Chapter 4

"Ah! Scott!"

"Chloe!"

"Leo!"

Chaos instantly erupted in the room.

I held Leo tightly to my chest, watching the two of them scramble into each other's arms.

The hold a first love has really is unbreakable. But my poor son was just a little boy.

"How the hell do you watch him? You did this on purpose!" Scott roared, terrifying Leo into another fit of wailing.

"You don't need to go home. You can stay right here in this hospital and wait on Chloe until she's discharged!" Scott spat with absolute venom.

He coddled Chloe over a tiny scratch on her hand, completely indifferent to what Leo and I were going through.

Even though it was the Sterling Group's private hospital, he deliberately ordered the staff to set up a rickety cot in the corner of the stairwell for me to sleep on.

The cold seeped into my bones, and my son, sitting beside me, couldn't stop shivering.

Even so, he refused to leave. He clutched my frozen fingers, blowing warm air onto them with his tiny mouth.

"Leo will blow on them, Mommy! It'll be warm soon!"

Worn down to nothing, I forced a weak smile onto my lips, trying to comfort him.

"Mommy isn't cold."

But seeing his little hands red, swollen, and cracked from the frost, I couldn't stop the tears from falling.

Just a flight of stairs above us was Chloe's luxury suite. She had round-the-clock nurses, private doctors, and a squad of bodyguards and maids hired by Scott.

Leo bit his lip, seemingly making a decision. "Mommy, I'll go beg Auntie Chloe. I'll ask Daddy to come save you, okay?"

Looking at my sweet, innocent boy, my heart tore into pieces. As mature as he tried to be, he was only four.

He couldn't understand that Chloe—the woman who threw me down the stairs and threw herself down right after to frame me—wanted nothing more than to see me dead.

Suddenly, a warm gush poured from between my legs. The hemorrhaging had returned.

My broken body, starved and freezing on the concrete floor, was finally giving out.

My son screamed, "So much blood! Mommy, there's so much blood!"

I knew he was running up to Chloe's room. Panic gripped my chest, and I tried desperately to crawl after him, but I didn't have a single ounce of strength left.

Between the exhaustion and the blood loss, my vision faded, and I slipped into total darkness.

Yet strangely, my consciousness hovered right behind my son.

I watched Leo run to Chloe's door. Before he could even knock, a bodyguard kicked him viciously in the chest.

"Miss Hayes said no one is allowed to disturb her except Mr. Sterling!"

Leo slammed hard onto the floor. Before he could even stand, he scrambled on all fours back to the door. Clenching his tiny fists, he pounded frantically. "Auntie Chloe! Auntie Chloe! Mommy is bleeding so much! Please call the doctor to save Mommy!"

To stay by my side, my son, who had grown up in absolute luxury, had starved and frozen for days. His skin was delicate, and his knuckles were already raw. Pounding on the hard wood split them wide open, smearing bloody streaks across the door.

I screamed in agony, begging him to stop, desperate to keep him from begging that monster.

Leo kept hammering until the door suddenly swung open.