He Covered for His Mistress, While I Gathered Evidence to Ruin Him

In the third year of our remarriage, Alvin Henson's mistress got pregnant. Not only did I send over tonics and a caregiver of my own accord, I also thoughtfully cleared out space so the two of them could be alone.

Alvin thought I'd finally learned my place, so he put the company's projects back in my hands. He even let the records of those business dealings he believed long destroyed pass through me again. But he didn't know that from the very first day I came back to him, this was the moment I'd been waiting for.

Three years ago, I caught Alvin and Sonia Harding in bed together, only to be forced out with nothing and saddled with a million in debt.

Right after that, my only brother was falsely accused of attempted rape. The night before his trial, men Sonia had arranged beat him within an inch of his life, and he got eight years.

I knelt on the ground and begged. All it earned me was their laughter.

So when Alvin showed up with a remarriage agreement, I went back to the Henson household without a second of hesitation.

I played obedient for three years. I swallowed three years of humiliation. And at last I gathered all the evidence to win justice for my brother and me.

In the third year of our remarriage, Alvin's mistress got pregnant.

Before Alvin could say a word, I'd already had tonics and five caregivers sent over. I even messaged him myself, telling him to spend plenty of time with Sonia.

That same night, Alvin came to me, a mocking smile at the corner of his mouth.

"Isabella, looks like that stretch after the divorce really taught you to behave. You've been so well-behaved lately."

"If you'd been like this from the start, how would things ever have fallen apart enough to end in divorce?"

At first he hadn't believed I could be this obedient either.

But after the remarriage, even when I walked in on him bringing a woman home, I only thoughtfully cleared out so they'd have space, and went to sleep at a hotel.

Alvin finally started to believe I'd grown gracious about it all.

I nodded and said sweetly, "Whatever Miss Harding needs, just tell me. Leave the company matters to me. You go keep her company."

Alvin narrowed his eyes. The words grated on him more and more, yet he genuinely couldn't find any fault with them.

His phone rang. He glanced at it, then deliberately answered the call right in front of me.

Sonia's coaxing voice came through. "Alvin, when are you coming to be with me?"

Seeing my expression hadn't changed at all, Alvin let out a cold laugh and answered her, "I'm leaving now. I'll stay with you all night."

He hung up and turned to go.

Only once the footsteps had completely faded did I reach under the pillow for the file I'd just put in order.

Before the divorce, many of Alvin's company projects had passed through my hands. He had always acknowledged my ability.

After the remarriage, seeing that I really was obedient, he handed the company's affairs back to me.

And those business dealings he thought had long been destroyedI'd kept backups of all of them.

Not only that, the photos and videos Sonia had sent me to provoke me, I'd saved every one.

Now, this child of Sonia's would be the final straw that broke him.

Three years ago, I caught Alvin and Sonia in bed and divorced him without hesitation.

Alvin's team of lawyers forced me out with nothing and a million in debt.

But only a few days later, my only brother was charged with attempted rape.

I didn't even have the money to hire a lawyer.

At my most hopeless moment, Sonia appeared in front of me.

"Your brother's situationI actually arranged it. You know how it is, there's nothing in this world money can't fix."

"What can I say. Only watching your life rot to pieces like this makes me feel a little better."

I lunged at her, wanting to tear her mouth apart, but her bodyguards pinned me down hard.

The next day, my brother was sentenced to eight years.

I couldn't accept it.

My brother and I had done nothing wrong, and in the end we were the ones ground under their heels.

As luck would have it, Alvin's father had no use for Sonia and insisted Alvin find a society lady to be his wife.

Alvin, afraid those women would never tolerate Sonia, thought of me again, and came to me with a remarriage agreement.

I agreed without hesitation.

My decisiveness only piqued his interest. "Isabella, don't you hate me more than anyone? What changed your mind all of a sudden?"

I lied and told him I wanted to make things a little easier for my brother in prison.

Alvin smiled. "I'll help you look after him. I hope that after this, you'll know how to behave."

Alvin probably thought I had truly given in.

But only I knew I'd gone back to send him and Sonia straight to hell.

Outside the window, fireworks suddenly erupted across the whole city, lighting up the sky.

I stared at the blooming fireworks and remembered when Alvin and I first got together, how he had booked out the tallest skyscraper in the city and thrown me a birthday party.

Back then he knelt on one knee before me and slid a ring he'd won at auction for two million onto my finger.

"Isabella, I'm so lucky to have you."

The whole city saw those fireworks. The whole city knew that Alvin Henson loved Isabella Gilbert.

From outside the door came the caregivers' chatter. "Mr. Henson really does dote on Miss Harding. I heard there weren't just fireworkshe even won a ten-million necklace for her at auction."

Listening to all this, I only felt the irony of it.

The next day, though, Alvin stormed into the bedroom in a fury.

He flung a report down in front of me.

"The caregivers you sent over put drugs in the tonics. Sonia's hemorrhagingshe's in emergency care right now! Isabella, and here I thought you'd really learned your place, that you'd grown gracious. I never imagined your heart was even more vicious than before the divorce!"

Almost on instinct, I shot back, "The people were picked out and sent straight there. I never had any contact with them. How could I have given them any orders?!"

In his rage, Alvin grabbed my jaw and forced my face up to his.

"The ones who drugged her have confessed with their own mouths. You still dare say you didn't order it?!"

He seized a fistful of my hair. "Isabella, you played obedient for three years just to wait for this day, didn't you?"

I bit my lip and said nothing.

The pain at my scalp was sharp where he yanked, and tears welled in my eyes, but I forced myself not to let them fall.

"Nothing to say? Guilty conscience?"

Alvin's eyes narrowed coldly. "I think you just can't have children of your own, so you can't stand for Sonia to have one with me!"

My blood went cold in an instant.

Can't have children.

Those words were like a knife, cutting at my heart blow by blow.

Five years ago I lost our first child taking a knife for him, and was forced to have my whole womb removed.

Back then Alvin had knelt at my hospital bed and said it didn't matter that I couldn't have childrenthat having me was enough for him for the rest of his life.

Five years later, he could throw those same words at me as a weapon without the slightest weight on his conscience.

Seeing that I wouldn't answer, the chill in Alvin's eyes deepened.

"Since you're the one who caused Sonia to hemorrhage, then kneel in the courtyard, facing the direction of the hospital, and pray with all your heart, kowtowing until Sonia and the baby come out safe!"

The next second I was dragged, struggling, to the center of the courtyard, and in front of all the servants, my head was forced down again and again toward the direction of the hospital.

The humiliation and the pain made me black out several times.

I don't know how long it went on. My forehead was already a bloody mess, leaving a pool of blood on the ground.

I'd gone completely numb from the pain, blackness washing over my vision in waves.

The bodyguard holding me down finally stopped, then dropped me on the ground like a piece of trash. "Miss Harding is out of danger, but Mr. Henson said that since you did wrong and still refuse to admit it, you ought to go to the basement and reflect properly."

My heart sank.

I had severe claustrophobia, and Alvin knew it better than anyone.

Every time it used to flare up, it was Alvin who held me and soothed me to sleep.

But now, by his own order, I was dragged into the dark basement, with no food and no water.

The darkness came at me like a tide, and I couldn't stop trembling, my mind slowly unraveling.

This kind of torment pushed me to the brink of breaking.

I don't know how long passed. I was so hungry my head swam, but the pain of my wounds wouldn't let me sleep.

At last, just when I felt I was about to die, the basement door opened.

Alvin stood in the light, looking down at me from above.

"Know what you did wrong now?"

It took everything I had just to push myself upright.

I didn't do anything wrong. Why should I admit to it?

Alvin gave a cold laugh, edged with irritation. You'll never change. You do something wrong, and you never once learn to apologize. It was the same when you hit Sonia back then, and it's the same now that you drugged her. Isabella, when are you ever going to learn to bow your head?

A laugh slipped out of me.

The wound split open again, blood seeping out, sliding down along my brow.

Bow my head to Sonia?

Sonia wrecked my marriage, framed my brother into prison, and turned my whole life into a pile of mud. And you want me to bow my head and apologize to her? Alvin, do you really think that's possible?

Alvin's expression shifted, the corners of his mouth pressing down. Stubborn to the bone.

Looks like the punishment hasn't been enough to clear your head.

He turned and walked toward the door, telling the bodyguard posted there, No water, no food. Keep her awake every second, until she comes to her senses.

The door closed.

Every time I came close to passing out, someone would throw a basin of salt water over me, the sting jolting me back into the pain.

In the end my wounds only grew worse, and with no food for so long my body finally gave out and I blacked out completely.

When I came to again, Alvin was sitting at the edge of the bed, his face cold. Awake?

I said nothing.

He paused. You should count yourself lucky. Sonia and the baby are both fine.

Don't go near Sonia again. Or I won't go easy on you next time.

I looked at him for a long while before I spoke, my voice level. Understood. From now on I'll stay far away from her.

And far away from you, too.

Alvin stared at me for a few seconds, as if trying to find some crack in my face.

My expression stayed calm, without a trace of anything extra.

He frowned, an odd flicker passing through him, though his mouth turned sarcastic. This had better not be you playing meek again.

Before I could answer, there was a knock at the door.

A nurse leaned half her body in. Mr. Henson, Miss Harding has been asking for you.

Alvin was on his feet at once, striding toward the door.

The nurse followed behind, murmuring to her colleague, Mr. Henson really is good to Miss Harding. They say he's been at her bedside ever since she came out of the ER, never leaving her side for a moment. Miss Harding is truly blessed.

Never leaving her side.

I closed my eyes.

I had been through all of it before.

Seven years ago, Alvin fell for me at first sight and chased me for a whole year, surprising me with something new every single day.

But what truly moved me was that car crash.

When I was brought to the hospital, the internal bleeding was severe, and I needed massive transfusions.

The blood bank ran short, and to save me he signed a waiver of liability and gave me his own blood.

He nearly lost his life over it.

Back then, Alvin had stayed at my side too, never leaving for a moment.

It was only that love, in the end, couldn't escape those words: everything the same, and yet nothing the same.

I dug out the backup phone I carried with me and dialed the number I hadn't called in three years.

Ferris Delgado, get my brother transferred to another prison.

Do this one thing for me, and I'll marry you.

The other end went quiet for a moment, then came a low laugh. Isabella, you've finally come around.

One week. I'll have it handled.

After hanging up, I opened the encrypted file the private detective had sent.

It was a recording of the victim from that case, talking with Sonia.

Sonia had kept the person hidden away tight; it had taken me three years just to get word of them.

Once my brother was transferred, I could send those two to hell without holding anything back.

During my days in the hospital, Sonia never stopped sending me intimate photos of her and Alvin, along with pictures from her prenatal checkups.

I saved every one of them and forwarded them to my lawyer.

The worse Sonia behaved, the stronger my claim to my rightful share of the assets when the divorce came through.

I handled the discharge paperwork alone and left the hospital.

When I got back to the villa, though, I saw several workers gathered in the back courtyard.

A bad feeling pressed in on me, and I hurried over.

One of the workers was swinging at the wall.

"Stop!"

I rushed forward.

"Well, look who's home."

Sonia stepped out of the memorial shrine, the little tablet I had carved with my own hands turning over and over in her fingers.

She glanced at me, then tossed the wooden tablet to the ground and stamped on it.

"A baby that died before it was ever born, and you keep its tablet in the house? Bad luck, don't you think?"

She laughed and ran a hand over the swell of her belly. "My baby still needs to be born safe and sound. All this is nothing but a curse on the house."

The blood shot straight to my head.

Six years ago, the knife I took for Alvin didn't just cost me my womb. It cost me my first child.

Afterward, I built a small shrine for that child in the back courtyard, set up a tablet, and paid my respects every single day.

Even when we divorced three years ago, Alvin never touched this shrine.

He had once said he would remember this child forever.

"Alvin agreed to it."

Sonia seemed to read my mind, and her smile grew brighter. "He said keeping these things in the house was too unlucky. Isn't that right, sister?"

Alvin's old promise, his old guiltnow they were a joke.

I lunged forward to stop them.

Several bodyguards in black stepped out and blocked me.

Sonia walked up to me and slapped me hard across the face.

"You think playing the gentle, dutiful wife will win Alvin's heart back?"

"Dream on. If it weren't for you, I'd already be the rightful Mrs. Henson, and my child would be the only heir. Since you insist on coming back, I will never let you off!"

She grabbed a fistful of my hair.

"Take a good look at how your child gets leveled."

The worker's hammer came down on the gray brick, again and again.

The small urn underneath came into view.

My heart seemed to stop.

"Let go of me!"

I struggled with everything I had, my nails raking across Sonia's arm.

She screamed and let go.

I threw myself down, kneeling in the broken brick, and clutched the urn tight against my chest.

"What are you doing!"

Alvin's voice came from behind me.

I turned and saw him stride into the back courtyard.

Sonia clutched her arm, eyes rimmed red, and flung herself into his arms. "Alvin, I only wanted to give the urn back to her, but she wouldn't take it. She cursed at me, said I wasn't allowed to touch her child, and she pushed me"

Alvin wrapped an arm around Sonia, his gaze landing on me, cold as ice.

"Smash it."

"No!"

I held the urn fast against me. "Alvin, your child is in here!"

His eyes didn't so much as flicker.

"I told you. Stay away from Sonia."

"Even if this is my child, you have no right to use it as an excuse to hurt Sonia."

"Sonia is pregnant. She can't be upset. And yet the moment you come back, you stir up a scene like this."

He turned his head and looked at Sonia, his voice softening. "Are you hurting anywhere?"

Sonia bit her lip and shook her head, her eyes red.

Alvin's words were like a knife, driving into my heart, stroke after stroke.

Even his own flesh-and-blood childfor Sonia, he wouldn't waver.

A bodyguard wrenched the urn from me and slammed it to the ground.

The wood splintered, and the ashes inside scattered across the dirt.

I threw myself down, scrabbling to gather the ash back into my arms.

But a gust of wind came, and it scattered.

No matter how I clawed at it, I couldn't hold it, and the tears wouldn't stop falling.

Sonia watched me, smug, and turned to Alvin. "Since sister can't bear to part with her own child, why not have her eat the ashes, bit by bit? Then the child will be inside her forever. How nice."

Alvin stood beside her, brows drawing together slightly, as if even he found the idea too much.

But the moment Sonia mentioned again that her belly was hurting, Alvin gave his consent.

I couldn't believe it. "Alvin, you've lost your mind!"

I fought with everything I had, but the bodyguards pried my mouth open and forced it in.

Sonia laughed brightly and cooed at Alvin, "I'm scared something will happen to the baby. Let the doctor come check on me, okay?"

Alvin nodded, looked at me in silence, then signaled the bodyguards to release me and walked off with Sonia.

After everyone was gone, I knelt on the ground, retching and retching, then reached for the tablet that had been thrown aside, held it to me, and wept aloud.

I gathered what was left of my child's ashes back into the handkerchief, bit by bit, folding it shut with great care and tucking it against my chest, over my heart.

Feeling its warmth there, the hatred in me only burned hotter.

Back at the villa, I pushed open the bedroom door and froze.

Everything in the room that belonged to me was gone.

One of the maids saw me standing in the doorway and said, head bowed, "Ma'am, your things have been moved to the room downstairs."

The room downstairs was the servants' quarters.

The only person with the authority to order that was, in all likelihood, Sonia.

I turned and went down, pushing open that narrow little door.

The whole room was cramped and cluttered, my clothes shoved haphazardly into a plastic bin.

I tucked the handkerchief of ashes under the pillow.

The door stood open.

At some point Alvin had walked in. Seeing me standing there in silence, he offered an explanation. "Sonia needs to rest properly for the pregnancy. The room upstairs gets good light, so I'm giving it to her."

"You'll stay here. Tell the maids if you need anything."

I didn't look at him, and I didn't say a word.

That room had once been built to order, by Alvin, just for me, the largest in the house and the one with the best light.

Back then he'd promised me that once our child was born, he'd have a nursery opened up right beside the bedroom, that our child would have the very best of everything.

But now, Alvin probably didn't even remember.

He seemed pleased by how compliant I was, and went on. "Sonia said she wants the chicken soup you make. She's picky with the pregnancy, and it's rare for her to actually want something. Go make it and bring it up to her."

I lifted my head and looked at him.

I understood that even if I refused, Alvin had a thousand ways to make me comply.

I truly didn't have the strength to argue with him anymore, so I just nodded.

"Fine."

Looking at me, so obedient, Alvin pressed his lips together. He seemed about to say something, but in the end he turned and left.

I went to the kitchen and worked for two hours to get it right, but when the soup was carried up, Sonia took a single sip and frowned.

"Too salty."

Her hand slipped, and the whole bowl tipped over onto my arm.

A searing pain burst across the surface of my skin. I bit down on my lip and didn't make a sound.

Alvin's gaze fell on my arm, already reddening and swelling, and his brow creased faintly.

But Sonia spoke first. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to."

Alvin was silent a moment. "I'll go down and get you some burn ointment."

After he left, I quietly started cleaning up the mess on the floor, only for Sonia to stamp down on the back of my hand.

The sole of her shoe ground into my fingers, and the sharp pain made me suck in a breath. I instinctively tried to pull my hand back, but she only pressed harder, a smile tugging at her lips.

"No need to rush off."

She bent down, her voice low enough that only I could hear. "Your brother, in there. Don't you want to know how he's doing?"

My pupils contracted, and I met her eyes, brimming with malice.

"A place like prison, you get all kinds of people. Your brother's got such a refined look to him. He must be quite popular, don't you think?"

She tilted her head. "I heard last week he got beaten in there. Two broken ribs. Don't tell me you didn't even know that."

Those words were the last straw.

The string that had been pulled taut in my mind all this time finally snapped.

I yanked my hand free, snatched up that bowl of scalding chicken soup, and flung it into Sonia's face.

She shrieked and sprang up, her face and arms flushing red in an instant.

"My face... it's so hot... Alvin! Alvin!"

Alvin came rushing in at once, and the moment he saw the scene before him, he slapped me across the face.

He put his full strength into it. I went sprawling to the floor, the back of my head cracking against the leg of the bed, my vision blacking out.

"Isabella! Have you lost your mind!"

Alvin crouched down and pulled Sonia into his arms. "Sonia, Sonia, are you all right?"

Sonia had passed out cold, giving no response at all.

Alvin looked at me, his words almost ground out through his teeth. "If anything happens to her, I'll have your life for it."

He swept Sonia up and rushed out of the room.

Before he left, he gave an order to a few of the bodyguards. "Lock her in the freezer! Don't let her out without my word!"

I was dragged into the freezer, the darkness and the sub-zero cold flooding in together.

My mind began to blur.

Just as I was about to slip under, I thought of my brother in prison, of my unborn child, of every humiliation I'd endured these past years.

I couldn't die yet.

I bit into the tip of my tongue, fighting to stay conscious.

By the time my whole body had nearly frozen stiff, the freezer door opened, and I was hauled into a car like a dead dog dragged by its legs.

The car jolted for what felt like forever before it finally stopped.

Hands hauled me out and dragged me in front of Alvin.

He bent down to look at me. "Sonia got burned. Her skin is damaged. She's always taken pride in her looks, and she can't stand this. Since you're the one who did it, you're the one who's going to pay it back."

My blood froze in an instant.

"What do you mean?"

I braced myself against the floor and tried to stand, but my legs gave out and I dropped back down.

Alvin watched me, cold and unmoving, and the words he said next turned my heart to ice.

"Your skin is going to be grafted onto Sonia."

I'd long since lost the strength to fight. Two bodyguards seized me by the arms and dragged me into an operating room.

It must have been on Alvin's orders. The surgeon deliberately gave me no anesthesia.

Several times the pain dragged me under, only for the scalpel cutting into my skin to jolt me awake again.

By the time the surgery was over, I'd been tortured to within an inch of resembling anything human.

When I came to, I was wrapped head to foot in bandages, and the thigh where they'd taken the skin throbbed with a pain that bored straight into the bone.

My phone buzzed. A message from the investigator: "I dug up a few things. You'll probably be interested."

I opened the attachment and found Sonia's entire history laid out in front of me.

Back when Alvin had cheated on me with Sonia, I'd only learned the truth afterward.

He'd gotten drunk at a bar and forced himself on her by accident, and it was the guilt over that which had tangled them together in the first place.

It was only now, reading what the investigator sent, that I understood Sonia's background was anything but simple.

Before she'd ever gotten close to Alvin, she already had money moving back and forth with his business rival, and even that so-called "accident" had been her doing. She'd paid someone off to slip Alvin a drug.

And Sonia herself was nothing more than a hostess from a bar.

It was almost laughable, how completely Alvin had believed her story about being a poor college girl working her way through school behind that bar.

I saved every file, one by one.

I would wait for the right moment, then put all of it in front of Alvin's own eyes.

Let him see, after all these years, exactly what kind of creature he'd been protecting.

The day I was discharged was Sonia's recovery banquet. She must have dreamed up some new way to torment me, because she had Alvin tell me to attend.

I barely had a chance to refuse before I was loaded into a car.

By the time I arrived, the hall was full of clinking glasses and idle chatter.

Sonia wore a champagne-colored gown, her belly faintly rounded, hemmed in on all sides by that little circle of girlfriends of hers.

She saw me walk in, and one corner of her mouth lifted.

I clenched my fists, thinking that tomorrow I could leave this place, that whatever happened tonight I would swallow it down.

But Sonia clearly had no intention of letting me off.

"Well, well, if it isn't Mrs. Henson."

One of Sonia's friends came tottering over on her heels and bumped my shoulder on purpose, the liquid in her glass splashing across my cuff. "Oh dear, so sorry, didn't see you there."

I said nothing, just gave her a cold look.

Sonia carried her glass over to me, looking me up and down. "You don't look well, sis. Still sore about what happened before?"

She held out her glass, wanting me to toast with her.

I didn't lift a hand.

Sonia wasn't bothered. She drew the glass back, unhurriedly fished her phone out of her clutch, tapped a few times, and turned the screen toward me.

I'd braced myself for this before I even came.

And yet the image on that screen still left my whole body rigid.

In the dim room, my brother lay curled on the floor, his face swollen past recognition, blood smeared at the corners of his mouth, one leg twisted at an impossible angle, like a snapped branch.

Sonia tucked the phone away, her voice light and careless. "Isabella, you make my life miserable, I make his miserable. A place like prison, accidents happen all the time, don't they? Like... breaking your neck by accident. Or dying by accident?"

My nails dug into my palms until the pain went numb.

"What do you want?"

Sonia smiled.

She slipped the ring off her finger and tossed it into the rose bushes behind her.

"Three minutes. Find the ring, and I'll let your brother go."

She glanced at her watch, her smile deepening. "Time starts now."

I didn't hesitate. I stepped into the roses.

Sharp thorns sank into my skin, beads of blood welling up.

I knelt on the ground, parting the dense tangle of branches with my hands, searching inch by inch.

The thorns slashed my cheeks, the pain leaving me trembling all over.

I combed through every corner, my fingers torn bloody and raw, and still I couldn't find that ring.

"Time's up."

Sonia's voice came from above me.

I lifted my head. She was standing at the edge of the bushes, smiling, waving the ring at me.

She'd never thrown it at all.

She looked down at me, her smile sweet, her words like knives. "You really are stupid and worthless. No wonder your whole family ended up like this. Your baby's dead, your brother's in prison, and you couldn't even hold on to your own husband. Your family's luck really is all rotten together."

My nails dug into the dirt, and the rage I'd held down for so long finally erupted.

I stood up and slapped Sonia across the face without a second's hesitation.

Her head snapped to the side, her whole body staggering back two steps, nearly falling into the bushes behind her.

Her girlfriends came clucking and fussing to hold her up.

Sonia clutched her rapidly reddening cheek, frozen for a few seconds, her eyes full of disbelief.

"You dared to hit me?"

I looked at her coldly. "Alvin's a dog. If you want to pick him up and keep him, that's your business. But say one more word about my family, and it won't just be your face I hit."

Sonia shook with fury.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then her gaze went past my shoulder, caught on something, and the tears instantly spilled down like a broken string of pearls.

"Alvin, she hit me... I only wanted to talk to her, and she suddenly just..."

Behind me came Alvin's footsteps, steady and urgent.

He didn't even bother to ask what had happened. He simply pronounced me guilty.

"Isabella!"

"Do you have any idea what occasion this is?"

"It's Sonia's recovery banquet, and you hit her in front of all these people?"

"Apologize."

I met his heavy gaze and felt only exhaustion.

Condemned again without a hearing.

Made to apologize again.

I understood. Even if I laid the evidence right in front of Alvin, he would still stand at Sonia's side.

So I said nothing at all, resisting in silence.

Alvin's patience ran out fast.

He waved his hand, and two bodyguards stepped forward, pinning down my shoulders, hauling me to the edge of the pool.

A large hand pressed against the back of my head and shoved my face into the water.

Water poured into my nose, my mouth. I thrashed with everything I had, but they held me down hard.

Just before I blacked out, they let go, and I dragged my head up, coughing, unable to catch my breath.

"Apologize." Alvin said.

I gasped for air in great heaving breaths, looking at Sonia trembling in his arms, and still I refused to speak.

They forced my head under again.

Longer this time, long enough that my lungs felt like they'd burst, the world going dark at the edges.

Seeing that I still wouldn't give in, Alvin didn't let them stop.

Again and again.

The suffocation only ended when I lost consciousness completely.

When I woke again, I was lying in a bed.

Alvin sat at the edge of it, looking worn out.

His eyes landed on the cuts the thorns had left across my body, and his brows knit faintly.

"These wounds. What happened?"

I leaned against the headboard, my throat so raw I could barely make a sound.

"If I said Sonia did it, would you believe me?"

Alvin didn't answer.

He was silent for a long time before he finally spoke. "Sonia's due soon."

"Once she's had the baby, I'll give you an explanation."

I tugged at the corner of my mouth and said nothing more.

There was no need.

I took the agreement from the drawer beside me and handed it to Alvin.

"The company accounts you asked me to put in order earlier."

"I haven't had the chance to get you to sign them all this time."

At that, Alvin's expression relaxed, and he took the agreement.

He'd never liked poring over dense clauses.

He picked up the pen and signed his name on the last page.

The strokes were careless, exactly like his attitude toward this marriage.

He pushed the agreement back, his gaze settling on my face for a moment. "Once you've rested up, I'll have the company promote you to vice president."

I picked up the agreement, my fingertips trembling slightly, though nothing of it showed on my face.

"Fine."

A thin sheet of paper. Seven years of feeling, three years of swallowing it down, all ended in one stroke.

Alvin stood. "I'm going to check on Sonia. Get some rest."

I said nothing, watching him leave.

I gathered all the evidence and sent it to the lawyers, telling them they could begin.

Alvin, Sonia, I wouldn't let either of them off.

At three in the afternoon, while Alvin went with Sonia for her prenatal checkup, the car Ferris had sent pulled up at the back gate of the villa.

I took nothing with me and got in.

The man Ferris had sent spoke. "Ms. Gilbert, Mr. Delgado has already had your brother moved somewhere safe. Everything after this is waiting for you to handle."

I watched the villa shrink in the rearview mirror and nodded.

"Good."