Chapter 1

My mother-in-law, Helen, sighed.

“Your ‘death’ has destroyed her! She looked so pale these past few days, and she has lost so much weight. When she finds out the truth, she will never forgive you! Sweetheart, you two are legally married. There are other ways to repay your brother. Melissa still has me to look after her—”

Before Helen could finish persuading Benedict, he cut her off.

“Mom, you don’t get it, so stay out of it. El’s grief is temporary. I’ll get her the best doctors to treat her mental illness. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try electroshock therapy. Once we get her through this rough patch, the suffering will stop. When Melissa gets pregnant and everything is back on track, I’ll tell El the truth. El’s a sensible girl. She loves me too much to let me go. She’ll understand why I had to do this.”

The water in the bathtub rose past my nose. The pain in my chest was so intense that I struggled to breathe. I let go of Benedict’s police badge in my hand and watched it drift in the bloody tub. I knew his badge number by heart. However, at this moment, it felt like a cruel and piercing betrayal.

The shower head fell, and the loud crash brought Benedict running.

He frantically gathered me into his arms. His anxious attempts to bandage my wound made me feel dazed.

I called out softly, “Ben...”

Benedict stayed in character so well and only let out a soft sigh.

It killed any hope I had left.

“El, you’re doing it again. It’s me, David.”

He looked at me with a mix of frustration and reproach.

“Benedict is gone. Why do you keep doing this to yourself? Stop being so reckless. You’re soaked. Let me get you changed.”

As he spoke, his hands naturally moved to undo my buttons.

His familiar movement only made me more certain he was Benedict.

I pushed him away in despair, but he grasped my hands firmly, leaving no room for refusal.

“El, don’t make this difficult. If you get sick, how am I supposed to face Benedict?”

Unable to break free from his grip, I lay on the bed lifelessly as I allowed Benedict to manhandle me.

A deep sense of humiliation washed over me.

Tears slid silently down my cheeks. Benedict, however, mistook them for a sign that his reasoning was working.

Just as he was about to console me with earnest words, a noisy crowd of people suddenly emerged through the door.

Melissa had brought a group of friends home for a gathering.

The moment she saw Benedict sitting on the edge of my bed, her eyes instantly welled up with tears.

“Dear, what are you doing?”

Benedict immediately dropped the top he was holding and rushed to explain himself to her.

“El hurt her hand. She couldn’t get changed on her own, so she asked me to help her.”

I let out a startled cry and grabbed the blanket from the side of the bed to cover myself.

But someone had already taken a photo of me in my disheveled, exposed state.

With Benedict gone, the door clicked softly shut. I could hear their occasional muffled discussions.

“What’s with Melissa’s sister-in-law? Her husband just passed away, and she’s already throwing herself at the older brother. Tsk tsk tsk.”

“She looks desperate in this photo, doesn’t she?”

Benedict frowned. He was about to speak when Melissa called him into the room.

This house had poor soundproofing.

Just then, the headboard next to my bed began to shake violently from the commotion in the adjacent room.

“Dear, I’m jealous. Ah—”

“Easy, you’re going to break it. El might hear us.”

...

Their muffled moans and gasps continued.

I could not bear to listen anymore.

I stared at the wounds on my wrist. Every single one cut deep enough to reveal bone. I once believed these scars were proof of my love for Benedict.

Who would have known that the man I longed for day and night was living right beside me, hiding his identity and watching me spiral into madness?

After an unknown amount of time passed, Melissa walked into my bedroom. Her face was beaming with sweetness as she called me to get up for a meal. Dense hickeys could be seen across her neck. There was no question about what they had just been doing. And there was Benedict, who, during our years of marriage, had never once lifted a finger in the kitchen, effortlessly cooking a table full of dishes.

As he set the last plate down, something seemed to occur to him. “El, you don’t eat seafood, right?”

Before I could respond, Melissa smiled and placed a shrimp into my bowl.

“Dear, El is not a kid anymore. You can’t just let her be a picky eater.”

Benedict hesitated for a long moment but ultimately said nothing.

He knew I was allergic to seafood.

But since Melissa had spoken, he did not want to embarrass her in front of everyone.

Just as I calmly brought the shrimp to my mouth, Benedict inexplicably grew irritated.

He frowned and worriedly slid an empty plate toward me, as if signaling me to spit it out.

“If you can’t eat it, don’t force yourself. It’s not worth ruining your health over.”

Melissa gritted her teeth. She could barely conceal her resentment. Under the table, where no one could see, she viciously pinched my thigh.

I gasped in pain. Benedict was about to ask what was wrong, but Melissa called him away to fetch soup from the kitchen.

When the scalding hot soup arrived, Melissa suddenly grabbed my wrist and jerked backward. She staged the illusion that I had pushed her. Yet she was not brave enough to truly gamble with her own body. Instead, the entire bowl of soup splashed across my injured arm.

We both screamed at the same time.

Benedict glanced at me first, then lunged forward to support Melissa.

Before I could even regain my footing, Melissa wiped her tears and sobbed.

“It’s fine if you don’t want shrimp, El! Why go as far as pushing me?”

I never imagined that she could lie so brazenly.

Benedict’s face burned with rage. He stood protectively in front of Melissa.

“El, that’s going too far! Mel only meant well. How could you hurt her like this?”

The thick, scalding soup seeped through the gauze right into my open wound. Pus started oozing from the gash. The searing pain made me break out in a cold sweat, and I could only speak slowly.

“There are surveillance cameras. We can check the footage.”

A flicker of panic crossed Melissa’s face.

But Benedict scowled and told me to shut up.

“The evidence is right in front of us! You’re just stalling so Mel can’t get treated, aren’t you?”

I glanced at Melissa, who was completely unharmed. Being next to her, my disheveled state made me look like a hysterical shrew. I did not want to waste time defending myself, so I simply begged Benedict to take me to the hospital.

He shook off my hand and sneered, “Who exactly are you putting on this act for?

“If anything serious happens to Mel, I will never forgive you.”

With that, he roughly shoved me aside and escorted Melissa away.

I felt an overwhelming wave of pain. My vision darkened, and I lost consciousness.

When I came to, Benedict was shaking me awake.

He looked anxious. The moment he saw me wake up, he just grabbed me and dragged me along without any explanation.

Outside, it was raining cats and dogs. I ended up soaked to the bone. Sensing my resistance, he pulled me forward and quickly explained.

“Mel has a blood blister on her calf from the burn. You’re giving her skin for a graft.”

I sent him a stunned look and started struggling against his grip. Before I could utter a word, he slapped me hard across the face.

“El! How long are you going to keep this up?! Mel’s burn is your fault to begin with. How can you be so irresponsible? She’s a woman. How is she supposed to wear a skirt with such a scar on her leg?”

The next second, he roughly shoved me into the car.

As the door slammed shut, the sharp edge of the metal frame scraped against my calf. It left a vicious, gaping wound.

Benedict barely glanced at it before muttering that I was being dramatic.