Liam pulled on his surgical gloves with practised ease, the snap of rubber echoing ominously in the sterile room. His fingers smeared cold gel on my stomach, moving with mechanical precision, clinical and detached—like he was inspecting livestock, not a person.

Satisfied, he nodded.

"Even a venomous snake doesn't eat its own child. I’ll give you credit—you've kept the baby healthy," he said. "If this child can save Vanessa’s life, maybe I’ll even return those racy photos of yours."

I didn’t flinch. “No need,” I replied calmly.

Liam still didn't know that those racy photos had long been spread everywhere by Vanessa. There was no use salvaging what had long been burned.

Raising my tied hands slightly, I said softly, “Liam, I returned something of yours.”

His eyes flicked to my wrist. For a brief moment, surprise cracked through his mask. It was an old plastic bracelet, faded and peeling—cheap, childish, worthless to anyone else.

But once, it was a promise.

He reached over and gently removed it. His voice dipped, touched with a whisper of softness I hadn’t heard in years.

“Other than releasing you, I will promise everything else.”

I lowered my gaze. "After I die, scatter my ashes into the river, will you?"

He let out a bitter laugh. “Still trying to play the tragic martyr? It’s just a Cesarean section. You’re not going to die.”

I smiled faintly. “I trust your skills. But people die, Lin. That’s just how it is.”

My calm seemed to pacify him. He stopped talking and turned to inspect the surgical tools again.

"Fine," he muttered. "If you really want to cash in that promise on this… then don't regret it. From now on, just stay away from Vanessa. We’ll have nothing more to do with each other.”

I watched his back silently. “Goodbye, Liam.”

Just like that, the system in my mind confirmed the last trace of the bond between Liam and I had been severed.

Confused, I asked the system why it still urging me to dissolve my relationship with my Raider, even when I was destined to die. But for once, it didn’t answer.

That’s when the first people I’d ever been assigned to “win over” in this world—my supposed parents—stormed in. They shoved a paper in front of me and grabbed my hand to press my fingerprint onto it. No discussion.

A surrogacy contract.

It stated that as long as Vanessa remained ill, I would continue to bear children to provide her with fresh cord blood. Again and again.

Mr. Carter and Mrs. Carter is my first Raider object. I used to think of them as my parents. They were my first targets in this mission, supposedly an easy one because "family love" was considered simple to earn. If both of their affection meters hit 100%, the system counts it as success.

Because of Vanessa's loss, they treasured me even more. Their favorability towards me has been maintained at ninety-nine per cent.

And for a while, I really believed they loved me. I basked in their attention for years and even thought, ‘If I can’t go back to my original world, at least I can grow old with them here.’

But everything changed the day Vanessa returned.

All it took was her saying, with wide, tearful eyes, “I don’t know why big sister left me behind…”

And with Vanessa’s words that I had abandoned her before, they turned on me.

No questions asked, no second chances. In their eyes, I was the villain who abandoned their precious Vanessa.

Then came the guilt-tripping. Vanessa would whisper, “Please don’t leave me again, sister…” and their pity for her curdled into disgust for me.

They stopped coming to my school events. When they travelled, they only brought back gifts for her. Even at dinner, if I sat down, the air would go cold—no one spoke, no one served me a plate. I was a ghost in my own home.

Eventually, they claimed they were away on business trips and stopped coming home altogether. Vanessa and I were sent to boarding school—except later, I learned she was still a day student and they picked her up every single afternoon. They had built a new life. Without me.

The final betrayal came when I brought Sean home. They didn’t even show up to greet us. But when Vanessa said she had feelings for him, suddenly they threw a grand family banquet. But after getting Sean drunk, they sent Vanessa into his room. Without even giving me a look, they shut me out of the house, “This is what you owe Vanessa.”

Later, Sean refused and took the opportunity to escape through the window. They then found me again and persuaded me to convince Sean to marry Vanessa.

Everything didn't go their way, they didn't contact me once in seven or eight years. When my former neighbours asked, they told me that I eloped with a punk and died outside. If it wasn't for the sake of curing Vanessa, I don't think they would have come to see me again in this life.

Now, they were here with this contract. Not out of regret. Not out of love. But to turn me into a womb on demand. And I didn't move a single muscle and let them press the handprint of me giving Vanessa a lifetime of being a child production tool.

As soon as they forced my fingerprint onto the surrogacy contract, Mr. and Mrs. Carter didn’t even glance my way. They turned to Liam instead.

“Stitch her up properly,” Mrs. Carter said coldly. “She still needs to be able to give birth again later.”

Liam nodded, unbothered. “Have you signed the surgical consent form?”

Mrs. Carter frowned. “Why would we need to sign anything?”

I spoke calmly from the table. “I’m divorced from Sean now. That makes the two of you my only direct relatives.”

Mr. Carter’s face lit up. “You finally divorced him? That means he and Vanessa can be together—true love, at last!”

I didn’t respond. I just reminded them again, “Don’t forget to sign the consent form. I have no one else left.”

Mrs. Carter’s face twisted in rage. She slapped me so hard my head snapped to the side, crashing against the metal edge of the operating table.

“You’re cursing Vanessa, aren’t you?” she screamed. “She’s your sister, isn’t she?”

Blood streamed down from my forehead, blurring my vision, hot and sticky in my eyes. Through the crimson haze, her once-gentle face had transformed into a monster’s.

Mr. Carter rushed over—not to help me, but in panic. “Her bleeding won't affect the quality of the umbilical cord blood, right?”

Liam shook his head. “No, it won’t.”

Only then did they relax, their expressions twisting with disgust as they turned back to me. “We don’t know how we could have given birth to such a cruel, heartless daughter.”

They signed the consent form with painful ease and I whispered to them, “Daddy… Mommy… El El will always love you.”

It was a line I used to say when I was little. Anytime they wept over losing Vanessa, I’d say that and they’d hold me tight, whispering they didn’t know how they’d survive without me.

And now, Mr. and Mrs. Carter were just stunned and showed that expression of looking at an enemy again, “We can't afford your love.”

I smiled faintly. “Then give me a document to sever our parent-child relationship. From now on, you will only have Vanessa as your daughter.”

Mr. and Mrs. Carter didn't hesitate, there was no paper at hand, they even picked up a tissue and wrote the note of severing paternity.

Then they couldn't wait to press their handprints, “Since we're breaking it off, let's break it off cleanly,” she said. “You're not allowed to take the surname Carter and you're not allowed to use the name we gave our baby daughter anymore.”

“The Carter Family will be pure again without a toxic woman like you.”

And just like that, they walked away without a backward glance. My eyes stung. I couldn’t tell if it was the blood still dripping from my forehead… or tears I hadn’t realized were falling.

Liam injected the anaesthetic. My body went numb, but my mind remained painfully alert.

I felt the scalpel cut into me. I felt my child being pulled away.

The moment the cord was cut, a storm of agony ripped through me. My blood poured out onto the floor, forming a dark, growing river under the table.

Liam shouted my name, panicking. He hesitated, then made his choice—he put the newborn down and rushed out the door with the collected cord blood in his hands.

My baby, born premature, lay beside me—silent. Lifeless. I reached for him, stretching with all my might. And just before darkness swallowed me whole, I felt his tiny hand in mine.

In that flickering space between life and death, I heard the softest voice:

“Mommy, don’t cry.”

Tears poured down my cheeks. But my hand, now cold as snow, couldn’t warm his anymore.

“Baby… Mommy’s has come to stay with you.”

***

[Congratulations to the host. The Raider mission shift was successful.]

[Initiating regret-value calculation for three targets. Time remaining: 6 hours.]

My spirit floated above the table. My body lay there, drained and still.

But… my child’s soul was nowhere in sight.

The system told me I’d meet him again when the settlement was made.

So I waited.

For now, for the first time, I stayed silent and looked coldly at what the world looked like after my death.

Liam was the first to rush back.

Sweat drenched his forehead as he sprinted through the corridor—only to freeze at the doorway of the operating room, where blood had pooled into a dark, horrifying lake.

“Elena Carter! Don’t you dare sleep!” he shouted, voice cracking as he grabbed the defibrillator and slammed it against my chest.

“Aren’t you always the one fighting? Huh?