Chapter 4

John froze. Adaline looked as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, all she managed was a tearful "I'm sorry."

Henry was busy cheering in excitement, while Greta simply scoffed. "This should've happened ages ago. Addy was always meant to be Mrs. Foster!"

This whole time, Greta had refused to complete the paperwork to issue John's death certificate. I'd assumed it was because she couldn't accept that her son had died before her, but now I knew that this was the moment she'd been waiting for all along.

Sneering, I turned around and left.

It took a month for the divorce to be finalized, which felt both painfully long and unbelievably short. Once the divorce certificate was issued, our eight-year marriage officially came to an end.

John called out to me, his tone remorseful. "I'll leave the house to you. You can—"

I walked off without paying him any attention. Every corner of that house held the memories of him and me, each one covered in blood-stained thorns. Why would I want to keep it?

When I arrived at the cemetery to visit my parents' graves, I found Adaline kneeling in front of their gravestones, crying remorsefully.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Jamison. I hurt Cece terribly! I once promised you that I would take good care of her, but I broke my promise. I'm sorry…"

Mom and Dad had died in a fire while saving her. When she'd felt so guilty that she tried to take her own life to make it up to me, I stopped her.

I treated her as the one thing my parents had left to me—my only family.

Who would've thought that she would team up with the man I loved the most to stab me so deeply in the heart?

I shoved her away and screamed in fury, "Get lost! Don't sully my parents' ears with the details of your sordid affair with John!"

With reddened eyes, Adaline carefully reached for my hand. "I'm sorry, Cece. I truly didn't mean for any of this to happen. We're still best friends, aren't we?"

I scoffed at her. "All because you wanted to avoid facing the situation, you chose to drag me, an innocent person, into your twisted romance with John. And then, because you couldn't control yourself, you got into bed with my husband. You helped him fake his death so that you two could live happily ever after!

"And worst of all, you killed my child! How can you be shameless enough to still say that we're best friends, Adaline?"

With all the strength I could muster, I slapped her hard across the face. She lost her balance and smashed her forehead against my parents' gravestone.

As her blood started to flow, John showed up out of nowhere. Once he saw the blood, he became outraged.

"Cecilia! Have you lost your mind? Addy is your best friend! She came to visit your parents as soon as she recovered from labor! Why are you treating her like that?"

I shouted right back at him, "I don't need her to visit my parents! Get lost! My parents aren't interested in seeing a bunch of filthy cheaters like you two!"

John's chest heaved with anger. "Fine! You don't want to let us visit them, huh?"

He grabbed a nearby shovel and raised it in the air.

My breath caught, and my heart stopped. "What are you doing?"

But even before I finished speaking, the shovel slammed against the gravestone with a deafening crash. It cracked and broke into two.

However, John wasn't satisfied yet. He raised the shovel again.

"Mom! Dad!" I screamed in despair as I threw myself over the remaining slab of stone.

John couldn't stop in time, and the shovel smacked right against my back. I spat out a mouthful of blood.

After freezing in shock, he was just about to rush over to me when Adaline suddenly fainted. Without the slightest hesitation, he scooped her up and dashed off.

Before long, the 32-year-old John sent me a message.

"Cecilia! Why does Addy have a new scar on her forehead now? Did you do it? I'm warning you—don't you dare hurt her again!"

I ignored him. Scalding tears dripped onto the photo of Mom and Dad on the broken part of the gravestone.

"I'm taking you guys away from here…"

…

At the hospital, after learning that Adaline only had a mild concussion, John finally exhaled in relief. Only then did he suddenly remember that I'd been injured as well and spat out a lot of blood.

He quickly tried to call me, but the calls went unanswered. Panicking, he rushed back to the cemetery, only to find that the gravestone had been completely removed. Even the urn had been dug out.

My phone was lying on the ground, on top of a medical examination report.

John crouched down to take a look. His eyes widened in shock, and his heart almost stopped beating.

Just then, the phone started ringing, and the profile photo that popped up looked very familiar. It belonged to the account he hadn't used in two years now.