Chapter 3

Hearing him insult me like that,

I was so furious I lost my mind.

I grabbed the ashtray and hurled it straight at his forehead.

"Brett Sanchez! You're not even human!"

He didn't dodge.

When the blood ran straight down his forehead, he only looked at me, cold.

"Yvonne, you really are insane."

"But even lunatics have to pay a price."

Right there, Brett pulled out his phone and called the police.

"Assault. Attempted murder."

"Yvonne, you think I can't put you away for life?"

Meeting the hard set of his eyes,

my head dropped again.

In the end the officers lectured me at length before they left.

Because of the wound on his forehead, Brett looked like a textbook victim.

He walked away with almost no consequences at all.

And I was ordered by the police to sign the divorce agreement as soon as possible.

"Fine. You win."

I closed my eyes in despair,

and pulled up a bitter, self-mocking smile.

"I give up."

Since this marriage was already meaningless,

what was the point of tormenting each other?

I was reaching for the pen to sign my name.

A hand pressed down on mine.

I looked up into Bianca's amused smile.

"Mrs. Sanchez, how could you give up so easily?"

"Tsk, tsk."

"The Mrs. Sanchez who once ruled the business world, throwing away a million in ten seconds without so much as a blink."

"And now, over a measly twenty thousand dollars,"

"you're practically on your knees begging. Pathetic, isn't it?"

"A woman who ends up living like you really is shameful."

I didn't argue. I lowered my head.

Before I married, I was the pampered heiress of a wealthy family.

After I married, I was the untouchable powerhouse, Mrs. Sanchez.

But Bianca was my undoing.

Since she appeared half a year ago, I had fallen from the clouds into the mud.

I looked at her with hollow eyes.

"I've already given up. I'll sign, just like you want."

"What more do you want?"

She didn't want me to surrender this fast.

To her it was cat and mouse. She needed to toy with me first.

The fun came when the mouse was worn out.

Brett waved a hand and sent everyone away.

Not until only the three of us were left in the room

did he frown and slide an arm around Bianca's waist.

"What is it?"

"A moment ago you wanted to watch me get divorced. Changed your mind already?"

Bianca's smile turned coaxing.

"I just feel like getting it this easily is no fun."

"Besides, Yvonne's willing to walk away with nothing."

"That means she's already out of road."

Bianca's fingers wandered suggestively over Brett's face.

"How about,"

"we make the game harder?"

I gripped the hem of my clothes, a bad feeling rising in me.

I thought of the terror of being locked out on the balcony for three days, driven there by a dead rat.

Face pale, I looked at Brett,

hoping he would say the words "that's enough."

Instead, a trace of a smile curved his lips.

"It's your call."

"But how do you plan to keep this game going?"

It was like a basin of water dumped over my head.

With Brett behind her, backing her,

Bianca grew even more smug.

Her gaze drifted slowly to my rounded belly.

"Since Yvonne's pregnant,"

"why don't we let her watch, right in front of her own eyes,"

"as she loses this child, one step at a time?"

Bianca stroked her own flat stomach, envy and hatred flickering in her eyes.

"Let her taste what it's like to never be able to bear a child, the way I can't."

At the mention of being unable to have children,

Brett's eyes darkened all at once.

"Fine. We'll do it that way."

"It's the debt she owes."

The plea rose to my lips again, and again I forced it back down.

I closed my eyes.

Another memory came flooding up.

It was what happened after the cake incident, after I fired Bianca.

Bianca had lived well in college on that sponsorship.

After a few years of work, kept on Brett's generous salary, she never learned any real skills.

Instead she picked up the habit of extravagant spending.

Once she lost that easy, high-paying job as a junior secretary,

she scrambled to make ends meet, hunting everywhere for work and quick money.

She wandered into a drinking party by mistake.

There she was gotten drunk and assaulted.

It had nothing to do with me.

But Brett still laid the blame at my feet.

And so Bianca had been scheming for a long time, waiting for this day all along.

Waiting for me to be broken and disgraced.

To fall into her hands.

And then to watch me suffer a fate worse than death.