Chapter 3

Less than five minutes later, Rebecca returned in a fresh outfit.

This time, she was holding my six-year-old son, Noah Lock, by the hand.

Noah broke free and charged into my arms like a little rocket.

“Mommy!”

Rebecca cleared her throat pointedly behind him.

Noah tugged on my arm and pouted.

“Mommy, it’s so boring here. Can you take me to the arcade to win some stuffed animals?”

[Here comes the trump card! There’s no way the villainess can resist this.]

[Her son is the apple of her eye.]

I glanced at my watch. It was one in the afternoon.

Noah should have been napping at this hour.

My gaze turned sharp as a blade when it landed on Claire Brook, his nanny, who had followed them.

She flinched and stammered, “Mrs. Lock, Stacy said you wanted to take Noah out to play, so she forced me to wake him.”

Well played, Stacy. Well played, Rebecca.

They had even dragged a child into this just to protect that cheating couple inside.

I strode forward, raised my hand, and slapped Stacy hard across the face.

I put all my strength into it, sending her sprawling to the floor with blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.

“You’re fired! Get out of the estate right now!”

Stacy clutched her cheek and shrieked in disbelief.

“Veronica! You can’t fire me! I work for Mr. Lock!”

Rebecca immediately stepped in front of Stacy like a mother hen protecting her chick and pointed angrily at me.

“I told her to wake the boy! What the hell is wrong with you?

“Only Corey can fire her. You’re nothing but a useless parasite living off your husband, yet you actually think you’re important?

“In this family, Corey is the one who calls the shots. Don’t you know your place?”

A filthy, rotten excuse for a god. Why leave my enemies standing when I could tear them down myself?

Today, I’d bring their entire world crashing down.

I stepped toward Rebecca and spoke each word slowly.

“I can fire her because my family built this company with its money—and because I hold a controlling sixty percent stake!

“Without me, your entire family would still be hauling manure on a farm!”

I hid the truth about being the company’s majority shareholder for years to protect Corey’s fragile pride.

Those fools had actually believed I was nothing but a pretty little wife dependent on a man.

The executives around us sucked in startled breaths and fell silent. Not one of them dared say another word.

I kept a low profile for years, and they mistook my restraint for weakness.

Noah was frightened by the fury on my face and burst into tears.

He pounded my thighs with his fists.

“Bad Mommy! You’re a horrible woman! I want Aunt Maya! She’s my real mommy!”

Rebecca quickly covered Noah’s mouth, panic flashing in her eyes.

Her reaction filled me with a strange sense of unease.

Noah had always been excessively close to Maya—far more attached to her than he was to me, his own mother.

Just then, a bold red comment pierced my vision.

[Poor villainess. She still doesn’t know that the son she treasures is actually the bastard child of the male lead and female lead.]

[Her real daughter is locked in the basement, being used as a living blood bank!]

My mind went completely blank, as though a heavy hammer had smashed into my skull.

Noah wasn’t my biological son?

Then where was my child? Where had the baby I carried and gave birth to gone?

I lowered my head and stared at Noah’s face.

The longer I looked, the more obvious it became that he didn’t resemble me in the slightest. Instead, he looked exactly like my fragile and pitiful sister-in-law, Maya Shaw.

My entire body trembled. My fingers tightened, my nails nearly digging into my palms.

“Aah! You’re hurting me, you horrible woman! Let me go!” Noah shrieked.

As if struck by lightning, I suddenly released his hand.

Caught off guard, Noah fell to the floor and burst into tears.

[What’s wrong with the villainess? Why doesn’t she even care about her fake son anymore?]

[Someone help! The female lead is dehydrated and unconscious! The male lead is performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but she’s barely hanging on!]

I stared at the child sobbing on the floor, my heart clenching as if an invisible hand had crushed it.

I had poured my heart and soul into raising him, losing countless nights caring for him over the past six years, only to discover that he was my enemy’s bastard.

Overwhelming hatred swept over me.

I turned around and walked to the sauna’s control panel, pretending to look annoyed.

“Why is this sauna barely warm? Turn it up to the highest setting!”

Without hesitation, I twisted the dial all the way up.