Chapter 2

"If that's how it is, I should be the one to go, and Jeff should stay."

I could not stand to hear my parents' phony peacemaking any longer, their words dripping with favoritism.

Jeff had not been kicked out yet. He was still living the good life.

I would just step aside.

'Because they're the real family, right?' I thought.

I let out a wry chuckle, clammed up, turned on my heel, and headed upstairs to pack up my meager things.

However, when I came back down lugging my suitcase, I found my fiancee, Wynnie Gibson, the heiress of the Gibson family, lounging on the couch.

She was supposed to be vacationing abroad.

"Kelvin, once you're married to Wynnie, you'd better drop the childish antics. Grow up, got it?" Alice snapped, her face twisting into a scowl as she saw me with my suitcase.

Wynnie's expression was even worse.

Her eyes narrowed to slits when she saw me, and she bolted up, her hand flying out to deliver a stinging slap across my face, her nails raking a numb trail of pain.

"How dare you show your face around the Cunningham family again? Seriously, Kelvin, do you even know what shame is?"

Her voice broke through the silence with a piercing scream, and the look she gave me was filled with the kind of hatred one reserves for a lifelong nemesis.

Her blows landed with force, and I made no move to avoid them.

That kind of humiliation had become as routine as our daily bread ever since we tied the knot.

I was absolutely convinced that my wife Wynnie had come back to life.

My parents were taken aback by Wynnie's outburst. They tried to step in, but her next words rooted them to the spot.

"You think killing Jeff wasn't enough? Now, you're still hanging around the Cunningham family like a bad smell. Do you really believe I don't have the guts to end you?!"

Her eyes were wild, her whole demeanor screamed of a woman unhinged.

That was the Wynnie I remembered from her previous life—every time she drank herself into oblivion or when Jeff's memory haunted her.

She would grill me, demanding to know why I returned, why I insisted on existing in that world.

Then, it was nothing but a relentless cycle of abuse—beatings, insults, and dragging me through the agony of the operating room not once but 99 times.

I clung to the dream of having a child of my own, only to be slapped with the truth that she had already got pregnant with Jeff's child through IVF.

"Kelvin, is this for real? Are you actually going to be the death of Jeff? Are you going to be responsible for his untimely end?!"

My parents stared at me, their faces a mix of shock and rage.

"You really don't trust me, not even the slightest, do you?"

Their looks told a story I knew all too well. They never loved me.

However, despite expecting it, their gaze still twisted a knife in my heart.

I never once harbored a thought of hurting Jeff, but his death had pinned me to a cross of guilt for an eternity.

As my voice faltered, I saw a flicker of doubt in my parents' eyes.

However, before we could say another word, a figure emerged from around the corner and declared.

"It's true, he did kill me!"

"Jeff!"

The moment Wynnie caught sight of him, she could not help herself, she flew into his arms as if drawn by an irresistible force.

Then, they kissed with a wild tenderness, oblivious to the world around them, completely ignoring me—her official fiance—standing awkwardly to the side.

"Jeff, you're back too, aren't you? I just knew you couldn't stand to be away from me, from our baby!"

Tears shimmered in Wynnie's eyes, and Jeff, with a heart full of compassion, gently wiped them away.

"Wynnie, are you pregnant? I had no idea.

"It's just these weird dreams I keep having. In them, Kelvin is so jealous of our love that he forces me away from you, away from our parents. He even pays someone to sabotage my car, leading to my death in a crash.

"He thinks he can claim the family fortune and have you to himself, but the pain, it's just so intense, so real!"