“Once signed, the exclusive cooperation agreement cannot be modified. Please confirm.”

Donna tapped ‘Confirm.’ Every stifled gasp in the room tightened her grip on the pregnancy test, turning her knuckles white.

Today marked the anniversary of Terry’s death after the kidnapping. She had been on her way to Roger’s private morgue to give him the good news—she was pregnant again.

She never imagined walking into this.

Roger lounged against the headboard, a string of blood-red prayer beads lying against his taut neck. His long fingers gripped the slender waist of the woman straddling him, letting her nuzzle open his shirt and press kisses to his chest.

“Nancy, the ‘nutritional shots’ I give her every night are specially formulated contraceptives, developed by experts. She will never get pregnant with my child again.”

Roger’s low voice drifted out, casual and unconcerned. Each word was a dagger to Donna’s heart.

Five years. A full five years.

She had always believed her own poor health was to blame for not conceiving again.

Because she trusted him—the forensic pathologist—her entire arm and even her back were covered with dark, bruised needle marks.

But those weren’t nutritional shots. They were the special drugs he had meticulously prepared for her.

Donna bit her lower lip until she tasted blood, rooted to the spot, refusing to leave.

“I’ll kill every child she bears, just like I personally killed Donna’s child six months ago.”

“If her father hadn’t saved me back then, she wouldn’t hold that debt over my head to force this marriage. Then *you* would be my rightful wife today—the lady of Roger’s Group.”

“But it’s fine. As long as you carry my child, I’ll make him the happiest in the world. And you, just as I promised when we were kids, will become the happiest woman.”

Their panting grew louder. Donna wanted to leave, but her body felt like lead. The bead engraved with “Donna”—her supposed talisman—swung mockingly, turning her stomach.

Six months ago, distracted for half a second—thinking about buying Roger a watch—she had let Terry be snatched by a criminal.

The kidnapper demanded a billion. Roger mobilized every last bit of liquid capital from Roger’s Group and paid it, down to the last cent.

The kidnapper demanded he kneel all night. Roger, a man who’d never bowed to anyone, knelt.

But in the end, what was delivered back was only Roger—unconscious, one leg brutally broken—and Terry, smothered to death by someone’s hand.

Yet Roger had used every means at his disposal and still couldn’t uncover who was behind it.

She thought she’d never learn the truth in this lifetime. She never imagined hearing the man himself tear it open today.

So Terry’s death wasn’t an accident. Her years of infertility weren’t an accident either.

It was her most beloved, most trusted husband, clearing obstacles for his true love.

In Roger’s eyes, she and their child were nothing but stumbling blocks keeping him and Nancy apart.

The commotion in the room grew more intense, even knocking over the vigil light beside the plaque.

After Terry’s death, Roger—the lifelong skeptic—had forged his own strange religion of guilt: a shrine, a perpetual flame, rituals of abstinence. All for Terry.

Donna had thought it was his heartache over their child’s wrongful death.

Now she saw it was only his own guilty conscience.

“You like the shrine? I’ll build you a cathedral of candles.”

Roger’s voice was full of tender affection as he kissed the top of Nancy’s head.

Nancy let out a soft, light laugh. Her hand snaked down and grasped him.

“Roger, shouldn’t you go back? It’s so late. Sister Donna must be waiting anxiously at home.”

The words were for Roger, but her eyes never left Donna’s—unblinking, scornful, dripping with provocation.

Roger’s entire focus was on Nancy. Her feigned resistance only stirred him more. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

“Be good, one more time, hmm? Even if she died right now, I wouldn’t go back, okay?”

Donna’s heart was already numb, but the words still found their mark.

Slowly, she pushed herself up to leave.

Then a sharp smoke alarm blared through the morgue. Donna turned to see flames suddenly erupting.

Terry!

Her Terry was still in there!

Donna had just rushed in when she saw Roger, without hesitation, shove Nancy toward the door.

“Get out! Don’t let anyone see you!”

Nancy met Donna’s terrified gaze and curved her lips into a smile. With a sweep of her arm, she slammed the door shut, sealing Donna’s only exit.

In the sealed, burning room, Donna felt the searing heat on her skin. Blood streamed down, pooling on the floor.

She collapsed, clutching the small, cold body of her son to her chest with her last strength.

*BANG—*

Firefighters broke down the door.

The world spun. The last thing Donna saw was Roger’s retreating back as he carried Nancy away.

Her husband never looked back. Not once.

The acrid smell of disinfectant saturated the air.

Donna opened her eyes. Her entire back burned as if seared by a hot iron; each breath tugged at the raw wounds.

Then, voices from outside the door delivered another blow to her groggy consciousness.

"How could you lock Donna in there? You’re her husband. How could you tell *me* to leave first… I never should have gone to that place with you…"

Nancy’s voice was a soft, weeping murmur, answered by Roger’s—saturated with tenderness.

"Don’t blame yourself. I was too frantic. I knocked over the memorial lamp by accident. Blame me, alright? But even if I had a thousand—ten thousand—chances to do it over, I’d still save you first."

Their intimate murmuring threatened to split her eardrums.

Gritting her teeth, she fumbled for the bag she always kept close. Inside lay the tiny clothes she had sewn herself, stitch by painstaking stitch. Silent tears carved wet paths down her cheeks.

Her Terry… had never once worn the clothes she made for him.

Just… gone.

And the test report that had just arrived on her phone shattered five years of love into meaningless dust.

Her body was perfectly healthy. Yet the report Roger had personally handed her—every line, every word—had condemned her as sickly and weak.

In a sudden frenzy, Donna found that report and ripped it to shreds.

It had never crossed her mind that the reports were fake. She had never dreamed her ‘frail’ constitution was Roger’s own handiwork!

She watched the flight confirmation on her screen, tears soaking into the pillow.

No need for a thousand or ten thousand second chances.

*Roger, this time, I'm the one walking away.*

*I'm giving you back to Nancy.*

She had barely set her phone down when the door burst open. Roger hurried in, haggard and dusted with soot as though he’d come straight from the fire.

Seeing Donna lying safely in the hospital bed, his strength seemed to desert him. He slumped to his knees beside her.

"Donna… thank God. Thank God you’re all right. If anything had happened to you, I wouldn’t want to go on living…"

Donna looked at the dark shadows beneath Roger’s eyes and found she couldn’t utter a word.

On any ordinary day, she would have clung to him and wept.

But the burns on her back. Her own dead child.

They screamed a blood-soaked truth: the family she had cherished for five years was a fabrication!

The man she had loved with her life hated her most of all.

"Roger," Donna’s voice was thick, each word trembling, "why did the fire have to be in Terry’s room? I was so close… I almost had him in my arms."

Roger tilted his head up and gently kissed the tears from her cheek.

"My fault. All my fault. I didn’t negotiate clearly with the kidnappers back then. I was the one who insisted on keeping that lamp burning for him… I made it so even in death, Terry found no peace."

Every syllable was a dodge, an evasion.

A sudden, deep exhaustion washed over Donna.

She had already decided to leave him. So why did her heart ache like this?

Her hand flew to her chest of its own volition, pounding against it as if she could tear the wretched thing out and be rid of it.

But Roger misunderstood. Thinking it was self-recrimination, he caught her fist in his hand, his own voice pained. "Don’t hit yourself. Hit me. It kills me to see you hurt. Terry… he’s gone. Let’s just have another, okay?"

As he spoke, his fingers went to the collar of her hospital gown, his lips grazing the shell of her ear.

"No. I won’t have a child with you."

*I won’t let you kill another of my children…*

Her gaze fell to the sprawling, vivid marks on Roger’s neck, just below the blood-red prayer bead at his throat. The hickies were a deeper, more lurid red than the drop of her own blood she had once sealed inside it.

Nausea roiled in her stomach. Pushing against his chest, weariness etched itself into her eyes and brow.

Roger nodded, his gaze lingering, tender. "Alright. Then I’ll stay right here with you. Call if you need water."

Under the weight of his heated stare, Donna could only close her eyes.

She dreamed of last night again. Of the fire, consuming everything she had.

"Roger!"

She woke with a gasp, jolting upright. The room was utterly dark. The man who had promised to stay was nowhere to be seen.

Outside the door, nurses chattered.

"That girl upstairs is so lucky! Just a twisted ankle and her boyfriend’s beside himself…"

"Honestly! He booked the whole VIP floor *and* hasn’t left her side. Dotes on her more than that ‘wife-worshipping’ CEO, Roger!"

A traitorous tear escaped. Donna scrubbed it away viciously.

*Don’t you dare cry, Donna!*

After Dad died, no one was ever going to love you again!

Her phone chimed.

A message from Nancy.

A photo. In it, Roger—the man whose hands signed billion-dollar contracts—was down on one knee, tenderly rubbing Nancy’s ankle, his eyes filled with rapt devotion.

**「I’m taking your man AND your child!」**

**「The one in your belly will end up just like the first!」**

“Your visa will arrive by mail in three days, Ms. Donna. Please wait patiently.”

After being discharged from the hospital—with the visa process finally complete—Donna felt an unspoken pull, one that led her straight into a baby store.

She bought a stack of tiny, adorable outfits. Her hand drifted to the gentle curve of her stomach.

“Don’t be afraid, little one. This time, I’ll protect you. Even if it costs me my life.”

Just three more days. Three days, and she would leave this house forever.

Donna had barely pushed the front door open when a bucket of icy water crashed over her head. Christine stood watching, wiping her hands clean with a derisive snort.

“To wash the filth off you.”

It was the same welcome she’d received every day since Terry’s death. Shivering, Donna shook off the water and clutched the bag of clothes to her chest.

Nancy’s eyes widened in theatrical horror. She snatched the bag from Donna’s arms, tears springing up instantly.

“White clothes? You bought these on purpose? Are you trying to lay a death curse on my baby?”

That was all it took. Christine flew into a rage, seizing Donna’s jaw and forcing her mouth open to pour in a foul, stagnant liquid—her gaze so venomous it seemed to wish Donna dead on the spot.

“After Nancy here, kind soul that she is, went to the trouble of hiring a cleansing ritualist for this house! And you repay her with curses? Drink! Purge the corruption from your soul!”

“What a curse on this family, to have married a creature like you!”

The putrid, ammonia-sharp stench made Donna gag and thrash. In the struggle, her hand pressed hard against Nancy’s abdomen, shoving the woman to the floor.

Donna collapsed, retching onto the tiles. A heavy *thwack* landed across her still-tender surgical wound.

“You plague! Beat this plague to death! First you killed my son, now you’re cursing my husband! Do you want my grandchild dead too?”

Christine swung a wooden club, thick as a child’s arm, bringing it down again and again on Donna’s back. Four strikes, five—enough to stain her clothes dark with blood.

“I didn’t… those were for…” *For Terry…*

She never finished. The ritualist stepped forward, slowly tipping a bowl of steaming liquid over her fresh welts, murmuring an incantation.

“Begone, foul spirits. Begone.”

Where it touched her skin, blisters rose instantly with a searing, bone-deep burn. A scream—raw and ragged—tore from Donna’s throat.

This was no ritual potion. This was diluted sulfuric acid from Roger’s lab.

Her face was a deathly mask of pain, yet she didn’t flinch, her hands locked protectively over her belly.

The ordeal stretched on. It would later be tallied as ninety-nine blows and five bowls of that corrosive brew.

Only when Donna’s back was a raw, bleeding mess did Roger finally rush through the door. He caught his mother’s arm mid-swing, flung his suit jacket over Donna, and roared:

“Enough! Stop this!”

Nancy picked herself up from the floor, nursing a vivid red handprint on her cheek. Her tears fell in a pretty, practiced stream.

“Roger, don’t look at me like that! This *is* for her own good! Her womb’s been barren, and now she’s cursing my child…”

Roger’s face darkened at her words, but he gathered Donna’s barely-breathing form against him, his voice turning placating.

“Nancy meant well. She just chose the wrong method. As a lesson, we’ll delay that luxury bag she wanted. She can have it next month.”

A violent tremor ran through Donna. Pain and sobs choked her voice, and the sheer, breathtaking absurdity of it all washed over her.

“She forces piss down my throat, beats me bloody, throws acid on my wounds… and her punishment is a delayed shopping spree?”

Roger’s expression froze into ice.