded that Asher wasn't running a high fever at all, but was just faking a sickness to trick her.

Her orders? I had to go outside and stand in the torrential rain for another ten hours.

A fury hotter than hell surged through my veins.

Before I could hurl those words of hatred back in her face, Asher’s right hand suddenly jerked violently. His face turned a deep purple, his teeth clamped shut, and a thin trickle of blood spilled past his lips.

My throat constricted in sheer panic. "It’s a febrile seizure! He’s in grave danger! We have to get him to an ER right now!"

Nyla froze, panic flickering in her eyes as she reached for her phone to call an ambulance.

Kieran let out a slow, dramatic sigh. "Man, you two really are a united front. Asher, you’re seriously pretending to be sick just like you saw on TV to get your dad out of his punishment? Fine. I’ll just pretend I didn’t notice."

My son was barely conscious.

Yet Nyla didn't even bother looking at him. Driven by a single tailored lie, she fell for Kieran’s cheap manipulation hook, line, and sinker.

She shoved her phone back into her pocket, raised an eyebrow, and let out a cold, disgusted scoff. "Asher, you’re letting him ruin you. If you don't stand up right now, you're getting locked in the basement!"

The only response she got was my son’s rapid, shallow, erratic gasps for air.

Nyla lost her temper entirely. Without another word, she ordered the bodyguards to drag Asher away and throw him into the basement. Then they slammed me back onto the soaked pavement in the rain.

She glared down at me with a lethal sneer. "This time, if he doesn't stand out here for the full ten hours, no one lets him in. Even if he dies."

"Kieran is lying to you! Asher is really sick! He needs an emergency room!"

I begged in the pouring rain, screaming until my voice rasped and broke into raw gravel, but the music blasting from Nyla’s second-floor bedroom only grew louder.

The heavy rain blinded me, stinging my eyes. Extreme fatigue washed over me as the freezing wind bit into my skin, making me shiver uncontrollably.

Yet none of that physical agony matched even a fraction of the agony ripping through my heart.

She had never trusted me. Now, she didn't even care if our son lived or died.

I thrashed against my restraints, but the bodyguards behind me pinned my arms down with brute, unyielding force.

It wasn't until the punishment finally ended that they shoved me aside and released me.

I stumbled blindly into the basement. My tiny little boy was tossed onto the cold hardwood floor like a discarded rag doll. His skin burned like an oven. He had lost consciousness completely.

A desperate, broken scream ripped from my throat.

Every person in the house just stared back at us with icy indifference.

I knew begging them was useless. I gathered my limp son into my arms and sprinted out the front gates.

This gated community sat far away from the city center, miles from the nearest hospital. Thankfully, a kind stranger stopped their car and drove us straight to the emergency room.

The ER was a chaotic zoo of blaring monitors and shouting staff. My son fluttered his eyes open, his small, burning hand gripping mine tightly.

"Daddy, I'm sorry... I'll never ask to go to the amusement park again. I'll never eat cookies off the floor again..."

His voice drifted off, fading into a tiny whisper. My heart felt like it was being sliced into pieces.

A nurse tapped my shoulder, reminding me to pay the deposit at the front desk.

I checked my pockets. I didn't have a single cent to my name.

To make her punishment absolute, Nyla had contacted every single one of my employers beforehand. Every penny I earned from my job and side hustles was wired directly into her bank account.

As the nurse pressed me repeatedly for payment, I swallowed my pride and pulled off my gold wedding ring.

Nyla had custom-made that ring herself for our wedding. I used to treasure it above my own life. Even when my son and I were starving and digging through trash cans for scrap, I couldn't bring myself to pawn it.

At that point, I didn’t give a damn anymore.

My own time was running out. My only remaining wish was for my son to live.

…

I managed to pay the deposit with the pawned ring.

Yet only a nurse came over to set up an IV drip. The doctor on duty was nowhere to be found.

When I anxiously pushed for answers, the nurse gave me a deeply apologetic look.

"I'm so sorry. A VIP's friend was brought in with an injury, so all available doctors were pulled over to their room."