Chapter 5

'Unable to have children…' The four words pierced his ears like an icy needle, and his blood seemed to freeze in his veins.

Just then, the door opened.

Roxanne entered and motioned for the nurse to leave. The door closed softly behind her, shutting out the rest of the world.

She approached the bedside and looked at Fredrick's paper-white face. Her steps faltered, and a flicker of complicated emotion crossed her features.

"Freddy," she began, her voice dry and strained.

"Let me explain. When Jax got hurt this time, I was worried about him, so I arranged for him to have a full medical examination. The results came back... He has a congenital deformity of the sperm duct. He'll never be able to have children.

"When he found out, he completely fell apart. He was terrified I'd leave him because he couldn't give me children. He kept threatening to kill himself, and nothing I said or did could calm him down."

She took a deep breath, as though she had finally gathered the courage to say what came next, and met Fredrick's hollow gaze. "So... to make Jax feel that things were fair, to stop him from spiraling, and to prove that I'd never think less of him for not being able to have children... I had the doctors, during your surgery..."

She hesitated before forcing out the rest. "Remove your sperm duct too."

Each word seared itself into Fredrick's already shattered heart like a red-hot brand.

His eyes widened. He stared at the woman before him, unable to comprehend what he had just heard.

This was the woman he had loved for ten years. The woman he had once believed he would spend the rest of his life with.

Yet to keep her lover happy and prove she would never look down on him, she had actually ordered the doctors to remove her own husband's sperm duct. She had robbed him of any chance of fathering a child.

All because her lover couldn't have children, her husband wasn't allowed to have them either? Was that supposed to make things fair? Was that how she intended to make her lover feel better? Was that enough to stop him from threatening suicide?

It was absurd, grotesque, and cruel beyond anything words could express.

A broken, breathless sound escaped Fredrick's throat. His mouth opened, but no words came. He could only gasp for air.

He wanted to roar. He wanted to scream. But the crushing weight of his fury and grief constricted his throat. All he could do was clutch his chest as tears poured down his face and soaked the pillow beneath his head.

His chest ached as though something had been brutally torn from it, leaving a raw, bloody wound. An icy chill seemed to seep through the wound, freezing his organs until they seized.

The sight of him frightened Roxanne. He looked so deathly pale that she rushed forward and reached for his cold hand. "Freddy! Freddy, please don't scare me like this! I know I was wrong. Hit me, scream at me, do whatever you want! I'll take it. I won't fight back. Just please, don't do this..."

Fredrick curled into himself in agony, his entire body convulsing with pain. His eyes brimmed with despair and regret so profound that they threatened to consume him.

He regretted it.

'Mom… Dad…' With every fiber of his being, he regretted ever falling in love with Roxanne.

…

Fredrick had no idea how much time passed before he finally emerged from the depths of his despair.

He summoned the last of his strength and shoved her hand away. His gaze turned utterly cold as he stared at her, and he struggled to force two hoarse, broken words past the suffocating pain in his throat.

"Give... money."

Roxanne froze, unsure whether she had heard him correctly. "What... What did you say?"

Fredrick lifted his head. Tears streaked his face, but his eyes were icy and unwavering.

"For removing my sperm duct. Give me 40,000,000 dollars."

Roxanne went completely still. 'Fredrick... is asking me for money?'

He had never cared about money. In the past, whenever work kept her too busy to spend time with him, she would transfer large sums of money to his account or buy him luxury cars to make up for her absence.

But he had always told her, "Roxanne, I don't want money. I just want your love. I just want you to spend more time with me."

And now, after she had deliberately destroyed his chance of ever becoming a father, all he wanted from her was money?

'That amount is nothing to me. But the meaning behind his demand…' A growing sense of unease tightened her chest, and panic crept into her heart.

"Freddy, you..." She struggled to find the right words.

But Fredrick had already closed his eyes. Tears continued to slip silently down his cheeks, yet he refused to look at her again.

Instead, he repeated his demand in a voice so calm that it was almost frightening. "40,000,000 dollars. Transfer it to my account. Now."

His tone remained eerily composed, but the finality in his words left no room for argument.

Roxanne stared at him. He looked so pale and broken, yet his expression was colder and more distant than she had ever seen.

She swallowed several times before she could finally speak.

In the end, she took out her phone and called her assistant. "Transfer 40,000,000 dollars from my personal account to my husband's account right now."

She ended the call and turned back to him.

Her lips parted, but none of the explanations or comforting words she had prepared seemed worth saying. Against his cold silence, every excuse felt hollow, every attempt at reassurance absurd.

Another knock sounded at the door.

A nurse poked her head inside, her voice urgent. "Ms. Duranov, Mr. Serra is getting agitated again. He keeps asking for you..."

Roxanne sprang to her feet almost immediately. "Freddy, the money will be in your account soon. You... get some rest. I need to check on Jax. I'll come see you again when I have time."

With that, she turned and hurried out of the room, almost as though she feared that another moment in the suffocating atmosphere would leave her consumed by his despair and icy silence.

Only after the door closed did Fredrick finally open his eyes. Every hope he had ever held for the future, every dream of having a family and becoming a father, was gone.

The very woman he had once loved with all his heart had deliberately and mercilessly destroyed it all.

He bit down on his lower lip until he tasted blood, desperate to suppress the sob that threatened to tear its way out of his throat.