Muriel's POV

Janice covered her mouth and laughed. “That’s right, Muriel. Your child can atone for you and also help you earn good karma.”

“Honestly, it’s lucky he died young. With a mother like you, even if he hadn’t been turned into a rosary, he’d have been ruined by you. So it's like I’m giving him a chance by calming my mind and helping me get pregnant. That’s his good fortune. Maybe God will smile and move up his next life, letting him be reborn as a dog.”

Her words hit me like an explosion. They shredded my heart and soul.

Vexed, I kicked her hard, grabbed the glowing-red tongs from the barbecue, and pressed them against her belly.

“Should I burn your uterus now so you won’t need fertility help?” I snapped. “Oh. No. I should just stab through your skull so you’ll never have nightmares again. If you still love your life, give me the rosary!”

“Muriel, will you ever stop?!” Alaric roared as he clamped my wrist so tight I thought he’d crush my bones.

“Janice is only trying to help you. You caused too much trouble. I only you hadn't, maybe your child wouldn’t have died so horribly. Stop this!” he barked.

I stared at him in disbelief.

In my life, I’d failed only two people: my mother and my child. For countless nights, the guilt had eaten me until I could barely breathe. Everyone in the world had the right to blame me, except Alaric. He didn’t deserve it. If he had listened to me, if he hadn’t underestimated our enemies, he wouldn’t have been kidnapped. I wouldn’t have lost my child or my right to be a mother.

I remembered him kneeling in blood before the doctors, begging them to save me. I remembered him outside the operating room, bowing to the gods and the heavens a hundred times, saying, “I’d trade the rest of my life for Muriel’s. From now on, I live only for her.”

Remembering those, I dropped a low, mirthless laugh that made my shoulders tremble, and I let go of the tongs.

Only then did Alaric breathe out, relieved. “Muriel, you—”

But the next instant, one of his ears dropped on the floor.

I toyed with the knife in my hand and wiped the blood from my face. “So dirty,” I said, then smiled at him. “Alaric, getting old? Why can’t you understand plain speech?”

“I told you to make her miscarry, and you pretended not to hear. I told you to give me the rosary, and you pretended not to hear either. If those ears of yours are that useless, then better live without them.”

“Alaric!” Janice screamed. “Muriel, you’re insane. You want the rosary? Fine! Go get them yourself!”

After shrieking, she hurled it into the pond. Smart move. She knew she couldn’t beat me physically, so she tried to hurt me emotionally instead. But ever since Alaric turned me into a madwoman, my heart had been steel.

I grabbed Janice by the hair, dragged her to the pond, and kicked her in.

“Muriel! It’s the dead of winter! She’ll freeze to death!” Alaric yelled as he lunged forward.

Muriel's POV

“Really?” I said. “By the way, I forgot to tell you. I stocked this pond with piranhas. She’ll become fish food long before she freezes.”

Alaric’s face instantly went white upon hearing that, and he swiftly moved to pull her out. But before he could reach her, I slammed a brick down on her wrist so hard she yelped and flinched away. She could only retreat and nurse the pain.

Alaric ground his teeth at me. “Muriel, must you force me to fight you?”

“Fine,” I said. “I doubt we’ll finish this before your little lover is chewed to pieces. If you don’t bring me that rosary yourself, she won’t be getting back on shore.”

“Alaric, you know me. I always do what I say.”

The piranhas were already circling Janice when she started screaming through her tears, “Alaric, I’m so scared! I don’t want to be eaten!”

Without hesitation, Alaric jumped straight into the water.

Since he was wounded, the fish were drawn to him. Yet he wrapped himself around Janice, protecting her, and murmured, “Don’t be afraid. I’ll keep you safe.”

The look on his face took me back to another ambush when the enemy outnumbered us and had iron bars. It was just the two of us, and he had pinned me under his body, taking every strike himself while saying, “Muriel, don’t be afraid. I’ll always protect you.”

When Alaric finally pulled Janice ashore, both his legs were ripped and bloody from the piranhas. Not paying it mind, he dropped the rosary at my feet.

“Happy now? Muriel, I’m not joking. Touch her again, and I’ll make you pay with your life.”

He’d said things like that before, that we were two crazed souls bound together by fate, destined to hurt and cling to one another forever. But now his reason for fighting was to protect someone else.

I picked up the rosary and glanced at the dizzy Janice. I couldn’t help the sneer. “You’re really stupid for letting that trash prance in front of me, Alaric.”

I stepped out of the gate and looked back once at the villa that had once held our brief, good memories. Then I told the bodyguards, “Blow it up. Turn it into a doghouse. Let the dogs live where they belong.”

Alaric didn’t come home after that. He was busy tending to Janice and staging a grand funeral for the child who died in her womb. As if afraid the illegitimate baby might suffer in the afterlife, he bought every candle in the city and burned them for seven days straight.

Meanwhile, I bought a plot of peaceful land and buried the rosary myself.

The day I finished the rites, my phone rang with an unknown number. I answered, and Janice’s triumphant laugh filled my ear.

“Muriel, what good does blowing up the villa do? Alaric will just give me something better. Guess why he gave my baby a big funeral but despises yours so much? Because he thinks you’re filthy. Want proof?” she taunted, and then emailed me something.

When I opened it, my breath froze.