Chloe sat by the bed, her eyes red-rimmed and raw from a sleepless night. She watched the actress in the bed, the woman who was now being spoon-fed broth by an attentive nurse.

Stella basked in the attention, occasionally flicking a triumphant glance at Chloe from the corner of her eye.

After the nurse left, Stella pushed the bowl away. The fragile look vanished, replaced by undisguised contempt.

"Don't look at me like that, my dear sister," Stella purred, dabbing her lips with a napkin. "You must be dying to kill me right now, aren't you?"

Chloe just stared at her, her hands forming a sharp, angry question. What do you want?

Stella laughed. "What do I want? I want everything that's yours. Your husband, your status, everything you have. It should have been mine from the start."

She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial hiss, like a snake. "Just like my mother took your mother's place."

At the mention of her mother, Chloe's body went rigid. Her mother, Julia Sharp, had died in an "accidental" car crash when Chloe was ten.

Seeing her reaction, Stella smiled with satisfaction. "Oh, you didn't know? Did you really think your mother's death was an accident?"

Chloe's breath caught in her throat. She stared at Stella, waiting for an answer she was terrified to hear.

"How pathetic," Stella said, her tone one of mock pity. "My mother, Catherine, just gave a little nudge. She made sure your high-and-mighty mother found out that your father, Richard Sharp, had me, his illegitimate daughter. She even orchestrated my ‘adoption’ into the Beaumont family after she ‘died,’ making me Damien’s precious little sister while you were left to rot."

"A proud woman like your mother, how could she bear the betrayal? She drove off in a rage, and then... boom!" Stella made an exaggerated explosion gesture with her hands.

"Someone just tampered with the brakes a little. A perfect, tragic accident caused by emotional distress."

The revelation struck Chloe with the force of a physical blow. Her mother. Murdered. All this time, she thought it was an accident.

She staggered backward, stumbling into a medical cart. Instruments and glass vials crashed to the floor with a deafening clatter.

A wave of grief and rage so immense washed over her that she couldn't breathe. She clutched her chest, sinking to her knees, a strangled, animalistic sound tearing from her throat.

Stella watched Chloe crumble, a flicker of pure pleasure in her eyes. This was exactly what she wanted.

Her gaze darted to the fruit knife on the bedside table. Her eyes turned wild, decisive.

As Chloe looked up, her face streaked with tears, Stella snatched the knife.

And dragged the blade across her own forearm in a vicious, deep slash.

Blood welled up instantly, staining her white hospital gown a shocking crimson.

Stella let out a piercing scream and threw the knife. It landed at Chloe's feet. Her face contorted into a mask of pure terror and pain.

"AHH! Help me! Sister, why would you do this to me!" Her shriek was sharp enough to slice through the entire hospital wing.

Chloe was frozen. She looked from the bloody knife by her shoes to Stella's bleeding arm and her terrified, accusing face. Her mind was a roaring void.

She had been framed.

In the most vicious, undeniable way possible.

The door was thrown open with such force it slammed against the wall. The first person to burst in was Damien Beaumont.

His eyes took in the scene in a single, horrifying snapshot: Stella, collapsing in a pool of her own blood, a gruesome wound on her arm. And Chloe, kneeling on the floor, the bloody weapon at her feet, her face a mess of tears and a shocked expression that looked, to him, like guilt.

Damien's eyes turned blood-red. A wave of pure, murderous fury rolled off him, chilling the air in the room.

He lunged forward, shoving Chloe aside with brutal force. Her head cracked against the metal foot of the bed.

He carefully scooped the "fainting" Stella into his arms, his voice trembling with rage. "Stella! Stella!"

Doctors and nurses flooded in, gasping at the carnage.

Cradling Stella, Damien turned his head and looked at Chloe with the eyes of a man looking at something he was about to kill.

"Chloe Sharp, you psycho," he bit out, each word a vow. "I am going to send you to hell."