Kierra's POV

After that, Natasha vanished without a trace.

I never imagined it was Francis who had hidden her all along.

Even Silverstone City, that glittering, opulent place we built together, had been built for her. Every stone, every flower, every breath of that city existed for her protection.

At first, I thought the whole idea of a secret mansion to hide a mistress was just some old-fashioned myth. But then I found his journal.

Francis’s diary.

He’d poured everything—his time, his brilliance, his money—$600 million into building Silverstone City, claiming it was to bless Brookfield’s.

But the truth? It was all for Natasha.

Thinking of this, I pulled up the news article back when Natasha's indecent photos had been exposed.

I paused the video and captured the frame where the man’s hand flashed by. When I saw the red mole on his ring finger, I staggered and nearly collapsed.

It was Francis.

Even then, Francis loved Natasha. His marriage proposal to me had nothing to do with love; it was just a distraction for his family.

Just a decoy. A smokescreen.

Something to quiet his family while he protected the only woman he ever truly wanted.

Six years of cold silence, of celibacy, of nothingness.

He’d wrapped it all in the language of religion and said he wanted a life of simplicity and worship.

He prayed. Meditated. Disconnected from the world.

And like a fool, I supported him. I thought I was helping him find peace.

But this? This betrayal? I couldn’t forgive.

Francis had been living with Natasha and raising two children with her while I sat alone in our house, convinced that his rejection and reserved attitude were due to his sacred vow as a devout.

So, right there, standing on the riverbank, the cold wind cutting through me, my tears had nearly dried up.

I didn’t cry. I couldn’t.

The pain was too deep, too vast, too empty.

As the sky began to lighten in the morning, I pulled out my phone and called my lawyer. “Atty. Lawson, help me prepare a divorce agreement.”

I hung up and, with a cold fire in my chest, began tearing through every corner of Silverstone City in search of Percy.

And since my husband was gone, it was up to me to save my son.

But I was still too late.

I tried everything—bribed one of Francis’s bodyguards, coaxed the location out of him.

But when I finally found him…

His body was barely recognizable.

The vultures, scavengers, had gotten to him. Picked him clean.

My baby. My beautiful, bright, gentle boy.

Percy had been murdered, then devoured. Feasted on like he was nothing.

I couldn’t breathe.

My legs buckled beneath me as I collapsed to the ground, the weight of it all pressing into my chest like a vice.

I wanted to scream—to rip the sky apart with the sound of my agony.

But no sound came.

Just air. Just pain. 'Percy! My baby!'

The words clawed their way out of my throat, raw and ragged.

The pain hit so hard I coughed up blood.

My vision blurred.

Though not my biological child, I devoted years of love and care to raising him. Although only five, Percy was way more sensible than kids twice his age.

He would just smile through the tears, hold my hand, and say, "Mommy, don't cry. I'm not hurt. I'm okay."

Such a small child, yet he already felt sorry that Francis always ignored me.

In six years of marriage, Francis had never given me a single gift. So Percy spent days carefully drawing a family portrait just for me.

He even used his pocket money to buy a rose from a street vendor, handing it to me with a shy smile.

“It’s from Daddy,” he said.

How could Francis do this? How could he destroy a child so pure?

I wrapped Percy’s tiny, lifeless body in my arms, the warmth long gone.

My knees nearly buckled, but I held on. “Don’t be scared, Percy. Mommy will take you away from here.”

But then one of Francis’s bodyguards stepped forward, blocking my path. “Mrs. Weston, you can’t take the child with you.”

I glared at him coldly, reached into my coat, and handed him a bank card.

“There’s $5 million in there,” I said.

He paused. Then snatched the card like a drowning man grabbing for air.

“Can I leave now?”

He glanced around nervously, then leaned in. “You can... but don’t tell anyone I let you take him.”

...

Later, I bought Percy his final suit. Arranged his cremation. Held his tiny urn to my chest and walked beside his ashes, numb.

Just like that, my bright, kind little boy had turned to dust.

When Francis finally came home, he opened the door to find me sitting there, cradling the urn like it was still warm.

He was dressed sharply. Slick. A businessman again, no longer cloaked in his monochromatic religious attire.

He paused, forcing sorrow on his face like it was just another role to play.

“News came from Silverstone City,” Francis said. “Percy... something happened to him.”

Kierra's POV

I didn’t look up.

Francis paused for a beat, his voice heavy with guilt. But I wasn’t buying it.

“Probably some occult group kidnapped him,” he said, his voice flat and emotionless. “I heard they starved him for three days before he passed. When I found him, vultures had already picked him apart, and his bones... were treated like some ritual offering.”

He finished speaking and handed me a small, weathered photo of Percy taken before he died.

“Please accept my condolences,” he added, his voice too smooth, like it was rehearsed.

I calmly looked up at him. There were fresh, suspicious red marks on his neck, like a cruel joke reminding me just how foolish I was.

The mockery felt like a slap to my face.

For six years, I had played the dutiful wife, accepting a marriage without intimacy to stay close to him.

Every night, he claimed to be lost in worship, kneeling and praying for his 'supreme higher being,' but all I could think was that he was probably with Natasha.

Last night, he didn’t come home.

Of course, he didn’t. He had stayed in Silverstone with her.

He had no clue. No clue that I had already cremated Percy, his ashes quietly resting in my hands now, a painful reminder of everything I’d lost.

For days, I had been losing my mind.

I called the police, hired private investigators, and threw money at the problem as if it could bring him back. Exhausted and delirious, my body finally gave out, burning with fever.

And that was the day I was admitted to the hospital…

This was the first time Francis showed me the first flicker of tenderness I'd ever seen from him.

“Why don't you take a rest first, Kierra?” Francis asked in feigned concern, his words almost foreign to me. “I’ll take care of everything. I’ll find Percy. I’ll bring him home.”

But now? He handed me a broken photo of Percy as if somehow it would replace my son.

I wanted to laugh, but the tears burned my eyes.

“Francis, did you really treat Percy like your own child?” My voice cracked, but I couldn’t stop myself.

He froze for a moment, then nodded, convinced of his lies. "Certainly. We've maintained a celibate marriage, and Percy is our sole child.”

I laughed, though it wasn’t a sound of joy. It was bitter and cold.

He never even wanted to touch me.

So, how could he have had children with me?

We’d spent six years together, Francis in his world of spiritual rituals, while I desperately tried to win his affection. I racked my brain, thinking of ways to strengthen our marriage.

But Francis? He wasn’t worried about us. He was thinking about Natasha, about getting her back.

I trembled as I took the photo and said cynically, “You really worked hard, didn’t you?”

He thought I believed him.

Right then, Francis retreated to his study, calling Natasha in a voice that wasn’t quite as careful as it should’ve been.

“Natasha, Kierra believes it. She’s upset now, but she’ll come around in a few days. After that, I’ll bring Ella and Noah back.” His voice dropped lower, but there was an unmistakable spark of anticipation. “In three months at most, we’ll be a family. I’ll finally be able to be with you openly.”

I didn’t want to hear it, but the words cut through me, anyway.

The child we had raised together for five years, my son, was dead, and Francis hadn’t shed a single tear.

Instead, he was already planning the next steps as if nothing had happened.

I stood there, leaning against the wall, my body shaking as I laughed bitterly through my tears.

What was I doing?

What was I holding on to for six years?

Why had I stayed with him, compromising every part of myself?

It all came back to that moment ten years ago, at a party, when I saw Francis with such compassion save an injured bird.

I couldn’t let go of that image, that feeling. That secret crush slowly consumed me until I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore.

Back then, my best friend had caught on and warned me with a serious look. “You really like him, don’t you? You’d better not, Kierra. Everyone knows Francis is not into women. Even if you were the most beautiful girl on the planet, he wouldn’t even look at you.”

But I didn’t listen. I didn’t believe it.

I chased him for ten years. I used every trick, played every game, and tried everything I could think of to get him to notice me. But he still ignored me.

Francis never smiled, never even looked my way.

I was ready to give up, to walk away. I cut up all the pictures of him, buried my secret crush diary, and promised my family I would settle for the marriage they arranged for me.

Kierra's POV

But then, out of nowhere, Francis came downstairs into my home and found me.

He just walked straight up, his eyes unreadable, closing the distance like he’d already made up his mind.

Then he backed me up against the wall, leaned in close, and said, “Will you marry me?”

It was the heaviest snowfall Brookfield City had seen in years. I’d always hated winter—hated the biting cold, the way snow muffled everything like a silencer over grief.

But in the six years that followed, I found myself longing for that night.

Not because it was beautiful. Not because it was still.

But it was the last time I let myself believe in something impossible.

That maybe Francis Weston had truly seen me, or that the man I had loved in silence for a decade had finally looked back.

And for a breath and a second, maybe he would feel something too.

But dreams are delicate things. And fantasies? They don’t survive the freeze.

Mine didn’t.

They cracked beneath the weight of reality.

And when they shattered, all that remained was the truth. Stripped of all illusions, the world revealed itself for what it really was.

Cold. Blunt. Unforgiving.

...

The private detective slid the surveillance footage and evidence across my desk.

“Miss Kierra, you were right. Based on everything we gathered from Silverstone City, it was indeed Francis’s doing. Would you like to call the police?”

I gripped the photo tightly.

Percy had not suddenly disappeared.

It wasn’t an accident.

Francis orchestrated everything. He had gone to Silverstone City to watch a magic show because Francis had instructed him to go with the driver.

And my sweet, innocent boy obeyed. He believed in his father and didn’t know he was being led to his death. Until Percy was thrown into the desert of Silverstone, starved to death, and then pecked by vultures.

My poor baby, Percy, who never doubted his father, whom he revered, and didn’t realize that his father only wanted to kill him.

“Call the police. I want to report this," I said through my clenched teeth.

I had all the evidence. I was going to hand it over myself. But before I could even move, Francis came back with two kids in tow.

Ella, the five-year-old girl, and Noah, the three-year-old boy.

“Kierra,” Francis began, his tone almost too rehearsed, “I know you’ve been through the pain of losing a child. I couldn’t handle it either, so I took the liberty of adopting two children. They have no parents. They’re very well-behaved and... look a lot like Percy.”

Before I could respond, Francis crouched down, guiding the children.

“Ella, Noah,” he said gently, “call her ‘Mommy.’”

I froze, staring at them. My eyes scanned their faces with forced calm.

Their features were so similar to Francis’s that it was like they were cut from the same mold. Anyone who saw them would immediately know who their father was.

And yet, Francis still treated me like I was blind.

“Why adopt children now?” I asked, my voice steady despite the storm inside me. “Percy just passed, and I don’t have the energy to take care of them.”

Francis blinked, taken aback for a moment. “You don’t need to worry about that. I’ve hired nannies and tutors for them.”

He tried again, this time coaxing them to call me 'Mommy.'

Ella, the older girl, hesitated, then reluctantly mumbled, “Mommy.”

But Noah, the younger one, crossed his arms and scowled.

“I don’t want to,” he said stubbornly. “She’s not my mommy.”

Ella, in a moment of childhood sweetness, hugged Francis’s leg. “Daddy, I miss Mommy. Can you take Noah and me to find her? Please?”

A flicker of panic flashed in Francis’s eyes, but he quickly masked it, his voice shaky as he tried to explain.

“Don’t misunderstand,” he said, his tone too casual. “I often visit the orphanage with the temple, give them snacks, and pray for them. The children call me ‘Dad’ sometimes.”

He was trying so hard to make me think it was normal, but his actions and words told a different story.

I looked at Ella’s face—the one that looked so much like Natasha’s—and my heart broke. If I were to be honest with myself, I’d already started connecting the dots.

If I went by the timeline, Ella would’ve been born the same year Francis and I got married. No wonder he had always found excuses to leave, to travel far away, to pray in distant places.

The truth was simple.

Francis loved Natasha.

He had always loved her. He longed to be with her and their children.

I should just let them be together.

I nodded slowly, as calm as I could muster. “I won’t overthink it. You’ve always been clear about wanting a sexless marriage, haven’t you? As for these two kids... do as you see fit.”

I turned and walked away, back to my room, my feet heavy as I moved. The door shut quietly behind me, but I still heard the sigh of relief escape Francis’s lips.

And just like that, he started openly playing with the two children in front of me.