The Walnuts

Before my crazy grandmother died, she gave me three walnuts. According to her last wish, I cracked open the first walnut on my twenty-fifth birthday. Inside the walnut was a slip of paper. 'Go to the skybridge and grovel at the first beggar you meet' was the instruction written on it. When I looked at the note, I could feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment. Still, I did as told. To my surprise, the beggar turned out to be an undercover cop. Only later did I learn that I had long been targeted by human traffickers, and the bow had saved my life. As for the second walnut, my grandmother told me to crack it open before I got married. When I put on my wedding dress, ready to marry the policeman who saved me, I happily opened it. This time, there was a crumpled old photograph inside. In the photo, my fiancé was smiling as he strangled another bride.

On the day of the wedding, Galen Shaw forces me to crack walnuts with my bare hands for his so-called female buddy. My expression goes cold, and I refuse outright. "My hands are for holding a scalpel, not cracking walnuts for her!" He only chuckles and orders someone to hold me down. Then, he glues the walnuts to my palms himself. One by one, he slams them against the ground. "You cheated while studying medicine. Now that you've married me, forget about ever being a doctor again!" I grit my teeth through the pain. My fingers are aching, but I try to explain. "I went abroad to study medicine for you!" His so-called female buddy sneers in a shrill voice. "All that talk about the Shaw family's hereditary disease is nonsense! Galen has been perfectly healthy for over 20 years. Don't tell me you just want another excuse to cozy up with your precious senior?" The moment those words leave her lips, the faint thought of having someone bandage my hand disappears. A shadow crosses Galen's face. "Looks like you haven't learned your lesson!" He throws me into the basement and locks me there for three days. By the time I crawl out, my hands are completely ruined. Later, when Galen's hereditary disease finally surfaces, the doctor tries to comfort him. "This disease may be terminal, but there is still a way. Dr. Robinson has just returned from overseas. She's the only one in the world who can perform this surgery. "I hear that she's your wife."

Winona Warren never imagined that on her birthday, her son would hand her a walnut cake that could kill her. As her consciousness began to blur, she heard Asher Rhodes' furious voice. "Carter, don't you know your mother is allergic to walnuts?" Carter Rhodes' childish voice rang out with startling clarity. "I do. But I want Ella to be my mom instead. Dad, you want that too, don't you? Even if I..." A crushing wave of suffocation overwhelmed Winona before she could hear the rest of Asher's answer. In the second before she completely lost consciousness, Winona had only one thought. If she woke up, she would never be Asher's wife or Carter's mother again.