Chapter 2

For an instant, joy flickered in Nathan's eyes.

But it was quickly buried under wariness.

"What are you trying to do now?"

After all, it wasn't as if I'd never made a scene about divorce before.

But every single time, it ended with me threatening to kill myself,

and he would reluctantly talk me down, until it all blew over.

How could I ever bring myself to let go?

This marriage was something Nathan and I had fought for together.

If I hadn't married him, I might have been betrothed long ago to some old, wealthy businessman.

Before I could speak, he got the words out first.

"Fine, think whatever you want. The company's slammed tomorrow, meetings all day. Look into it all you like."

With that, he went upstairs to the bathroom.

I picked up his phone and tapped to switch profiles.

In an instant, the default wallpaper changed to a photo of the two of them kissing,

and only the business messages and chat threads all turned into a flood of intimate exchanges.

That messaging account had one contact, and only one.

Kayla Henson.

Saved as Kayla.

I dimly remembered how, years ago, when I first chose to sponsor Kayla,

Nathan had still saved her contact as "little Henson."

I'd even teased him that the name was too stiff.

Now "little Henson" had successfully become "Kayla,"

while the "Kayla" in my own contacts had been dropped into the blacklist.

Kayla had posted a lot of photos and videos tonight.

"Happy Thanksgiving, my love. I wish you were here with me, sob sob~"

He hadn't gotten around to answering this one yet,

but every message above it he'd replied to patiently.

I scrolled up,

back to six months ago, when I caught the two of them in bed together.

"Baby, I don't want to leave you, but Ebony is so scary..."

"Sending you away is just an excuse. Stay in that apartment on the inner-city loop and don't worry. She won't find out."

That apartment was one of the wedding homes Nathan had bought for me.

No one usually lived there, so I'd had it rented out to tenants a long time ago.

I remembered—it had gone to a young couple.

I took out my phone and dialed a number.

"I've sent you the location. Take some people and break in right now. Tell them—I'm not renting this place out anymore."

——

Just as I was about to take off my earrings and go to sleep,

someone yanked my hand hard from behind.

A tearing pain shot through my earlobe, and half my hand was suddenly wet.

"Ebony Cox, Kayla is a young girl—where do you expect her to go in the middle of the night?!"

Nathan's put-on composure was gone,

his face nothing but alarm.

His gaze landed on my bloodied earlobe for only a moment.

I pulled out a tissue and pressed it to my ear.

"You moved all kinds of trash into my wedding home. Shouldn't I have someone clean it up?"

"I recall you promised me you'd send her away."

Nathan sneered.

"You're the one who brought Kayla out of the mountains, and now you're the one throwing her out. She's not some stray cat or dog—she has no relatives out there. What's the difference between making her leave and telling her to go die?"

He covered the phone's receiver, as if he didn't want my voice reaching the person on the other end.

"The wedding home is yours, but it's also something I gave you. Without me, what would you even be?"

I stood up.

My swollen belly throbbed with a dragging pain.

The doctor had said I couldn't let myself get upset anymore; that I'd carried this baby this far was already unheard of.

Kayla was crying on the other end of the line.

"Nathan, it's so dark here, I don't know where I am... Ebony, please, have mercy on me..."

"Where exactly did you have Kayla taken?!"

Nathan panicked. He reached to grab at my clothes,

but the second his hand touched my pregnant belly, he snatched it back as if he'd been burned.

He shoved over the dressing table in front of me,

and the bottles and jars crashed down at my feet.

I didn't offer a single word of explanation.

Nathan didn't believe me.

Kayla crying was my fault.

Twisting her ankle on the road was some trick of mine.

Getting tripped up at work was my scheme.

And yet he was the one who'd taken my hand first, who'd said he would trust me and love me forever.

Kayla screamed again on the other end of the line.

"Don't come near me, no—Ebony, I really was wrong, I know I was wrong!!"

"Kayla, Kayla!"

Nathan shouted into the phone, clutching it, and flung my hand off with force.

Caught off guard, I dropped to my knees on the floor.

The commotion was loud enough that the servants had already been roused, all of them watching from the doorway.

Someone screamed.

"Madam is bleeding!"

My nightgown was already dotted with spots of red.

I watched Nathan's steps freeze for an instant, then he bolted downstairs without a backward glance.

I heard the sound of a sports car starting up.

It was the one I'd given him for his birthday last year.

Nathan had said he'd use it to pick me up from then on.

In the end, I never once sat in the passenger seat.

The world spun before my eyes.

I only had time to give one order.

"Get me my lawyer—and Old Mrs. Mason..."