Chapter 2

Dustin's face twitched violently at that.

The incident from five years ago began playing in his head, splashing him with unpleasant memories like a cold bucket of ice water.

His mother, Nancy Reynolds, suffered from severe asthma for many years. One year, she generously sponsored a poor student, who turned out to be Miranda, and even brought her home as a guest.

However, Miranda got jealous of how good Nancy was to me and mischievously replaced all of her asthma medication by her bedside with regular vitamin tablets.

That night, Nancy had a horrible asthma attack and collapsed in the hallway. She clutched her throat in agony and cried out for help.

Meanwhile, Miranda stood just about three feet away with her phone in the air, recording Nancy's suffering while giggling behind the camera.

"Stop acting, Nancy. You were still fine a minute ago."

That was how Nancy suffocated to death in her own villa hallway.

By the time Duustin rushed to the hospital, the only things he saw were Nancy's dead body under a white cloth and the video that Miranda had posted on her social media account for laughs.

He dropped to his knees outside the morgue, his eyes bloodshot as he suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood.

He had grown up with Nancy all his life, and she was the only safe haven he could rely on in a household filled with deceit and power struggles.

He'd hugged me tightly in his arms then and cried so hard it felt as though he'd lost his very soul that day.

"I don't have a mother anymore, Claudia. You're the only one I have left."

For the next three months after that, he locked himself up in the dark basement and refused to eat or drink. I was the one who force-fed him the cooled-off stews and soups and held his emaciated form in my arms as I fought to tear him away from Death's door.

I had been the one who held his hand through the darkest time of his life.

"I never forgot," Dustin said through gritted teeth, his eyes turning red with tears. His voice was fierce and resolute. "A vile, vicious woman like her will never be able to atone for Mom's life even if she died a thousand times over.

"If it weren't for you, darling, I would have already been dead. Miranda is worth less to me than an animal."

His eyes were still red, and the veins on the back of his hands popped out. Yet, his inner thoughts struck me like a sledgehammer, shattering all the sacrifices I'd made for him during that period.

[That incident happened such a long time ago. Miranda was only 18 years old at that time and hadn't known any better! How could she have known that those were Mom's life-saving pills that she swapped out?

[She felt so guilty afterward that she even tried slitting her wrists twice. Her hands are riddled with scars now. How could Claudia be so petty and vicious by bringing up the past against her like that?

[Miranda's such a kind and pure soul too, and she can't even bring herself to crush an ant. She's also been crying and waking from nightmares lately, and I'm so heartbroken for her.

[What's done is done. The dead can never come back to life. What's the point of bringing up the past when we should be looking to the future instead?]

I dug my nails into the palms of my hands until deep crescent marks formed.

How hilarious.

He was playing the role of an unforgiving and devoted son on the surface, but deep down, he felt only heartache for the scars on the murderer's arms.

The three months I'd spent with him in his darkest time didn't even mean as much to him as Miranda's fake tears after all.

He thought that I was still grieving Nancy's death and tried to reach out to comfort me, but I ducked and avoided his touch.

Instead, I glared intensely at his fourth finger and felt the tears instantly welling in my eyes.

The ring on his finger was not our wedding or engagement ring.

Our ring was a plain band that he had designed himself, and the inside of the ring was engraved with the initials of our names. He told me before that the purest of love didn't need any other fancy embellishments.

However, the ring that he was now wearing on his finger had a pink jewel set in it. It was a woman's wedding band. Also, it obviously didn't fit him, so it was stuck halfway through his second finger joint and left a deep, glaring red mark in his skin.