REBORN BEFORE THE APOCALYPSE: MY EX BEGS FOR MERCY의 모든 챕터: 챕터 11 - 챕터 20

POV: PHINA Vera stood in my living room with her hand on her stomach and a doctor’s report in her hand, smiling as if she had already won. I had only been back a few days when Vera arrived at Highland Crest Manor uninvited, waltzing through the heavy perimeter doors as if she owned the place. She placed a crisp medical report on the polished mahogany table and calmly announced that she was pregnant with Harrison’s child. The clinical seals and Doctor’s notes on the paper looked entirely genuine, bearing the stamp of the city's premier private maternity clinic. Standing right beside her, Harrison looked proud, vindicated, and utterly possessive, his arm slung protectively around her waist as though he were the conquering hero of a war he had barely fought. In my first life, this exact moment had completely destroyed me. The sudden betrayal, the public humiliation, and the crushing weight of their triumph had broken my spirit before the cold even set in. I remembered the suffocating d

POV: PHINA I thought my money and my ability would protect me. I was wrong. The satellite phone on my desk buzzed with a sharp, jarring vibration that cut through the silence of the command center. I picked it up immediately, knowing Arthur wouldn't call past midnight unless something catastrophic had shifted on the board. "Phina," Arthur’s voice came through, heavy and strained. "We have a serious problem." "What kind of problem?" I asked, my grip tightening around the receiver as I stood up from my chair. "Your medical supplier, the pharmaceutical distributor out of Boston, has abruptly cancelled all open orders and frozen your corporate accounts," Arthur said, his tone grim. "Someone filed a formal, expedited complaint with the federal trade compliance board. They flagged your bulk acquisitions of antibiotics, surgical kits, and trauma supplies as anomalous and potentially linked to suspicious, hoarding-level activity." My breath hitched. "Flagged? By who? Those accounts were

POV: PHINA I was prepared for Harrison’s hatred. I was not prepared for a stranger who looked at my stockpile as if he already understood what it meant. The cold gray light of dawn offered no comfort as I stood inside the reinforced perimeter of our secondary staging facility on the industrial outskirts of the valley. My breath plumed white against the frozen air inside the high-ceilinged warehouse, where rows of securely created equipment stood stacked against the concrete walls. Ever since the federal freeze choked off my primary medical shipments, every single logistics route had to be handled with extreme, unyielding caution. We were patching holes in a sinking ship, racing against a winter that refused to wait for bureaucracy to finish its paperwork. While inspecting a pallet of redirected backup generators, a sudden prickle of unease rippled across the back of my neck—the instinctive, hardwired reaction of someone who had survived the end of the world once before. I moved sil

POV: VERA I had spent weeks building a perfect lie. One folder was about to burn it all down. The biting wind howled through the narrow alleyway behind the central hospital complex, carrying a freezing slurry of snow and sleet that soaked through the hem of my coat. I pulled the heavy fur collar tight around my throat, my heart hammering a frantic, erratic rhythm against my ribs. Across from me stood Julian, a dirty, opportunist administrator from the private clinic where I had staged my medical examination. I had paid Julian weeks ago to falsify the original laboratory reports, relying on his mounting gambling debts to guarantee his loyalty. But as the rumor of my impending union with Harrison Bennet spread through the city's financial pages, Julian’s appetite had grown far larger than our initial agreement. "You're out of your mind," I hissed, keeping my voice low and venomous as I stepped closer to him under the flickering amber glow of the security light. "We had an arrangemen

POV: HARRISON I had believed Vera’s pregnancy would give me power over Phina. Instead, it was beginning to give my mother power over me. The heavy, suffocating silence of the Bennet family study felt less like a room and more like a courtroom waiting for a verdict. I sat behind the polished walnut desk, staring blankly at a quarterly financial ledger that refused to balance, though my mind wasn't on the corporate losses. It was trapped entirely by the escalating tension gripping our household. Ever since my mother had arrived at Highland Crest Manor and demanded original hospital serial numbers and attending Doctor’ credentials, the fragile illusion of our domestic triumph had begun to fracture. My mother was not a woman who forgot loose ends; she was a predator who hunted them down. Earlier that morning, Eleanor had cornered me in the private breakfast parlor, her tone dropping into that cold, surgical register that always made me feel like a child standing trial. She wanted updat