The yellow diamond ring that fell out of my bag glittered in all its brilliance under the hot summer sun.

Hailey immediately stomped on my hand and dug her heels into my palm. "Where did you get such an expensive diamond ring from? Even Rhett wouldn't buy it for me!"

She glared at the ring on the ground, jealousy oozing from her eyes.

But the ring was just a little something I'd bought from an auction, thinking of giving it to Vivian to play with.

"I bought it myself, you can have it! I don't want it anymore!" I begged. "I just want Vivian's meds!"

I was even willing to give up all of my wealth if I could just save Vivian's life now.

"Bullshit!" Hailey screeched, grinding her teeth as she growled at me with a twisted expression on her face. "You must have begged Rhett to buy it for you!"

"I didn't—"

"Still denying it?"

Despite her boiling jealousy, her demeanor suddenly relaxed, the corners of her lips curling upward in a cruel smirk.

I immediately had a bad feeling about it.

She crouched down and picked up the cracked vial containing Vivian's emergency medication.

"Well, since that's the case, I guess I need to teach you a lesson."

Hailey let out a cruel laugh and smashed the vial onto the ground. The glass shattered, and the liquid spilled onto the ground before evaporating almost immediately in the summer heat.

She had just destroyed Vivian's last chance for survival.

Something snapped in me. I lost all my rationale and fought off the people holding me back, lunging at her in rage. I was going to bring her to the grave with me!

Just as I was about to grab her, I suddenly felt an excruciating pain in my stomach, and a painful, numbing feeling spread all over my body. I lost all control of my body and immediately fell to the ground, completely paralyzed.

"How dare you try to lay a finger on Mrs. Montiago?"

It was Oliver, one of the preschool teachers, and he held a stun gun in his hand. "Why don't you look in the mirror and see if you're even worthy of that!"

I couldn't control the rest of my body after getting hit by the stun gun. I did everything I could to crawl back over to Vivian and cover her with my body, shielding her from the sun.

"Vivi…"

I was in such pain that I couldn't even breathe. "Vivi, look at Mommy…"

I had missed the golden window to save her, and she had already fallen unconscious. I grabbed her little hand tightly in mine, extremely frightened that she would leave me without saying goodbye.

"Well, that gave me a fright," Hailey said nonchalantly with a scoff. "Do you think two million dollars is enough to pay for both their lives?"

She then produced a black card that I had given to Rhett.

"You're so kind, Mrs. Montiago, for even offering them two million in the first place! If I'm not mistaken, that black card should have at least 100 million dollars in it!"

"Yeah, that's the real Mrs. Montiago for you! Kind and generous and all. Look at the mistress, crying over a broken bottle of meds. Stingy little bitch."

"I think two million dollars is too much. 200 thousand would do."

"200 thousand?" Hailey gasped in mock shock. "Wow! It seems like your and your daughter's lives aren't even worth as much as my dress! Haha, how pathetic!"

"If it were up to me, I'd say she deserves two slaps on the face, and that's about it," Oliver said, sucking up to Hailey. "You don't even know how much money they managed to siphon from Mr. Montiago. They should pay it all back, even if it's with their lives."

Hailey nodded in approval. "I like your idea."

She then stormed over to me haughtily. However, a phone call interrupted her actions.

She answered the call, and the smile instantly dropped from her face.

"Arthur? What did you just say?"

Hailey had turned on the loudspeaker function on her phone, and the call was loud and clear in the otherwise silent preschool premises.

The person calling her now was Rhett's father and my father-in-law, Arthur Montiago.

Arthur had been the one begging my parents for three years so that I would take Rhett in as my husband. And yet, I never thought that he would be on a first-name basis with Hailey, just like I was. Was he also treating her like his daughter-in-law, then?

As it turned out, everyone in the Montiago family knew of Hailey's existence and even acknowledged her as Rhett's wife.

I was the only one who never knew about this.

"Aren't you done causing trouble, Hailey Lester? Stop at once!" Arthur exclaimed angrily, enraged by Hailey's ignorance. "You can't afford to get anybody killed!"

"But Arthur! Teddy is your biological grandson!" Hailey retorted indignantly. "That bitch is threatening your precious grandson with her presence! And you're telling me to stop what I'm doing?"

"Did you think I'd stop you if you were just letting off steam?" Arthur asked sternly. He warned, "Stop whatever you're doing at once! Don't drag everyone else into the mud with you!"

The call ended right then, and Hailey was stunned.

I felt my heart shatter as well.

As it turned out, the entire Montiago family knew that both Vivian and I were being abused and tormented, but none of them showed up to stop Hailey and instead just allowed it to happen.

From the looks of it, the Montiago family no longer needed to exist in this world anymore.

"If you'll send me and Vivian to the hospital now, and if Vivian still survives, I will consider letting you go," I said, worried to death that Hailey would continue beating me up if she thought that I would get revenge on her afterward. I had to give her my word that I wouldn't touch her.

I could put up with anything as long as it was for Vivian!

"What did you just say?" Hailey screeched, her eyes widening in fury. "You're just a lowly bitch of a mistress, and yet, you still managed to get my father-in-law to defend you with his own words? Who the hell do you think you are to deserve this?

"Let's see whether I can afford to 'offend' you and put you out of your miserable life, you bitch!"

Then, she dug her sharp, manicured nails into my face and scratched hard, slicing into my skin until I bled.

"Beat her up! Don't let her leave until she's dead!" Hailey screamed at the top of her lungs.

At once, the employees surrounded me and Vivian. Everyone did whatever they could to try and kill me.

I was already depleted of energy by then, so the only thing I could do was curl up weakly with Vivian in the center, not letting anyone hurt her.

Soon, the only thing I could see was blood.

"Don't be afraid, Vivi," I whispered, coughing up more blood. "I'll bring you along with me…"

Someone suddenly stomped on my stomach just then, and I couldn't withhold it anymore. I spat out a mouthful of blood on the ground.

My smartwatch immediately began beeping even louder than ever.

"You think you can still scare me like that?" Hailey screeched, grabbing an army knife and stabbing the screen of my watch.

"Nobody is coming to save you, even if it keeps beeping forever! Beat her up, beat her up even more!"

The beeping faded out, and I closed my eyes in despair and surrender.

I didn't know how much time had passed, but I regained a bit of consciousness afterward.

The group of employees had already dispersed. However, my sight was blinded with blood, and I couldn't see anything clearly.

I quickly felt for Vivian and tried to find her pulse.

"How pathetic. So, when's the police going to come? I've already beaten her to death," I heard Hailey say, but her voice sounded far away in my ears. "A bitch will always be a bitch. Haha! She deserves to die!

"Alright, can someone drag her out and feed her to the dogs—"

Suddenly, there was a loud crack of a gunshot, interrupting Hailey mid-sentence.

Then, three helicopters in camouflage colors appeared and hovered above my head.

"We are here on orders to rescue Ms. Jessica Stallone! Everybody, put your hands up where I can see them and get down on the ground! I won't hesitate to shoot if you fail to do so!"