May Day holiday. I was on my way to the airport when my water broke.

The pain split me open. I screamed at strangers, voice raw and cracking, begging someone—anyone—to help.

Someone flagged down a taxi for me and was about to help me in when my husband arrived and blocked them with an outstretched arm.

"My wife's a known scam artist—stages accidents for payouts. The last person who helped her got hit for five hundred thousand!"

The passerby yanked their hands back. The taxi driver refused to take me.

I had no strength left to explain. All I could do was dial emergency services with trembling fingers.

But when the ambulance arrived, Elijah stepped forward with a cold smile.

"My wife's in her third trimester. She leaks urine constantly and convinces herself every time that her water's broken."

"She's got serious mental problems. Doesn't matter what the doctors tell her—she'll swear the hospital's trying to scam her out of money."

"Take her in and you won't get paid. Not a cent. And then she'll turn around and report you to the police, file a lawsuit on top of it."

The paramedics left cursing under their breath.

I was drowning in despair. Elijah watched me with a perfectly calm face.

"Your younger sister is pregnant. The child is mine."

"Her due date is today. I promised her that her baby would be born first."

"Just hold on a little longer. Once she's delivered, I'll arrange your surgery right away."

Tears blurred the edges of my vision. He patted my cheek, light and easy, the way you'd quiet something small.

"If you want someone to blame, blame yourself. All I did was kiss her once when I was drunk, and you made sure the whole world knew about it."

"She married some random man out of spite, and the bastard beat her until she miscarried."

"You owe her a life. Making you wait and deliver a little later is just helping you atone."

I stared into those indifferent eyes, and something bitter twisted across my mouth.

Elijah, since you say I'm guilty, I wonder if paying you back with two lives will be enough.

……

Another wave of agony tore through my lower belly. I collapsed to my knees and couldn't stop the wail that ripped out of me.

Elijah looked down at me. There was reluctance in his eyes, even a flicker of something like heartache, but not a trace of guilt.

The crowd had long since scattered. I looked up, helpless, every word shaking out of me.

"Elijah, please. Take me to the hospital first."

The pain made me claw at his pant leg with blood-stained fingertips, desperate, gripping with everything I had.

He lifted his foot and kicked my hand away, stepping back with open disgust on his face.

"I promised Fay I'd be there for her delivery in person. There'll be a professional team documenting it for us. She won't be happy if I show up with dirty pants."

Blood was everywhere between my legs. Amniotic fluid pooled on the ground beneath me.

None of it registered for Elijah.

All he cared about was whether he'd look decent enough at Fay's side when she gave birth.

He didn't care about me. He didn't care about the child inside me.

Then what were those ten years I spent building a life with him from nothing, tasting every bitterness this world had to offer?

I was shaking, trying to scream the question at him, but the contractions dragged me under and I was rolling on the ground, unable to form a single word.

Elijah checked his watch. A smile crept across his lips.

"Fay should be delivering any minute now. Go home. I'll come get you once I'm done."

The pain was dragging my consciousness under. I bit through the soft flesh of my tongue just to stay present, my voice barely a trembling plea.

"Elijah, my water broke. If I don't get to a hospital now, the baby will die."

He leaned down and ran his hand over my hair—offhand, idle, the way you'd pet a stray dog.

"Don't worry. I won't abandon you. You're the real Mrs. Gilbert, after all, and the woman I love most."

"But debts have to be repaid. You atone like this—you feel the pain—and that's how you learn. Next time you won't use your position to bully a young girl."

"I've already sent the family doctor to wait for you at the villa. You and the baby will be fine. A little pain, that's all."

"Eleanor, quit the theatrics. Fay's in labor too, and she's not screaming or making a scene—she's waiting for me at the hospital like a grown woman. She knows how to behave. You never did."

The words barely left his mouth before Elijah's phone rang.

A woman's whiny, bratty voice came through the speaker.

"Elijah, the doctor says I'm ready to push. They're sending me into the delivery room right now."

"You're still with that old hag, aren't you? Well, of course—she's your lawful wife, the one you actually married. The baby in my belly is just a bastard, right?"

"Elijah Gilbert, if you don't get here, I'm not giving birth!"

The man who never lost composure went white in an instant.

Anxiety flooded his eyes, and even his voice dropped into something almost pleading.

"Hey, hey—stop that. You know what I promised you. Only the child in your belly gets to be the Gilbert firstborn."

"Eleanor's water broke. She's rolling on the ground in pain right now. If you don't believe me, let me show you."

He bent down and shoved the camera in my face.

The moment Fay got a clear look at how wretched I was, she finally laughed, satisfied.

The pain had soaked all the way into my bones. I bit down on it and lifted my eyes to him.

"Why? Why her?"

"Elijah, have you forgotten? She's the one who nearly killed you drunk driving. She's the one who pushed your mother off that cliff with her own hands—they never even found the body!"

All I got back was a cold, derisive laugh.

"What happened back then, call it bad luck on my part. As for my mother, there were no cameras at the summit. Even the police said it could've been an accidental fall. How can you blame Fay for that?"

I slumped to the ground, laughing until tears streamed down my face.

Fay Fox—my half-sister, same mother, different fathers. Spoiled rotten since the day she was born, and cruel to me for as long as I could remember.

After the college entrance exams, she partied all night with friends and insisted on driving drunk despite everyone telling her not to.

She hit Elijah, who was just getting off a night shift.

No witnesses. Fay left him lying in a pool of blood and drove away without looking back.

Later, she pinned everything on me.

I was taken in for investigation. Terrified the victim's family would keep digging and uncover the truth, she lured Karen to a cliffside under the pretense of apologizing on my behalf—and when Karen wasn't looking, pushed her over the edge.

I took the blame and served three years for crimes I didn't commit.

After I got out, I found out by chance that Elijah's legs were permanently damaged. The doctors said he'd spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

I found him and told him the whole truth.

He wanted to die. Every last spark in him had gone out. And it was me—me who half-knelt in front of that wheelchair and swore I would help him stand again.

I took care of him for two full years, doing every session of rehab at his side. I weighed barely ninety pounds, but I clenched my teeth and became his human crutch.

The day he finally stood on his own, Elijah dropped to one knee and slid a plain silver ring onto my finger.

His eyes were full of tenderness then.

"Ellie, you gave me a second life. Can I ask you for one thing? Let me spend the rest of mine taking care of you."

I believed him.

Even though he was too poor to give me a proper wedding, I married him without hesitation, without regret.

He said I bullied Fay.

But he knew. He knew she had forced me to drink urine, made me kneel inside a cage and bark like a dog.

Ten years worse than death. The nightmare of my entire life.

After we married, I woke screaming from dreams more times than I could count, crying as I told him I'd seen Fay beating me again.

He would hold me, his own hands trembling, eyes red, promising he would make something of himself and get justice for me and for Karen.

To crush the Fox family, he threw himself into the business world and clawed his way into becoming CEO Gilbert.

And the very first thing he did once he got there was Fay Fox.

The day I walked in on them—half-undressed, mouths on each other in my marital bed—I nearly lost my mind.

I slapped Fay across the face twice, hard, then took a photo of her with her chest spilling out of her clothes and posted it everywhere.

Elijah's eyes were bloodshot when he dropped to his knees in front of me, swearing he'd been drunk, that he'd mistaken her for me.

He threw her out right in front of me and swore he'd never see her again.

I never saw it coming.

He kept saying he'd get justice for me and for Karen. Instead, behind my back, he and Fay had a child together.

I never left his side—not once in ten years—and what I got back was his dead-blank face, telling me he'd hand over my life and my baby's as atonement to Fay.

I bit through the flesh inside my mouth until I could taste nothing but copper, and forced my voice out.

"Elijah Gilbert, how could you? How could you do this to me!"

No answer.

He was in too much of a hurry to even glance at me before he walked away.

The blood beneath me kept spreading.

The pain was dissolving the edges of my consciousness.

But for my baby, I clenched my teeth, hauled myself upright, and stumbled toward the hospital.

By the time I reached the ER entrance, everything below my waist was drenched, warm and heavy with blood.

After a quick examination, they rushed me toward the operating room on a gurney.

But just outside the doors, a hand shot out and stopped us.

I lifted my head with the last of my strength and met Elijah's cold stare.

"Eleanor, didn't I tell you to go home and wait?"

"Playing fragile now? Can't take a little pain? When you had Fay beaten until she miscarried, did you think about whether she could take it?"

"I'm warning you—Fay hasn't delivered yet. Until that baby is out, you hold it in. I don't care if it kills you."

His face was nothing but impatience. I didn't have the strength left to argue.

The doctor tried desperately to push past him.

"Her water's broken and she's losing blood fast—if we don't operate right now, we lose them both!"

Elijah kicked the gurney over. It crashed sideways, and he stood there with a vicious smile.

"How much did Eleanor pay you to put on this show?"

"There's nothing she wouldn't pull to make sure her kid comes out before my wife's."

"It's just her water breaking. Waiting a little longer won't kill her. Quit the theatrics."

I lay facedown on the floor, wanting to laugh and unable to, wanting to cry and unable to do that either.

Ten years I'd walked through life and death beside this man, and my suffering meant nothing to him—just another act I was putting on.

The pain seared through my scalp, and I couldn't hold it in anymore. I clutched my stomach and screamed.

Even the doctor's face changed.

"Sir, this woman's condition is critical. If she's not treated and something happens, her family will hold this hospital accountable!"

The doctor bent down to help me up, but Elijah cut in again, his voice flat and cold.

"Family? She has no family."

"Eleanor is my mistress. She found out today is my wife's due date and showed up like this on purpose, trying to compete for attention."

"And if she costs my wife her delivery, I'll shut this place down myself."

The hands holding me let go. I hit the floor hard.

Blood pooled beneath me. I lay on the freezing tile, barely conscious, every organ trembling with pain.

A faint smile settled on Elijah's lips.

He bent to my ear, and his voice turned soft—the kind of soft that makes your skin crawl.

"Hurts, doesn't it? Good. Burn it in. Maybe then you'll stop throwing your weight around as Elijah Gilbert's wife and making Fay's life hell."

"Shh, Ellie. Be good now. Stop fighting it. The better you behave, the less you have to suffer."

"Just hold on a little longer. The moment Fay's baby is out, I'll send you straight into surgery."