Chapter 2

Sophia's expression shifted. She rubbed the back of my hand and said in a low voice, "I'm sorry, honey. I was worried that you would get upset if you saw Ashton's corpse, so I arranged for him to be cremated yesterday."

I knew she didn't actually care if I got upset over seeing Ashton's corpse. She was just worried that I would notice that his heart had been removed from his chest.

Suppressing my hatred, I looked at the crooked red bracelet circling Sophia's wrist.

Ashton had given the bracelet to her. Sophia frequently suffered from insomnia before the accident, so Ashton asked one of his teachers to teach him how to make a bracelet. He then weaved one out of red string and mugwort, giving it to her after he was done.

Sophia had stared at the bracelet that couldn't be considered pretty in shock. Her mouth fell open, but she didn't say a word for a long time. She only accepted the bracelet when Ashton called out to her, carefully slipping it onto her wrist.

"Thank you, Ash," she said while hugging him. "I love it very much."

Only then did I realize that while Ashton had been worried about Sophia's insomnia, the reason that she was losing sleep in the first place was because she had been planning the car crash to make it look like an accident.

Sophia followed my line of sight and looked at the bracelet too. A complicated emotion flickered in her eyes before she covered the bracelet with her sleeve, saying, "I promise I'll do the same as you and spend the rest of my life missing Ash, honey."

I looked down and didn't say another word. The only thing that I was grateful for was that Ashton believed that Sophia loved him till the very end of his life.

However, I couldn't forget that she was the one who harmed him just because of that. I became determined to take revenge for him. I also planned to leave her since she was the culprit who hurt both of us.

…

Disliking the scent of disinfectant that was a constant presence in the hospital, Sophia took me home the next day.

Truth be told, Sophia was a wonderful wife if I didn't know about her malicious true character. She personally prepared my meals for me, thoughtfully remembering all of my dietary restrictions. Worried that I would develop PTSD, she also massaged and soaked my feet in water every night.

Three days after I returned home, she finally made up an excuse that there was an urgent matter at the company that needed her attention before leaving the house early in the morning.

She hadn't locked her phone in time, giving me a chance to catch a glimpse of the message that her lover, Harold Cox, had sent her.

"Micah keeps crying for his mother, Sophia. He refuses to calm down no matter how much I coax him."

Sophia had rushed to her other son, Micah Cox's, side without hesitation just because he missed her. Meanwhile, Ashton died before he could even see her for the last time.

I silently watched Sophia leave before making my way up to the third floor, standing in front of her study.

We had been married for five years. Using the excuse that even married couples needed their personal space, she had installed a passcode lock on the study door.

As expected, the door unlocked when I entered Harold's and Micah's birthdays. Their family portraits hung from all four walls of the spacious study.

There were other photos of when she was pregnant and giving birth. There were also photos of Micah's one-month birthday celebration, his first tooth, and his first step.

Sophia had recorded everything. Meanwhile, Ashton's pictures couldn't even fill a small photo album even though he had been alive for four years before his death.

I flipped open Sophia's diary that was sitting on the desk.

"May 20th. I told Harold that I had a surprise for him. Although I had expected him to be rendered speechless from excitement, I couldn't stop my tears from falling when I felt how he was shaking when he hugged me."

"January 23rd. I've become a mother. I named him Micah Cox. He's so small. When I held him in my arms, I was briefly overwhelmed with the feeling that I wanted to give everything that I had to him and his father. However, the doctor told me that Micah had inherited Harold's congenital heart disease."

"September 30th. I got married for Micah's sake. The groom wasn't Harold. I'll definitely be a good wife and mother, Harold."

I could sense her incredible determination when I noticed how hard she had pressed the pen into the paper when she wrote the last entry, the paper nearly tearing from the pressure.