He gently stroked her swollen cheek, then turned to glare at me, his eyes filled with raw disappointment and fury:

“Adriana! I’m so disappointed in you!”

His voice shook with anger:

“Secretary Young came to help you out of kindness, and you actually raised a hand against her? When did you become so vicious? Do you really think that just because you’re pregnant with my child, you can do whatever you want?”

I opened my mouth to explain: “She did it to me…”

“Enough!” Lucas snapped, his gaze icy and unfamiliar, thick with disdain:

“I don’t want to hear your excuses! I thought you were just not independent enough, but I never imagined you’d be this jealous and spiteful!”

“Apologize to Secretary Young. If you don’t, forget about keeping my child!”

He immediately took out his phone to schedule an abortion.

He knew how desperately I had wanted this pregnancy, yet he used the child to threaten me.

I handed him the blood-stained miscarriage report and whispered,

“Lucas, don’t bother. The baby is gone.”

He took the report, disbelief flashing across his face before it twisted into rage:

“Adriana, haven’t you caused enough trouble? I bet you were never pregnant at all—just using this miscarriage to guilt-trip me, right?”

Whatever he believed no longer mattered.

I took out the prepared divorce agreement from under my pillow and handed it to him.

“Sign it. Let’s end this peacefully.” The crisp white paper reflected his suddenly drained expression.

He let go of Lydia, snatched the agreement, and his pupils tightened sharply as he read the terms.

“When did you find out about all this?”

Those overseas accounts he assumed I didn’t know about, the assets he secretly transferred, the things he thought would stay hidden forever—

All neatly listed, line by line.

Looking at him, I suddenly felt it was all absurd.

For three years, he treated me like a parasitic vine, convinced I survived only by clinging to him, always on guard.

But he never realized he was the vine wrapped around me.

“Adriana!”

He tore the agreement apart, his voice warped by fury. “You’ve been plotting against me from the start! Pretending all these years!”

“You think someone like you deserves a divorce? You want a piece of what I built? Without me, you’re nothing! You can’t survive!”

I watched his theatrics in silence, a soft, sorrowful laugh escaping:

“Staying with you is the only way I truly can’t live.”

From that moment, he saw my dependence as a burden.

From that moment, he treated my love like a joke.

From that moment, he expected me to face life and death alone.

I had already become nothing.

He stormed out, borrowed an A4 sheet from a nurse, wrote a divorce agreement by hand, and slammed it onto the bed.

“You want a divorce? Fine! Sign this, and you leave with nothing.” Lydia was so thrilled she nearly stumbled. Leaning into him, she murmured, “Mr. Sterling, don’t be angry… Madam must be acting on impulse…” Her eyes glowed with triumphant delight as she clutched her head, pretending to feel faint.

Lucas pulled her close, his gaze slicing into me:

“Adriana, I’m giving you one last chance. Apologize to Lydia, and I’ll pretend none of this happened.”

“No need. If you won’t agree to a mutual divorce, then see you in court. My lawyer will contact you.”

I tore his flamboyant handwritten divorce agreement into shreds.

Lucas stared at me, his eyes filled with a complicated, unreadable mix.

Anger, disbelief… and a flicker of panic?

He couldn’t understand where my determination to divorce came from.

“Adriana, you’ll regret this.”

He threw out the warning and pulled Lydia away.

At the ward door, he turned back.

His gaze was the same one people use on something filthy.

“Until you learn how to be a decent human being and sincerely apologize to Secretary Young, don’t expect a single cent from me.”

The door slammed, the impact making the walls tremble.

At that moment, my phone lit up—dozens of notifications about frozen bank accounts appeared all at once.

I looked at the cold messages and let out a bitter smile.

I once foolishly believed I had good taste in men… that I could have a love as steadfast as my parents’.

Reality gave me the harshest slap.

Touching the scabbed cut on my wrist, I walked through the rain and returned to the villa I once called “home.”

The fingerprint lock beeped with an error.

The password lock refused me, too.

Finally, Lydia opened the door wearing my silk pajamas. The huge diamond ring on her finger pierced my eyes.

She leaned against the doorframe, smirking:

“Oh? What are you doing here? Regretting your actions?”

“But you misunderstood something. Playing hard to get won’t work on Lucas. He already said this is my home now—so you should leave.”

She tugged at her pajama collar, revealing more suggestive marks.

I pushed her aside and walked in.

“I threw all your trash out long ago!”

In just half a month, the house had changed completely.

The wedding photos were gone, replaced with her glossy portraits.

My porcelain collection vanished, replaced by her luxury items.

“Looking for your junk?”

She followed me, her tone sugar-coated and cruel. “Probably in that pile waiting to be sold in the storage room.”

In the storage room, I found my mother’s box of hand-drawn sketches.

When I opened it, my heart cracked. The drawings were splattered with ink, parts torn apart.

They were my mother’s life’s work.

Lydia picked up a stack of intact sketches and, with disdain, began tearing them:

“Your mother’s dead. Why keep these?”

“Why pile trash in my house? It’s unlucky!”

My vision went white with rage.

I lunged to stop her, but she dodged.

“Stop!”

Lucas’s voice sounded from the doorway.

He rushed over, shoved me aside, and shielded Lydia.

My back hit the shelf hard, pain shooting through me, but at least I stopped her from tearing up more.

“Adriana, haven’t you caused enough trouble?”

He glared coldly. “Didn’t you want a divorce? Then get out of my house.”

Lydia hid behind him, a triumphant smirk on her lips.

I looked at the torn sketches, then at Lucas’s indifference.

My final shred of hope vanished completely.

Without a word, I crouched and gathered the pieces one by one.

Each torn scrap felt like a fragment of my crushed heart.

That night, I contacted a top private investigator with only one request: obtain solid evidence of Lucas’s infidelity as quickly as possible.

He worked fast.

Three days later, the file arrived in my email.

Sure enough, when Lucas suddenly demanded that I become independent, he was already having an affair with Lydia.

When my parents were critically ill and begged him to come back with me, he claimed he was busy with an important project, yet he was actually traveling across Europe with Lydia.

At my parents’ funeral, when he said returning wouldn’t bring them back to life, he was actually accompanying Lydia’s mother on a sightseeing trip.

The documents contained even more records of his affairs.

The contract for the luxury house he bought for Lydia using marital assets.

The limited-edition sports car he purchased for her.

The spending records from the supplementary credit card he opened under her name.

Every item, every detail, was devastating.

I packaged all the evidence and sent it to my lawyer, including proof that Lydia had swapped my daily calcium supplements with low-quality birth control pills.

“I’m filing for divorce. I want him to walk away with nothing.”

The lawyer quickly responded:

“The evidence is very strong; your chance of winning is high.” With that confirmation, I called my uncle:

“You don’t need to support Lucas anymore. I’m coming back to inherit Grandpa’s business.” I bought a ticket for the next flight to Freeland.

It was time to return to the life that should have been mine.

Meanwhile, Lucas’s inbox was overflowing with termination notices from clients.

His assistant, pale-faced, rushed into the office, staring at the flood of emails:

“Mr. Sterling, something terrible has happened…”