Meanwhile, Sophia, the mastermind behind it all, continued her sickening charade of innocence. Her voice dripped with concern, though the venom beneath it was palpable only to me. "Daniel, you should really go back! Amelia has gone through so much trouble just to get you to return; she must be upset. You shouldn’t argue because of me! Once my foot heals, I’ll go to her myself and apologize."
Her words were carefully chosen—deliberately crafted to seem selfless, while only deepening the wedge between Daniel and me. And it worked. I could see the frustration building in him.
"Sophia, why do you always have to make yourself suffer? You did nothing wrong!" Daniel's voice grew sharp with irritation, his anger completely misdirected. "Remember last time, when she claimed her stomach hurt? I left you to rush to her side, and what happened? Absolutely nothing! Meanwhile, you couldn’t sleep all night because of the thunderstorm, and I wasn’t there for you!"
His words slammed into me like a brick. He was talking about that rainy night—the night I fell. My mind scrambled to remember the details through the haze of hurt. It was the night I had slipped on the wet pavement, pain ripping through me as I clutched my stomach. Our two-month-old fetus was fragile, and I had lain there, drenched and freezing, waiting for Daniel. The fear of losing our baby was overwhelming. But he never came. Not for hours. If a kind stranger hadn’t found me and driven me to the hospital, our baby wouldn’t have made it.
Yet, to Daniel, my near-miscarriage had been nothing more than a "false alarm," overshadowed by Sophia’s sleepless night.
Sophia’s voice was soft, but her manipulation was razor-sharp. "After all, you and Amelia are married. It’s only right that you leave me for her. I can handle being left behind... it’s really fine."
She made herself out to be the victim, knowing exactly how to play Daniel’s heartstrings. I watched as he took her hand, his gaze full of the affection that used to be mine.
"Don’t say that, Sophia," he whispered, brushing her knuckles gently. "How could I ever leave you for anyone else?"
Anyone else.
Those two words pierced me like a knife, twisting deeper with every heartbeat. In Daniel’s eyes, I had become "someone else." Our ten years together, the life growing inside me—none of it mattered anymore.
Ever since Sophia had returned from abroad, Daniel had started pulling away, treating me like an outsider in our own marriage. At every prenatal checkup, he found some excuse to be with her instead. When she called in the middle of the night, he would leave, no questions asked. And as he appeared more and more in her social media posts, he was home less and less.
It wasn't long before my heartbreak turned to suspicion, and then to certainty. Sophia was proud of her conquest, sending me photos meant to taunt, not just with their content, but with what they implied. There was the kiss mark on her collarbone, the seductive nightgown hanging off her shoulders. And always, just barely in view, a shadowy figure—the unmistakable form of Daniel.
I tried to keep it together, but eventually, I couldn’t. I confronted him, my voice trembling with the weight of my fears. "Daniel, what’s going on between you two?!"
His reaction was swift and cruel. He didn’t even try to deny it, his face contorting with anger as if my pain was an inconvenience. "Amelia, how dare you use your filthy mouth to slander Sophia?! She’s pure and innocent—unlike you! You’re always lying, always scheming! You’re nothing but a crazed, useless shrew!"
The words I wanted to say crumbled into nothingness, lodged in my throat by the weight of his hatred. Tears burned in my eyes, but Daniel didn’t even notice. He didn’t care.
"I regret marrying you more than anything," he spat before slamming the door.
The sound of the door closing behind him echoed like a death knell in the house that had once been our home. I knew where he was going—back to her, using whatever excuse he needed to spend yet another night in Sophia’s arms.
As his figure disappeared down the hallway, I stood there, staring into the emptiness he had left behind. My mind was a storm of questions I couldn’t answer. Where had the Daniel who once loved me gone? Had I changed, or had he? Was it my fault for wanting too much, for believing that our vows had meant something?
Or had I always been just "someone else" to him—nothing more than a placeholder, waiting for Sophia to return and claim what had never truly been mine?
Perhaps, I thought bitterly, he had been wearing a mask all along, and I had been too blind to see the truth. The man I had loved was never real.
The bitter truth unraveled after the New Year, delivering a pain I could never have imagined. But it wasn’t just me. Ryan, too, was grappling with disbelief, watching Daniel—my husband—casually ignore my life hanging in the balance, instead whispering sweet nothings to her, Sophia. The fury on Ryan’s face was unmistakable as he roared at Daniel, desperate to shake some sense into him.
"Daniel! I’m not lying to you! Your wife is dying! The operating room is five minutes away, and you can’t even spare that for her?" His voice cracked with anger and frustration, but Daniel’s heart had grown too cold to care.
"That’s right! I won’t waste even a second on her lies!" Daniel spat as if my suffering was an inconvenience he couldn't be bothered with.
Ryan stomped his foot, furious, but before he could reply, Sophia seized her chance to fan the flames. She leaned forward, her voice dripping with fake innocence. "Oh my, Dr. Porter, you seem awfully concerned about Amelia. Could it be... you have a special relationship with her?"
Her words were a knife, twisting in the tension, but Daniel's reaction shocked even me. For the first time, he snapped at her.
"Sophia, stop with the baseless accusations! Amelia would never betray me, not even in death."
For a brief moment, the room fell into a stunned silence. His words yanked my thoughts back to the past, to that third year of our relationship. The car accident. I had thrown myself in harm’s way to shield him from the wreckage, nearly losing my own life. I still remembered the tears in his eyes as he scolded me, begging me to never be so reckless again.
"Why did you do it?" he had asked, broken and scared.
"Because I love you. I couldn’t stand to see you hurt."
And now, all that love had been taken for granted. Daniel knew I loved him more than life itself, and he had been testing my limits ever since. But today, he had gone too far.
The tension thickened as Daniel finally relented, standing up with a sneer. "Fine, I’ll call her! I’ll expose her lies for what they are. Ryan, you’ll see soon enough. She’ll be begging for forgiveness."
He dialed my number with confidence, fully expecting me to answer, but all he got was silence. Call after call, only the hollow sound of beeps echoed back at him.
Why would I answer? A minute ago, my soul had slipped from my body. He had wanted me gone. Now, I was dead. Satisfied, Daniel?
Yet something nagged at Daniel, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. I had never ignored his calls before, no matter how angry or hurt I was. But he brushed aside the unease, chalking it up to one of my "tantrums." Frustrated, he sent me a voice message, his tone filled with irritation.
"Amelia! How old are you? You think disappearing like this is fun? I don’t have time for your games! Show up soon if you have any sense."
As the message ended, the prayer beads on his wrist—a set I had lovingly blessed for his safety—snapped apart, scattering across the floor. Daniel glanced down, surprised, and for the first time, a shiver of dread crept up his spine. Those beads had been a token of my love, each one a silent prayer for his well-being.
His unease deepened when he recalled Ryan’s grim expression before leaving, the weight of his words lingering in the air. Hastily comforting Sophia, Daniel bent down to collect the scattered beads and then rushed toward the operating room.
On his way, he overheard the nurses talking in hushed tones, their voices heavy with shock.
"Who could be so cruel? The woman’s face... slashed beyond recognition. Two hundred ten knife wounds—"
"And she was pregnant. How awful."
The word "pregnant" hit Daniel like a truck. His heart raced, panic setting in. Without thinking, he dialed my number again, his hands trembling, his breath quickening. For the first time, he was afraid.
Outside the operating room, the blood-soaked doctors filed out one by one, their faces grim. One of them, Dr. Harris, shook his head, a look of helplessness in his eyes. "We did everything we could. If Dr. Carter had arrived sooner, maybe... just maybe..."
The world around Daniel seemed to blur as he looked down the hallway. My lifeless body was being wheeled out of the operating room, draped under a white sheet. He hesitated, catching sight of the small bulge in my abdomen. My child—our child—never even had a chance to enter the world.
Daniel’s hands trembled as he reached for the sheet. When he pulled it back, he was met with a gruesome sight. My face had been butchered, my features obliterated by deep, jagged slashes. My ears were missing, my eye sockets hollow, and my skin had been peeled away in places, exposing raw muscle and bone.
He staggered back in horror. His mind raced as he recalled the photos sent to him from my phone by the killer. He had dismissed them as a sick joke, a cry for attention. But now, face-to-face with the truth, he couldn’t process it.
"No... This isn’t her. This can’t be Amelia," he whispered, clutching his phone like a lifeline. Desperately, he dialed my number again. "She’s still alive! This isn’t her!"
The phone rang, and this time, it connected. His heart leaped, a glimmer of hope sparking in his chest. "Amelia! Answer me! Tell me you’re okay!"
But the voice on the other end wasn’t mine. It was a nurse, holding up a phone that had been taken from my body. "Dr. Carter," she said softly, "this was found with the deceased."
"No!" Daniel screamed, shaking his head in denial. "You’re all lying!"
But even as he shouted, something caught his eye. My arm slipped out from under the white sheet, revealing the bracelet on my wrist—his bracelet. The custom-made prayer beads I had crafted just for him. The same beads that had broken moments ago.
Reality crashed down on him like a tidal wave. The evidence piled up, piece by piece, shattering the carefully constructed lies he had told himself. The color drained from his face as he staggered back, eyes wide, his body barely able to hold the weight of his guilt.
