I remained calm as I stared at Kirsten's nearly-trembling lips.

"Okay. I'll leave right now."

I then ignored Sam's and Juliet's attempts to stop me and turned around, walking toward the entrance. Just as I was about to leave, however, someone gripped my wrist tightly and yanked me back in.

[Are you really mad at me, honey? I'm scared. Do you really not want me anymore? I'll die if you leave me! You can't leave me like this!]

Kirsten's inner voice echoed in my head at once. I looked back at her in shock and saw the redness around her eyes. For a moment, I felt my resolve crumbling.

However, a second later, Kirsten's cold voice sounded.

"You want to leave? Fine! Take off the shoes you're wearing and return them to me! I was the one who bought them for you!"

I froze at the command and looked at the worn, faded leather shoes on my feet.

These were the shoes that Kirsten had bought for me for our wedding. When she bought them for me, she simply put them in the living room without telling me about them. However, I heard her inner voice calling out to me.

[Honey! See the shoes? See them? Quick, come and ask me if I purposely bought them for you! I actually got someone to custom-make it to order! Aren't I the best? I really want you to be the happiest groom in the world!]

Over the past six years, I could never bear to part with these shoes and treated them like my utmost treasure. It wasn't just because it was a gift from Kirsten. It was also because the shoes represented her love for me.

But now…

I mechanically crouched over and slowly took the shoes off.

"Okay. You can have it back."

Kirsten's face turned darker. Her eyes grew even redder, as if she was suppressing her emotions.

Juliet hurried up to stop me.

"Mitch, you've been with Kirsten for ten years. It's not like you don't know that she never means what she says. How could she possibly bear to let you go home barefooted? This is just her way of trying to make you stay."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Kirsten bent down, grabbed the shoes, and threw them into the fireplace.

"You've worn them for six years, and you're returning them to me now? They're filthy."

Her tone was nonchalant, but her words fell like a sledgehammer to my heart.

I stared at the flames consuming my shoes and suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe.

So, as it turned out, the shoes I'd kept so precious to my heart over the past six years meant nothing to her and could be thrown into the fire and destroyed just like that.

Kirsten's inner voice spoke up again when she noticed my reddening eyes.

[You're upset, aren't you, honey? You still care about me, don't you? Just admit that you were wrong, and say that you only meant it as a joke earlier, and I'll immediately fill your entire rack with more shoes than you can ever wear! I'll buy one pair in every style for you!]

I listened numbly to her inner voice and felt nothing stirring in my heart anymore.

She could buy as many pairs as she wanted for me after this, but nothing could ever compare to the first pair. My feelings for her had already burned out, just like the last of the embers in the fireplace, with only ashes left behind.

I left barefoot in the end.

Nobody came out after me. Only Jordan's gloating sneer could be heard as I left.

"Are you really not going out after him? He seems pretty upset."

"What's the point?" Kirsten replied. "Let him go. He'll definitely come crawling back to me in half an hour to apologize."

She didn't know that I was leaving for real.

I was one of the candidates selected for an external transfer to the company's overseas branch, and my flight was booked for tomorrow.

By the time I got back to our house, the soles of my feet were completely covered in tiny cuts and scrapes.

I numbly cleaned and disinfected them with alcohol and subconsciously looked around. Our home had unknowingly been filled with Jordan's things.

"This is a rabbit plushie that Jordan gave me. Put it on the couch. I want to see it every day.

"This is the necklace that Jordan gave me. Does it look nice on me?

"This is the reed diffuser that Jordan told me to put here. He said that it makes the place smell like him."

Every time I went berserk over another addition like that, the smile on Kirsten's lips would only widen and deepen even more as she watched me get jealous. It seemed as though the more I suffered, the more it proved that I loved her.

Yet, her response to me was always the same.

"Mitch, you know that Jordan is only my secretary and coworker. Stop being so petty."

As time passed, her continuous torture eventually trained me to do exactly as she wished. I stopped being petty about things and even willingly stepped aside to give up my position as her husband now.

After bandaging up my feet, I began packing up my things. I didn't have many belongings left, and I took them all with me.

Just as I was about to leave, Kirsten came back. She reeked of alcohol and had to be half-carried in by Jordan.

When she caught sight of me, she instinctively wanted to let go of him. However, her eyes narrowed when she saw my suitcase behind me. She was screaming inside her head.

[Why are you packing your things, honey? Do you really not want me anymore? I'm sorry, I was wrong! I shouldn't have brought Jordan with me to dinner! I just wanted to see you get jealous! Please don't leave me! I don't want you to leave!]

Her face paled as her feelings poured out through her inner voice. However, the words that rolled from her tongue were sharp and cutting.

"You'd better think twice about this, Mitch Coleman. Once you're gone, I'm going to have a line of suitors waiting to marry me. But would any woman still ever want to marry a useless piece of trash like you?"

The way she talked down to me completely destroyed the last bit of hope in my eyes. I just smiled and said, "Okay. Then go and find yourself another man."

Kirsten clenched her fists. Suddenly, she slid her arms around Jordan's waist and declared, "Then, I'm just going to marry Jordan instead!

"He's kind and gentle and more capable than you! Most importantly, he's nothing like you in bed! You can't even last a minute. It's been six years, and you've never, ever managed to satisfy me even once!"

Her provocative tone made my breath catch in my throat.

Everyone knew that my body was an extremely sensitive subject.

Six years ago, Kirsten had suffered a sudden nephritis attack and urgently needed a kidney transplant. I was a match, and I went under the knife without hesitation, donating one of my kidneys to her.

After the surgery, I was often weak and listless and frequently ran out of energy halfway through the day.

The incision site on my body was constantly painful and inflamed, causing me to suffer from many high fever attacks afterward.

I thought that Kirsten would be the first one to be the most understanding about my situation. I never imagined that she would turn out to be the first one to use it as a weapon against me.

My eyes turned red. "That's enough, Kirsten Weber!"

She saw the tears in my eyes, and a flash of surprise appeared in hers. She instinctively wanted to step forward and approach me.

However, Jordan put his arm around her shoulders and said matter-of-factly, "What's the big deal? It's not like Kirsten's lying. It has been six years, and you have been useless for all of them.

"If Kirsten were any other woman, she would have already gotten rid of you a long time ago, but she put up with you for six whole years! She never said that she was done with you, but you were the one who brought up divorce and even tried moving out.

"If anything, you're the selfish one. You're not the least bit understanding about her and all the troubles and suffering she's gone through!"

Kirsten paused in her steps. The fluster in her eyes was quickly replaced with a cold look. She agreed wholeheartedly with Jordan and thought I was selfish and refused to be more understanding about her.

"It seems like I've been too good to you over the years," she said, her eyes darting toward my suitcase.

Before I could react, she had already forcefully grabbed the suitcase and ripped the zipper open with brute force.

All my items in the suitcase fell out, and she stepped on them. She also picked up something specifically from the bottom of the pile. It was a crystal amulet from my mother, the only thing of hers I had left to remember her by.

Kirsten glared condescendingly at me. "Do I need to remind you, Mitch Coleman, that I was the one who got this amulet back for three million dollars back then?"

My face paled at once.

My family had gone broke once in the past. To save the family, Mom had sold her most prized family heirloom, this crystal amulet. And after she passed away, her only regret was selling it off and not being able to buy it back before she left.

When Kirsten learned about it, she immediately contacted various parties and eventually spent a colossal sum of money to get the amulet.

I had been so deeply moved back then, and I kept telling her that I didn't know how I would ever make it up to her.

Her tone had been calm, and her eyes were filled with love, when she said, "Well, then, you could give yourself to me in exchange. I want to marry you, Mitch Coleman."

The crystal amulet served as a token of our love. She lovingly placed Mom's only remaining possession around my neck after that.

But now, Kirsten was telling me a different story.

"I only gave you the amulet because I wanted to marry you. But since you're divorcing me now, you're no longer my husband. What right do you have to take it away with you? You can't possibly think that you're still worth three million dollars now, can you?"

Her cruel words shattered the last illusion of my dignity. I suppressed the pain in my chest and said, "The three million dollars… I'll find a way to pay it back…"

"I don't need it!" Kirsten shouted, cutting me off. "Did you think that I was after money, Mitch? You're the one who abandoned this family first. You're the one who abandoned this home. And so, I will only be giving this amulet to the next man who wants to be my husband."

Then, she turned around and fastened the crystal amulet around Jordan's neck, just like how she did when she proposed to me six years ago.

However, Jordan made sure Kirsten couldn't see him as he mouthed the words to me, "I'm not keeping a dead woman's toy with me. Such terrible luck."

I felt all the blood rush to my head at that moment and lunged forward, trying to snatch it from him.

"If you think it's terrible, then just give it back to me!"

I'd only just touched him when he suddenly fell backward and landed heavily on his front. At the same time, the crystal amulet on his chest was smashed to pieces.

My mind went completely blank. Kirsten was equally as shocked.

Jordan held up his hand, which he'd cut with a crystal shard, and looked at Kirsten with reddened eyes. "Kirsten… It hurts so much…"

Kirsten immediately snapped back to her senses and shoved me aside. "Are you out of your mind, Mitch Coleman! That was the only heirloom that your mom left for you! How could you bear to destroy it all for the sake of hurting Jordan!"

I also fell heavily to the floor. She had knocked into me so forcefully that the incision in my lower right abdomen began throbbing in pain.

I shuddered hard, withstanding the pain as I tried to explain, "I never pushed him. He was the one who fell on purpose to smash the amulet—"

"That's enough!" Kirsten was furious. "You're the one who went batshit crazy on him, and now, you're still trying to blame him? If you never rushed at him, the amulet would never have…"

A hint of panic flashed in her eyes. I heard her inner voice panicking.

[What should I do? Honey's amulet is destroyed! That's the only thing he's ever cared about! I don't have a way to make him stay with me anymore! But I don't want him to leave… I don't want to watch him leave me…]

All of a sudden, Kirsten yanked me up from the ground. Before I knew it, I was thrown into the pitch-black storeroom.

"You hurt Jordan. And you're clearly out of your mind. I'm locking you in here for a day until you finally calm down."

The pain in my abdomen got even worse. I felt a trickle of warm, sticky liquid spilling from my wound, and I immediately began to panic.