CHAPTER 1: THE BLOODY WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

Today was our fifth wedding anniversary, and my husband brought home a stack of divorce papers along with a pregnant woman.

I stood silently in the middle of the massive living room of the Hayes mansion. Outside, the rain was pouring down. Cold streaks of water dripped from the hem of my trench coat onto the marble floor, leaving mottled stains.

Involuntarily, I placed my hand on my lower abdomen, where a tiny new life had just begun to form.

For the past five years, the only thing I possessed was a title that existed only on paper. Not a single public hand-hold, not a single word of congratulations, and absolutely... no wedding. I used to think that my endurance and the sleepless nights pulling overtime for the Hayes Group would earn me a real home.

But right now, waiting for me on the coffee table was a stack of divorce papers. Inside the handbag I was clutching so tightly, the six-week ultrasound result suddenly felt like a cruel joke.

"Sign it."

Dominic sat on the sofa, his deep voice completely devoid of warmth. "I’ve had the lawyers prepare everything. Don't waste your energy anymore."

I looked up at the man I had spent my entire youth yearning for. My eyes were uncannily calm, suppressing the undercurrents raging in my chest: "Today is our anniversary."

Dominic scoffed, the corners of his lips curving up in a mocking smirk: "Then it’s the perfect time to end it. A five-year mistake should stop right here."

He decisively pushed the fountain pen toward me, his voice carrying unmistakable impatience: "Sera is pregnant. I need to bring her into this house legitimately. The child needs a lawful status to hold their head up high."

For a rare moment, a flash of tenderness appeared in Dominic's eyes—the kind of affection I had never received in five years. But it was reserved solely for Sera, the prestigious eldest daughter of the Vance family, while I would forever remain the illegitimate child ridiculed by high society.

I gripped the strap of my bag so hard that my fingertips turned stark white. Then, I slowly unzipped it, pulled out the ultrasound sheet, and placed it on the table, directly opposite the divorce papers.

"What a coincidence. I’m pregnant too. Six weeks."

The mocking smile on Dominic's face froze. Frowning with suspicion, he picked up the paper. His pupils contracted slightly as his eyes scanned the diagnostic line. But very quickly, that brief flicker of hesitation vanished, his face turned entirely cold, and his eyes filled with nothing but utter disgust.

"Sera was right. You really are a woman who stops at nothing."

I knitted my brows slightly: "What do you mean by that?"

Dominic slammed the ultrasound paper down onto the floor, the paper hitting the stone surface with a sharp smack: "I haven't touched you in the last two months. Six weeks ago, I was in New York. Evelyn, do you think I'm a fool you can easily manipulate? Whose bastard child is this?"

My spine went entirely cold. I remembered Sera's meaningful smirk a few days ago, and that party six weeks ago when Dominic was heavily drunk, forcing himself on me in a private room before heading to the airport. Sera had made her move. She had wiped away all traces of that day, turning me into an adulteress.

"You believe her words over mine?"

Dominic sneered, his eyes filled with loathing: "Sera said that for the past five years, you’ve been secretly eyeing the Hayes family fortune. You even dared to fake this pregnancy just to cling to the title of Mrs. Hayes!"

"So you believe whatever she says." I looked at him, my chest aching with stifled grief. "Then those last-minute business plans that saved the Hayes Group—do you think Sera made those too?"

Dominic’s expression instantly turned incredibly foul. My words had struck right at his pride. He had never bothered to look at the anonymous folders placed on the chairman's desk after every night I stayed up late working.

"Have you said enough?!"

Dominic slammed his hand hard against the coffee table. "I don't care where this child came from. Today, you are stripping yourself of the title of Mrs. Hayes, whether you like it or not!"

He stood up decisively, roughly grabbing my wrist and forcing the fountain pen into my palm, compelling me to sign. I struggled in pain: "I won't sign! Let go of me!"

The pen clattered to the marble floor, black ink splattering everywhere.

Amidst the struggle, Dominic’s phone rang urgently. The screen displayed Sera's name. The moment he answered, a sobbing, weak voice traveled through the speaker: "Dominic... save me... I’m at the Grand Plaza... my stomach hurts so bad... the baby..."

"I'm on my way! Hang in there, wait for me!"

Hearing his mistress's cries, Dominic lost all patience. He ruthlessly shoved me aside to free himself and walk away.

The heel of my shoe slipped on the marble floor, which was still wet from the rainwater. Losing my balance, my body pitched forward, slamming hard against the sharp corner of the coffee table.

A tearing pain surged from my lower abdomen. I collapsed. A warm liquid quickly seeped out, soaking through the fabric of my dress before spilling onto the floor.

I was completely petrified. My trembling hand reached down, my palm stained with a horrifying shade of red. Fear swallowed all reason. Using what little remaining strength I had, I crawled after Dominic's retreating figure, leaving a gruesome, long trail of blood across the floor.

"Dominic... save our child... Please... save the baby..."

My blood-soaked fingers weakly gripped the hem of his trousers. Dominic froze. He looked down, staring at the pool of blood spreading continuously beneath his feet. In the eyes of this perennially cold man, a flicker of panic finally flashed through.

But at that exact moment, from the other end of the line, Sera’s cries rang out again, instantly severing the brief spark of pity that had just kindled inside him: "Dominic... I'm so scared... It hurts..."

In the end, Dominic made his choice. He ruthlessly brushed my bloody hand off his trousers.

"Take her to the hospital."

Tossing the curt command to the servants, he turned decisively and plunged into the pouring rain, without looking back even once.

However, just as Dominic’s car vanished past the mansion gates, the butler’s phone abruptly rang. It was his number again.

The butler answered with trembling hands, "Yes, Chairman?"

Dominic's bone-chilling voice filtered through the speaker, distorted by the sound of the rain and filled with blatant impatience: "There's no need to take her to the hospital anymore. A woman who dares to use a self-harm tactic and fake a pregnancy just to deceive me doesn't deserve to be saved. Throw her out. Don't let her filthy blood stain the Hayes property."

The butler looked at me dying in shock, but in this house, Dominic's orders were absolute. He hung up and gave a nonchalant wave of his hand, "Throw her out."

Two bodyguards stepped forward, dragging my freezing body out of the grand hall. The heavy wooden doors slammed shut.

The torrential rain poured down on my small frame. Blood gushed from my body, blending with the rainwater to dye the entire white gravel courtyard red.

My consciousness began to fade. But in my chest, the sheer terror of losing my child and a shivering rage forced me to keep my eyes open. I couldn't die here. The baby... couldn't die like this.

With every ounce of remaining strength, my trembling hand fumbled into the pocket of my soaked trench coat. The phone screen was cracked, smeared with sticky streaks of fresh blood. My eyes were blurred by the rain; I could no longer see the text clearly, so I instinctively pressed the most recent contact number.

The moment the call connected, before the person on the other end could speak, I spent my last breath gasping out broken words through my trembling lips: "Save... save my child... The gates of the Hayes mansion..."

The phone slipped from my powerless fingers, thudding into the mud. My consciousness plunged completely into darkness.

I didn't know how long I had been unconscious. In the depths of my delirium, I vaguely felt my body being lifted up, away from the freezing puddle of rainwater. The roaring of a car engine echoed in my ears, alongside the panicked, cracking voice of the old butler: "Miss Evelyn! Oh my god... hurry, drive to the Central Hospital! Faster!"

The surrounding environment shifted; the sound of the rain became less deafening, replaced by the suffocatingly familiar scent of leather inside the cabin of a Bentley. I lay motionless on the back seat, my entire body numb with pain. I wanted to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.

Amidst the butler's anxious gasps, the car radio suddenly crackled to life as the driver desperately searched for a route to avoid the storm. But what pierced through my failing hearing was the steady, cheerful voice of a news anchor:

"Tonight's special bulletin. Tomorrow, at the Grand Plaza Hotel, the Hayes Group will host a grand celebration... Chairman Dominic Hayes will officially announce his fiancée—the eldest daughter of the Vance family, Miss Sera Vance..."

Every single word stabbed straight into my violently heaving chest like a knife.

So that was how it was.

On the brink of life and death, an absolute hatred suddenly flared up, pulling back my fading consciousness. Using the last shred of my strength, I forced my dried-blood-stained fingers to curl, tightly gripping the fabric of my soaked trench coat.

The corners of my lips slowly curved into a bone-chillingly cold smile.

"Dominic, Sera... The day I return will be the day of your ruin."

The next second, an endless darkness rushed over and swallowed me whole, carrying away the vow buried deep within my heart.