Chapter 4

I remained frozen there for what felt like an eternity, my body wracked with uncontrollable shivers inside the soaked hospital gown. The hopelessness that had nearly driven me over the edge still lingered, but beside it now flickered something new—a small, burning ember of fury.

I turned away from the ledge and made my way back down the stairwell.

Pushing through the heavy door of my hospital room, I found Bianca and Vienna hadn't left at all. Bianca stood by the mirror, plugging a curling iron into the wall socket, busily fussing over Vienna's hair as though my room had become their private beauty parlor.

I halted in the doorway, my eyes fixed on my own sister.

Two decades of my life had been spent as her protector. I had absorbed our father's drunken rage so it wouldn't fall on her instead. I had worked myself to exhaustion across three jobs, pelvis still healing from surgery, just to fund her very first modeling portfolio. All that time, I believed we were fighting through the world side by side.

But watching her now, catching the raw, unfiltered revulsion in her expression as she took in my drenched, pitiful state, something horrifying crystallized in my mind.

This wasn't simply about Bianca trading me away for Edmund's fortune. She despised me. She always had—I could see it now with perfect clarity. My sacrifices had never earned her gratitude; they'd only made her feel like a charity case, and that feeling had curdled into resentment over the years. She'd been consumed with envy watching me marry into the Voss family's billions while she scraped by chasing auditions. The abuse hidden beneath my gilded marriage meant nothing to her—only the wealth mattered. And now, having replaced me with her closest friend, she'd finally claimed the power she'd always wanted.

I had devoted my entire existence to shielding a girl who had simply been biding her time, waiting for the right moment to tear me down.

"Well, look who crawled back," Bianca scoffed, rolling her eyes dramatically. "Did that little rain shower help cool your temper down any?"

I said nothing. I only stood there, my eyes empty and lifeless, staring back at them both.

Vienna's expression soured, evidently displeased by my silence. She'd wanted tears. She'd wanted begging. Her gaze drifted to the scorching curling iron still clutched in Bianca's hand, and something dark and twisted sparked behind her eyes.

In the span of a blink, Vienna ripped the iron out of Bianca's grip. She pressed the blistering ceramic barrel against her own forearm for the briefest instant, then flung it aside and dropped to her knees, letting out a scream loud enough to shake the walls.

"What in God's name is happening in here?"

Edmund came crashing through the door, his face drained of all color.

Bianca dropped down beside Vienna instantly, slipping seamlessly into her role. "Edmund, hurry, help her! Camila's completely lost her mind! She went after Vienna with the iron—said if her baby's dead, yours doesn't deserve to live either!"

"My arm—it's burning!" Vienna wailed, clutching desperately at her belly. "And the pain in my stomach, Edmund, please—save our baby!"

The instant he heard "baby," Edmund's expression twisted into pure horror. He swept Vienna up into his arms without a second's hesitation.

Not once did his eyes flick toward me. He never registered that I stood there soaked through, trembling, blood trickling from where I'd torn the IV free. All he offered me was a single, ice-cold warning as he swept past.

"Stay put, Camila. We're settling this once and for all when I'm back."

Once the room had cleared and Bianca had scurried out behind them, an oppressive silence descended, heavy as a shroud.

It took an unbearably long time before I found the will to move at all. I didn't bother searching for dry clothes. I simply lowered myself onto the edge of the bed, numb and empty, and waited.

An hour later, Edmund returned, seizing my arm and dragging me upright with brutal, clinical efficiency.

"Vienna's suffered a serious third-degree burn on her arm, and it's your fault," he growled. "She's hysterical, and the doctor's warning me that the stress could endanger my heir. Here's your choice, Camila—either you go under the knife right now for a skin graft to fix what you did, or I have your son's grave sealed under concrete by tonight."

Whatever color remained in my face drained away entirely. I must have looked like nothing more than a corpse still standing upright.

I didn't try to defend myself. I didn't point out that Vienna had done it to herself. I simply held the gaze of the man for whom I had once thrown myself into the path of a speeding truck, and whispered through cracked, dry lips, "If I give her my skin... will you finally tell me where he's buried?"

Something seemed to lodge in Edmund's throat before he could answer. After a long, strained pause, he muttered, "Fine."

That night found me wheeled into surgery. Whether it was simple exhaustion from my body or some deliberate order from Edmund, the local anesthetic failed to take hold. I felt every unbearable second as the scalpel carved skin away from my thigh.

By the time I surfaced in the recovery room, Edmund was already standing at my bedside, my leg wrapped tightly in bandages that throbbed with every breath I took.

The first words that scraped out of me were barely a whisper. "Tell me... where is my son buried?"

Edmund's face darkened, and the atmosphere around him grew suddenly heavy. His hand shot out, gripping my chin with bruising force, his eyes burning with dark fury.

"And if I tell you," he murmured, low and threatening, "what's stopping you from running straight to his grave and ending your life there?" His grip tightened until it hurt. "Understand this, Camila—I've already told the board about Vienna's pregnancy. My heir will be here soon enough. Until that day comes, there will be no more scenes from you."

I stared at him, frozen, before wrenching his hand away and dissolving into uncontrollable sobs. "You gave me your word, Edmund! You said you'd tell me! You don't get to take that back now!"

"I am his mother!" The scream tore free from somewhere deep inside me, ten years of agony finally breaking loose. "He was part of my own body once, back when I still had a womb to carry him in! Now that he's gone, what gives you the right to keep him from me?"

My tears left him entirely unmoved.

A despair colder and more absolute than anything I'd known before swallowed me whole. I slid off the bed, ignoring the blinding pain shooting through my bandaged leg, and sank to my knees at his feet. One final performance as the broken, devoted wife remained left to give.

"I'm begging you..." The sobs came so hard I could barely draw breath between them. "All I want is to know where he rests. I swear I won't interfere with anything you're planning. Just let me see him, just once. I'm on my knees in front of you, Edmund! Please—tell me!"

"That's enough."

He rose abruptly, yanking irritably at his tie, and looked down at me with nothing but pure disdain written across his face.

"Take a good look at yourself, Camila. This is pathetic. Do you honestly believe your dead son would want a mother as broken and miserable as the one kneeling in front of me?"

I went completely rigid, palms pressed flat against the frigid floor, my whole body shuddering uncontrollably. Just as I felt certain my heart might simply stop beneath the crushing weight of his cruelty, his voice—cold, thin, indifferent—finally drifted down to me.

"Angelique Church Cemetery. Plot 278."