Divorce from my husband after he drowned my parents

The seventh anniversary kiss burned like acid on my lips.

Before I could recoil, he gripped my jaw, his wedding band digging into my skin. "1000cc, now."​

Chandelier shards rained light over the sterile chaos.

Nurses strapped me to the sofa as he barked orders into his phone.

His silhouette, once my sanctuary, now loomed like a guillotine.​

"Transplant team. State-of-the-art." His voice dripped ice.

"She's donor."​

Needles glinted in the lamplight.

I gasped as cold metal touched my arm-and time folded in on itself. T

I dug my nails into my palm. Blood welled, confirming the impossible.

This wasn't déjà vu.

I'd lived this nightmare before.

And this time, I wouldn't end up a nameless body in a biohazard bag.

The moment the needle pierced my skin, I was hurled back seven years.​

He was the perfect heir of the Merrick family-calm, restrained, always putting interests first.

And I was the only one who dared to chase him openly.

While other heiresses could only admire him secretly, I followed him everywhere. On the day he was to choose a partner for a political marriage, I personally offered a billion-dollar group as my dowry.

The wedding bells faded into a death knell.

Our mansion echoed with the sound of separate bedroom doors locking.

He treated me like a porcelain doll on a shelf-polite smiles, empty conversations, the master suite forever cold.

I counted the nights I spent alone, convincing myself his distant nods were tokens of affection.

After all, wasn't sharing the same roof enough?​

Then Beatrice Harrington walked into our lives like a hurricane.

A slip of a girl, her eyes wide and innocent, but her presence shattered the fragile peace I'd built.

Leonard's armor cracked at the sight of her.

He hovered over her like a shadow.​

Rumors swirled faster than I could blink.

"Mr. Merrick canceled a billion-dollar deal just because she said she couldn't sleep."

While I'd been waiting years for a single tender look, he'd upended empires for her.

The man who'd never shared a bed with me would burn the world to keep her warm.

"She likes the ocean," they said, "so he carved out a Maldivian paradise, a private island carpeted in her beloved bluebells-a sea of sapphire blooms for his precious Beatrice."

Another rumor burned hotter than the sun: "He chartered a private jet, hurtling through the night sky to Iceland, all because of her fleeting desire to witness the Northern Lights."​

In a blind rage, I stormed the Merrick Group, heels clicking like the ticking of a time bomb. The polished floors echoed my anger as I marched past startled employees, my presence a tempestuous force. I would confront the man who'd given the world to another while leaving me with nothing but crumbs of his attention, and this time, there would be no more silence, no more pretending.

I clung to the last shred of hope, convinced that the man I'd loved for so long would never truly abandon me.

But Leonard Merrick was a force of nature, and when the family tried to bar Beatrice from his world, he razed bridges with cold efficiency.​

As I stubbornly refused the divorce papers, his retaliation was swift and merciless.

I found myself cornered in our once-lovely mansion. This time, he dragged me to the indoor pool, the water eerily calm and blue.​

"Sign it, or drown your parents."

His voice was as frigid as the water that closed over my parents' head.

They thrashed, lungs burning, hands scrabbling at their iron grip.

The darkness claimed me seeing my parents drowning by him in front of my eyes.

Now, reborn and trembling, the memory of that icy embrace and the taste of chlorine still haunted my every breath.

I remembered that in my previous life, when he kissed me for the first time, I was overjoyed.

Even when he asked to draw my blood right after, I didn't hesitate.

Only later did I learn-that blood was for Beatrice Harrington.

She had a minor injury, and the doctor said 200cc was enough. But he treated it like a crisis, drawing 1000cc from me to stockpile blood for her.

He loved her-so much that I knew nothing of it.

This life, when the doctor finished drawing blood, he took the bag and left without looking back. The needle in my arm still throbbed faintly with pain, and I couldn't stop trembling.

The suffocating memory made me shudder, especially the final "beep-beep" countdown of the bomb.

"Ma'am?!"

The servant's startled cry rang in my ears.

Only then did I realize my vision had gone black, and my body was collapsing forward uncontrollably.

The last thing I heard before losing consciousness was the servant's panicked voice:

"Sir! Madam has fainted!"

He stopped, but didn't turn around-only tossed out one sentence:

"Take care of her."

Then came the sound of the door closing.