Chapter 1: The Last Chance

“I’m sorry, Maisa.”

The doctor’s voice was heavy, as though he were delivering news of a death.

“I’m afraid there’s a serious problem with your uterus. A tumor has invaded nearly one third of it. To be completely honest, your egg count is already very low. Your chances of becoming pregnant are probably only around fifteen percent.”

Maisa blinked, her wide eyes unfocused. “What… what did you say?”

She was only twenty-eight years old. She still had time, or at least, she had always believed she did. For three years of marriage, she had prayed and waited, clinging to hope with quiet determination. Yet now, a few cold numbers on a medical report had blown away every dream she had carefully protected.

“In terms of fertility, you’re already at an advanced stage,” the doctor continued. “We’ll need to remove the tumor. If the surgery is successful, your uterus may still be able to carry a pregnancy. However, with the limited number of healthy eggs remaining, I can’t make any guarantees. We need to proceed before the tumor spreads throughout the uterus.”

Maisa sat there, motionless, as if time itself had frozen in that moment. This was perhaps the cruelest news she had ever received. A wave of dizziness surged up her spine. She clutched the hem of her coat, her fingers trembling.

The doctor was still speaking, but his words had faded into distant, distorted echoes in her mind.

A tumor invading the uterus. Fifteen percent. Advanced stage.

Each word was like a blade, cutting deep into her chest.

She let out a laugh—a dry, hollow sound.

“How ironic,” she whispered. “So I went through an entire marriage just to end up with this?”

The doctor didn’t answer. He only placed a hand gently on her shoulder, a professional gesture, filled with silent pity.

“This is awful.” Maisa said softly, forcing a smile while despair flooded her eyes.

She left the hospital clutching her medical file tightly. Outside, a light rain was falling. Cold droplets struck her face, as though the sky itself were mourning her.

Maisa got into her car, her hand trembling as she inserted the key into the ignition. In that moment, she thought of all the unfinished dreams she had carried for so long, a child with her bright eyes and her husband’s smile. Brian’s smile. Countless sleepless nights spent waiting for a miracle that now felt utterly meaningless.

But Maisa would not give up.

Even if there was only fifteen percent left.

Even if only the thinnest thread of hope remained, she still wanted to become a mother.

Maisa tightened her grip on the steering wheel, her eyes suddenly burning through the dull gray curtain of rain.

Her child… no matter how, even if she was given only one chance, she would seize it.

Even if it meant sacrificing everything.

Throughout three years of marriage, perhaps she had only truly been treated as a wife during the very first year she and Brian were together.

Looking back now, Brian had indeed been good to her in that first year. They had lived like newlyweds, genuinely happy, or so she had believed. But alas, everything changed the moment his first love returned. She became pregnant with Brian’s child—something Maisa could never do.

After Kiera gave birth, Brian had demanded a divorce. Maisa had refused.

Now, he was probably busy caring for the children he had with his first love.

And now that she knew about her illness, she could no longer deny the truth. Perhaps… she should set him free.

Maisa drove home quickly, rushed through the front door, and opened her mouth to call Brian’s name, only to freeze where she stood.

A familiar handbag.

And a pair of high heels she had seen before.

Tell her this wasn’t what she thought it was. Tell her Brian had never brought his first love into this house.

Maisa leaned closer to the bedroom door, and her stomach twisted violently as she heard the unmistakable moans, followed by the steady, rhythmic thudding of the bed slamming against the wall.

Worse than realizing who they were… was knowing exactly what they were doing in her bedroom.

The moans spilled into the hallway, perfectly synchronized with the headboard striking the wall.

Then came Brian’s voice, accompanied by a cold, mocking laugh, thick with contempt.

“Maisa is nothing but a desperate cow,” he sneered. “She thinks crying and lying on her back is enough to keep me.”

Kiera laughed, her voice sharp as a blade.

“She’s always going on about children, family, love, like her ruined uterus is still worth anything.”

Brian growled, his face clearly twisted with disgust.

“I controlled her every step of the way. Guess what? I crushed her dream of becoming a mother day after day, and she still smiled at me after drinking coffee laced with Plan B.”

Kiera snarled, almost gleeful.

“That idiot doesn’t deserve a child. The way she forces herself to stay calm after every failed attempt to conceive… it’s incredible. Like watching a clown show every morning.”

Brian burst into laughter, not a trace of guilt in his voice.

“I swear, if she ever actually got pregnant, I’d push her down the stairs when no one was looking.”

Kiera clicked her tongue in exaggerated regret. “An abortion costs money too, you know. Thank God your pills actually worked.” Then she cast Brian a provocative look, her eyes glittering with challenge. “Besides, I bet I could give you a whole litter before she ever gets a second line on a pregnancy test.”

The truth hit Maisa—and it wasn’t like a punch.

It was like being torn open from the inside.

Fragments of memory snapped together in a horrifying pattern: the hazy dizziness after her morning coffee, the irregular cycles, Brian’s counterfeit comfort, Maybe you’re just stressed, and the pitying look in his eyes whenever she sank into despair over her inability to have a child.

She wasn’t infertile.

She had been poisoned.

Betrayed with intent—cold, calculated, and vicious.

And the one who had done it was none other than the man she had loved… the man Maisa had once believed would be the father of her children.

Her vision blurred. Suddenly, she understood exactly why she had never been able to conceive, despite years of trying—why now, even now, there was a tumor lodged inside her uterus.

The dizziness inside her slowly gave way to something darker.

Disgust.

Disgust for Brian. Disgust for Kiera.

Maisa crumpled to the floor.

Cold.

A sharp numbness crawled up her spine as their laughter still drifted from the bedroom. The room she had once called home. The room where she had once dreamed of a white crib, the scent of milk, the sound of a baby crying and then laughing.

Everything she had built was being ripped apart by the voice of the man she had loved with her entire life—and the woman he had once called his past.

Now they were lying in her bed.

Laughing in her face.

Deliberately killing her dream of becoming a mother.

Maisa rose to her feet slowly, like a shadow weighted down by a thousand unspoken grudges. She wasn’t crying anymore. Her tears had dried up the moment the doctor gave her that number—fifteen percent.

She walked to the bedroom door and pushed it open, without making a sound.

Brian and Kiera were tangled together like two snakes wrapped tightly around each other. The sheets were in disarray. The air in the room was thick with the stench of betrayal.

The sound of the door opening startled them. Brian turned his head, his expression freezing for a single second—only one—before it shifted into shameless contempt.

“You’re home early?” he said, not even bothering to pull the blanket over his naked body. “Or have you been eavesdropping this whole time?”

Kiera looked Maisa up and down, her lips curling into a smirk.

“She looks like a ghost.”

Maisa looked at them.

No screaming.

No anger.

Only a dry, hollow emptiness gnawing at her from the inside. Kiera was right—Maisa truly did look like a ghost. A woman lingering in their lives, haunting them, refusing to let go.

“Thank you.” Maisa whispered. Her voice was as light as a passing breeze, yet it carried the crushing weight of something utterly broken. “Thank you for finally tearing off your masks.”

She turned and walked away. Every step felt as though it were ripping open a bleeding wound.

Three days later, she went to the hospital on her own. All the procedures for admission and surgical preparation were completed swiftly.

After the tumor was removed, she would conceive a child—a child of her own.