Lilith's POV

“Sign it,” I said.

Then a gust pushed through the curtains and sent the divorce papers scattering across the floor.

In one quick motion, he tore my dress open, revealing the steel prosthetic that flashed in the moonlight.

“Lilith.” He plucked the cigarette from my mouth. Our prosthetic limbs gleamed side by side in the silver light.

“There are no two people better suited for each other than you and me,” he said.

After all that, he didn’t sign.

For a week, there was no trace of that girl, no name, no lead, only a single name from Sebastian’s journals: Aurora Langley.

Then suddenly, she showed up at my door, impatient and brazen, wearing the same white dress, and as pale as in the footage. The only difference was the bruised pink at the corners of her eyes and the red marks across her neck and chest, which were marks of something more intimate.

Pressing her delicate hand to the small swell at her belly, she announced, “I’m pregnant, and it's his.”

My pen stopped midline on the financial report in front of me, while she sat down in the guest chair facing me as if she owned the place.

“You saw it yourself. Back when I was still in school, my name was in his diary,” she said. “He loves me, not you. If you can’t accept that, I’ll move in with my private medical team. Now, tell me, with me like this, who do you think Sebastian will throw out? You or me?”

The guest chair toppled with a dull crash, followed by the girl’s startled cry as I slapped her.

“You dare hit me!” she shrieked, rubbing the soft pink at her eye. The color flared into a raw red.

I smiled. Sebastian had guarded her well, so this fall, this humiliation, was probably the worst she’d ever known.

“So you came in alone to stage a takeover?” I said, closing the distance between us.

She collapsed to the floor, terror finally plain in her eyes as I advanced.

“Don’t... don’t come any closer!” she barked, her voice breaking.

Her panic stirred something inside me.

As I stood over her and looked into her tear-filled eyes, something clicked.

She was like me.

She was like the girl in the blood-soaked white dress from the night our enemies slaughtered my mother and uncles, the eighteen-year-old who had fallen to the ground and scaredly told them not to come closer. Her scream was the same as mine had been that night.

I grabbed a fistful of her hair, making her scream. Then, I noticed that her scream was identical to the sound I’d made when I was eighteen.

As her neck had been exposed, I unmistakably saw a butterfly-shaped birthmark on it.

So, Sebastian had really found a version of me, huh?

Without my noticing, tears slipped free from my eyes.

He had found a girl whose leg hadn’t been broken, whose birthmark hadn’t been removed, who’d never been through the bloody storms I had.

Looking at the soft curve of her belly, I laughed.

“You think that makes you better than me?” I said, raising the dagger.

Her terrified scream echoed my own from years before.

Unfortunately, the blade didn't reach her unborn child as Sebastian came.

He held the knife, and drops of blood slid down its blade.

“Sebastian!” Aurora cried out.

He stood between us as if he’d done this a thousand times before, natural, protective.

The dagger trembled between both our hands, neither moving an inch.

Glaring at me, he coldly said, “Don’t touch her.”

For a moment, everything felt like it had folded back to that night when the frightened, crying Lilith first met a boy who pressed his hand over the blade aimed at her. Back then, the dagger had pierced his chest and left a pale line across his palm.

Now, I sliced that scar open with my movement, and the old wound bled anew.

Lilith's POV

And just like back then, he looked death in the face without fear.

“Lilith, don’t touch her.”

The knife slipped from his grip, and I didn’t hesitate to drive it toward Aurora again.

Blood smeared across my black dress as he caught my wrist, his eyes locked on mine.

“Lilith, I could turn a blind eye if you do that to other women. But her? Never.”

“Because she’s carrying your child?” I shot back.

For a moment, he froze. His gaze dropped.

“Something more precious than that,” he murmured.

I didn’t know what Sebastian meant by “more precious.” All I knew was that mistresses were all the same in my eyes.

The door burst open, and my men stormed in.

One of them kicked Aurora square in the stomach, sharp and merciless.

Shortly, her white dress blossomed with red.

Seeing that, I laughed wildly. “Now, that looks more like me back then!”

I gripped the dagger, but he seized my hand again.

For a few tense seconds, our hands trembled midair, slicing open the divorce papers scattered on the table.

Only then did we both calm. Our eyes fell on the torn agreement.

Breathing hard, I said, “As long as you refuse to sign, I’ll show zero tolerance for mistresses. If you don’t want me to actually kill her one day, sign it now.”

But Sebastian only smiled. “You’ll never kill her.”

I turned sharply and saw that Aurora was already curled in his arms, lifted and protected.

Before leaving, he looked back at me once more. His expression softened, like the boy he used to be.

“Between us, Lilith, there will only ever be death, not divorce.”

“Sebastian!” I shouted after him, my voice shaking with fury. “Think carefully. I only ever give people three chances, and this is already the second.”

He paused mid-step, then turned. His smile was warm, like sunlight in spring.

“No need for a third. We’re destined to share a grave.”

That last look he gave me lingered through the night. For more than twenty years, I had never seen such a complicated expression in his eyes.

When he said that I can’t kill Aurora, it wasn’t just a threat. There was something else buried in it, something I couldn’t name.

With that, I ordered my men to dig deeper into Aurora’s past. But as always, nothing turned up.

So I decided to go to her myself.

She was pampered, spoiled, and bound to slip up eventually.

At the hospital, I found her in the middle of a fight with Sebastian.

“Why won’t you divorce her?” she demanded, her voice shaking. “I told you, I don’t care anymore! I really don’t!”

He stood by the window, calm as stone. “I care.”

“You—!” Her lower lip trembled until it bled.

“Don’t tell me…” Her voice cracked, choked with disbelief. “You’ve actually fallen in love with her?”

Sebastian kept his gaze fixed outside the window, saying nothing.

But that silence broke her.

She turned around, ready to storm out, but he caught her wrist and yanked her back. As she cried, he pulled her into his arms and lifted her chin, silencing her sobs with a kiss.

And with every kiss, her tears vanished.

Until the knock on the doorframe broke them apart.

“Lilith!” Aurora’s eyes flared with rage as soon as she saw me.

She grabbed the fruit knife from the table and lunged at me. “You bitch! Give me back my child!”

Only then did my eyes flick to her flat stomach, but Sebastian’s arm tightened protectively around her waist.

“Lilith,” he said, holding her close, just like he once held me amid rivers of blood. “Leave.”

“Bitch!” Aurora spat, her eyes swimming with tears.

And in that moment, furious, broken, grieving her unborn child, she looked exactly the way I had, years ago, when I lost my family to my enemies.

“You’re nothing!” she screamed. “Can’t you see? Sebastian doesn’t love you! He’s always loved me!”

Lilith's POV

“You home-wrecking bitch! You killed my child! I wish you a miserable death!”

I didn’t respond right away. I just watched her crying and screaming, her grief pouring out like blood.

And for a moment, it felt like I was looking at myself back then, the me who had lost my mother and uncles.

But there was a difference. Aurora knew exactly who to blame. She knew who to cry at, who to curse.

That day by the river, I had only been able to kneel beside a dozen corpses, drowning in silence, not even knowing where to pour my hatred or who to demand justice from.

Ten years.

In those ten years, I lost a leg for Sebastian, I carved the birthmark from my skin, my body was nothing but scars, and I’ve long forgotten what tears even taste like.

But Aurora provoked me, lost a child, and yet, she had someone to fight her battles, someone to comfort her.

“Sebastian.” I tore the divorce papers in my hand into shreds and laughed. “I’ve changed my mind. You're right. Between you and me, there will only ever be death, not divorce.”

After I said that, I turned to leave.

“Bitch! Come back here!” Aurora shrieked behind me.

From that moment on, I never mentioned divorce to Sebastian again.

But Aurora couldn’t let it go.

She barged into my office one day and swept all my confidential files off my desk. Afterward, she pointed a dagger straight at me.

“Are you divorcing him or not? If not, I’ll kill you right here!”

But the dagger slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor.

Seizing that chance, I pressed my prosthetic against her face, towering over her.

“What, Sebastian never taught you properly? Even with one prosthetic, I can put you down. And you had the guts to come at me alone?”

“Lilith.” A voice came from behind me.

Instantly, Aurora straightened, spine stiffening. “Let me go, bitch! Or else my Sebastian—”

My hand cracked across her face.

But before her tears could even fall, another slap landed, and this time, across mine.

I froze in shock, and right then, a sharp kick struck my prosthetic, causing my left knee to give out and me to collapse in front of Aurora.

He stood over me, holding her in his arms.

I tilted my head back, my eyes burning red at the corners. “You raised a hand against me?”

For a moment, he stayed silent.

When he finally spoke, his voice was weary. “Since it has come to this, let’s divorce.”

But I only laughed.

So much for together in life and death, so much for our vow to share one grave, and all it took was Aurora’s tears to erase it.

Gripping the desk, I forced myself to stand.

Our gazes met, cold and sharp as blades.

“It's impossible,” I replied.

He handed Aurora off to his men, then leaned down to me. “Lilith, you know me more than anyone. I’m best at making the impossible possible.”

Yes, like how he found the ones who had wiped out my family, like how he survived after losing a leg, like how he fought through fire to carry me out alive when I lost my leg for him.

And now, he wanted to make our divorce possible.

I bit down, forcing a smile. “And if I refuse no matter what?”

“Then we fight,” he said, his voice stripped of warmth. His eyes were hard, unyielding. “Lilith, I’ll hunt you for the rest of my life.”

The office fell into dead silence, so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

But I broke it with a soft laugh. “Fine. Then I’ll give you what you want.”

Surprise flickered across his face.

I only ever give people three chances. And I had already broken that rule.

With nothing else to reply, he simply said, “Thank you.”

As such, he wrapped an arm around Aurora’s waist and walked her toward the door.

But when the door opened, a black muzzle was already aimed at his forehead.

I leaned back in my chair, my voice calm, almost bored. “You didn’t actually take me seriously, did you?”

He turned his head slowly.

I tilted my chin up, eyes cold. “Mr. Crowe, in our marriage, there is no divorce, only death.”

The office door clicked shut, but even with the best soundproofing, nothing could hide what was happening inside.

Sebastian pressed a gun to my temple. Strangely, I wasn’t afraid of the weapon. What unsettled me was the gold necklace in his hand. It was what my mother left me, the one I fished out of that river of blood. He knew I treasured it more than my own life.

“Divorce or this?” he asked, holding the pendant out the window.

Taking a deep breath, I answered, “Fine. I'll divorce you.”

That was enough for Aurora. She smiled at last and glided toward the door. Just before leaving, she slipped a folded scrap of paper into my palm. Leaning close, she whispered, almost playfully, “I know what you’re desperate to find out. I’ll be generous and tell you who I am. Read it after I’m gone.”

The door then shut behind her.

As I unfolded the note, my fingers shook, then the words cut into me like glass.