Christopher’s fingers clenched around Heather’s sleeve, his eyes wild and bloodshot.

“Heather, you’re all I have left. If you go, what am I supposed to do?”

His panic reached her, and Shirley’s heart twisted.

He actually said he couldn’t live without Heather…

Then what was she? All those promises to cherish her for a lifetime—they meant nothing.

“Let me jump first, Heather. Watch me. See if it hurts—then you can decide.”

He yanked her back and leaned out the window himself.

Shirley lunged, grabbing his leg. “She’s having an episode, and now you’re going to be just as insane? This is the fourth floor! Do you love her so much you’d throw your life away?”

Christopher pried her fingers loose, disdain written across his face. “Heather means more to me than life. If you’re so desperate to stop me, why don’t you jump instead?”

A coldness settled deep in Shirley’s chest. Her pale fingers slowly let go.

He wasn’t unaware. He knew she was terrified of heights.

And he knew perfectly well that her mother had jumped from a building right in front of her when she was six—after catching her husband in an affair.

“You… you’re serious?” Her voice shook.

“It’s only the fourth floor. It won’t kill you. Jump, and the man who raised you gets his surgery tomorrow.”

The man who raised her was her last remaining weakness.

Shirley closed her eyes and leaped.

When she woke, the sharp scent of disinfectant filled her nose; white-coated figures swam in her vision.

Nausea rolled through her. Her head spun.

“Mrs. Christopher, please don’t move. If the tree in the courtyard hadn’t broken your fall, it would be much worse than a concussion and internal bleeding.”

She nodded and lay back obediently, but her eyes kept searching the room.

The nurse understood. Lowering her voice, she said, “Mr. Christopher is with Miss Heather—she’s still unstable. He hasn’t been able to visit yet. He’s right next door. Should I tell him you’re awake?”

Shirley shook her head and waved a weak refusal.

She didn’t want him to visit. She only wanted to confirm the surgery date for the man who’d raised her.

When she’d tried to divorce him before, he’d threatened to cancel the surgery. Now that she’d nearly died, she just wanted this last wish settled.

As soon as the nurse left, she pulled out her IV and, leaning heavily on the wall, dragged herself painfully to the next room.

Inside, the two of them were laughing over photos scattered across the floor.

After falling from the fourth floor, she’d lost consciousness—and with it, any clear memory.

Those photos showed her how utterly pathetic she’d looked: skirt shoved up, underwear exposed, collapsed on the ground.

Christopher pointed at one. “Look at her, Heather. Pathetic. Thank God you didn’t jump. You’d never debase yourself like that. Promise me you won’t ever pull a stunt like this again.”

Heather nestled obediently against his chest. “Okay. If everyone who’s sick like me could see what happens when you jump, maybe they wouldn’t get hurt, right?”

Dread clenched Shirley’s heart—what was she planning?

“No!”

She tried to rush in and snatch Christopher’s phone, but he stopped her cold.

Five minutes later, the photos had flooded every major social media platform.

Uncensored pictures of her fall were everywhere, her private areas magnified and crystal clear.

**[Mrs. Christopher’s lace panties are so hot! Where’d she get them? Link?]**

**[What’s the point of dressing like that if you still can’t keep your husband’s attention?]**

**[Who jumps out a window dressed like that? She’s a disgrace to their entire social circle.]**

Her phone buzzed and chimed incessantly, a flood of insults vibrating until her palm went numb.

Her personal accounts were completely overrun.

Every comment she tried to post in her own defense was instantly deleted. One after another.

“Don’t waste your energy. I’ve already spoken to the backend. You won’t be able to explain yourself.”

“Accept who you are. A desperate woman in lace underwear, staging a scene because she’s lost her husband to her own sister.”

Christopher leaned against the doorframe, a cigarette between his fingers, half his face shadowed in the dim light.

His tall frame cast a long shadow over her, pressing down until she couldn’t lift her head.

“Why?” she managed, clutching her aching, suffocating chest. “Why would you do this?”

He gave a cold, mocking smile. “Why? The kind of woman who sleeps around even while pregnant with Sharon—doesn’t a stunt like this, in lace underwear, fit your character perfectly?”

His hand closed around her throat, squeezing the air from her lungs. Shirley’s face flushed crimson as she flailed helplessly.

A single warm tear fell onto the back of his hand.

He froze, something like regret flickering through his eyes.

Shirley wasn’t one to cry.

She used to smile all the time—like a patch of winter sunshine that warmed you through.

No matter how exhausted he was from work, seeing her smile had always healed him.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her smile.

Christopher slowly released his grip, his expression complicated. He took one last hard drag on his cigarette and turned to leave.

A doctor came stumbling toward them, face pale. “Mr. Christopher! It’s your father-in-law! Something’s happened!”

The flat line on the cardiac monitor pronounced Gabriel’s death.

The staff explained he had seen the viral photo of the fall online; an old condition flared up, and he was gone before they could even begin resuscitation.

Before he went, one last comment remained unsent on his phone:

*My daughter is not that kind of person. Please, show some mercy.*

She had lost her mother at six, then been abandoned by her birth father. It was Gabriel who adopted her, who spoiled her like a little princess.

Even after Heather was found and brought home, his fatherly love never wavered.

A father that good… one more day, and he could have been saved.

Shirley’s heart-rending screams echoed down the hospital corridor.

She threw herself against Christopher, pounding his chest with her fists, begging again and again, “Give me back my dad! Save him… please, save him…”

Those weak, futile blows landed against Christopher’s own heart—and he felt it fissure.

He moved instinctively to hold her, but Heather’s detached voice cut the air:

“Now my sister and I have no father, and my brother-in-law has no mother. How’s that for fair?”

Like an ice pick to the heart, Christopher jolted back to reality. He shoved Shirley away with force, his eyes burning crimson.

His own mother… hadn’t her death been just as brutal?

Witnessing her favorite daughter-in-law half-naked in another man’s arms.

Used condoms littering the floor, the act so violent it caused a miscarriage…

How could he possibly forgive this wretched woman, Shirley, just because Gabriel was dead?

This all-too-familiar scene—it was what she deserved.

When the doctor brought the death certificate, Heather refused to sign. “A father who dies of rage over someone else’s scandal? He’s no father of mine!”

Shirley lunged at her in fury. “He was your biological father! He made himself sick exhausting himself over you! Heather, do you even have a heart?!”

She hadn’t pushed hard, but Heather stumbled back, crashing into the wall with a pained groan.

“Sister, with Father’s body not yet cold, is this how you treat me?”

Christopher’s heart ached. He pulled Heather tightly against him, his gaze sweeping over Shirley with a fire ready to reduce her to ashes.

“Apologize to Heather!”

“On what grounds? I didn’t even push her! She threw herself against that wall!”

He hadn’t expected her not only to lie but to talk back so defiantly in front of everyone. Looking down at Heather’s pale, fragile face in his arms, the last shred of pity he held for Shirley evaporated.

“Still defiant? String her up in the courtyard. No one lets her down without my order.”

Panic seized her. “Christopher, you can’t do this to me! Father’s funeral arrangements—I need to—”

Her words were cut off as Christopher, cradling Heather, turned and walked away.

For the next three days, Shirley hung in the courtyard.

The first day, the house hosted a wine-tasting. Everyone was invited to splash her with 1982 Lafite.

The second day, Heather wanted to learn ballroom dance. Christopher canceled tens of millions in business and spent three hours holding her, teaching her steps right there in the yard.

The third day, the sky unleashed a hailstorm not seen in decades. Walnut-sized ice pelted her until the pain knocked her unconscious.

From start to finish, Christopher never once looked at her. Not once. Not a single glance.

By evening, when Christopher and Heather—dressed in black mourning attire—left the house, Shirley learned her foster father’s farewell ceremony was that very night.

The housekeeper, heart softened by the weeping, finally cut her down.

She had no mourning clothes. She could only snatch a plain white dress from the wardrobe, one embroidered with birds and flowers, and had the driver race to the funeral home.

The security guard at the entrance stopped her. After a long wait, someone finally relayed the message:

Unless she crawled in on her knees and apologized to Heather, she wouldn’t be setting foot inside tonight.

Shirley gritted her teeth, knelt, and crawled all the way to Heather’s feet. Choking back sobs, she forced out the words, “I’m sorry.”

Heather suddenly erupted into a shrill,uncontrolled scream.

“Sister! What is that on your dress?”

Christopher glanced over. When his eyes registered the embroidered birds and flowers on Shirley’s dress, his face darkened instantly.

“You know Heather is terrified of birds. Did you wear that on purpose—to trigger an episode and humiliate her?”

Only then did Shirley realize, with a jolt of horror, she had broken another taboo.

“No, I came in such a rush, I didn’t look closely—”

Heather covered her ears, squeezed her eyes shut. Her screams grew louder, teetering on the edge of completeuncontrolled.

Christopher ground the words through clenched teeth. “Take it off. Now.”

“Or I’ll make sure you never get to see your foster father off for the last time.”

A deafening buzz filled Shirley’s ears.

This was her father’s funeral. With all those eyes watching, he was demanding she strip in public, just to calm Heather down?

She clutched her collar in panic, frozen in place.

Yet in the end, her fingers moved to the knotted buttons, and she began to undo them.

Countless eyes swept over her.

Some held leering hunger, some mockery, some pity—each one a needle of fire, piercing her skin.

Christopher suddenly froze.

The sight of her body, covered in old and fresh wounds, was shocking.

It dawned on him then. During the hailstorm, she’d had nowhere to shelter.

And over these past two years, whenever Heather had an episode, she’d always scratched and hit her.

A flicker of remorse passed through his eyes. His hands trembled slightly as he took off his own suit jacket and draped it over her, covering the map of scars.

And so, Shirley saw her foster father off on his final journey—disheveled, humiliated.

The next day, drowning in grief, Heather proposed a trip abroad with Christopher. She insisted on taking all the household staff.

It was just then that Shirley came down with a raging fever.