Twelve hours had passed.

Alicia hadn't eaten. She hadn't slept. She just stared at the white ceiling tiles, her body a hollow shell.

Nurse Sarah came in with a tray of nutrient-rich broth. Her kind face was etched with worry. "Mrs. Barnett, you have to eat. If not for yourself, then for the babies. You need to regain your strength. They need your milk."

"My milk..." Alicia whispered the words. Tears welled up again. Would she even have the chance to feed them? Barron was taking them away.

Her phone vibrated on the bedside table.

Barron's name flashed on the screen. Her heart hammered against her ribs. With a shaking hand, she answered, her voice a dry rasp.

"Barron?"

A sweet, cloying female voice answered. "Cousin, it's me, Destiny. Barron can't talk right now. He's with me."

The voice was a silken cord, tightening around Alicia's throat, choking the air from her lungs.

"You must be exhausted after giving birth, cousin," Destiny said, her tone dripping with fake sympathy. "It's such a shame I'm too fragile to visit you and the babies."

Alicia's hand clenched the phone, her nails digging into her palm. "What do you want, Destiny?"

A light, airy laugh. "I don't want anything. I'm just calling to tell you to stop bothering Barron. Your marriage was just a business deal. The deal is over. You should make a graceful exit."

A deal? The word exploded in Alicia's mind.

Then, she heard his voice in the background, low and impatient. "What are you telling her all that for?"

The phone was passed over. His voice, when it came, was as cold as a winter morning. "Alicia. Mark should have given you the papers. Sign them. It's better for everyone."

Hearing him, the fragile wall she had built around her heart crumbled. "Barron, tell me what's happening," she cried, the words tumbling out in a sob. "You said you'd love me forever."

A long silence stretched from the other end of the line. So long she thought he had hung up.

Then came the cruelest words she had ever heard.

"That was a contingency," he said flatly. "Our marriage had a one-year term from the beginning."

He continued, his voice relentless. "You were required to play the part of Mrs. Rivera and give birth to a child. Your task is now complete."

"So I was just a vessel? A tool for you to have children?" Her voice was shaking so hard she could barely form the words.

He didn't answer. His silence was the only confirmation she needed.

She tried to speak again, but was cut off by Destiny's delicate cough in the background, followed by a soft cry. "Barron, my medicine..."

Barron's tone shifted instantly, becoming tender and urgent. "I'm coming right now." Then, back to Alicia, his voice was ice again. "Don't call again. Contact my lawyer if you have questions."

The line went dead. The monotonous dial tone mocked her.

Alicia dropped the phone. She felt her body go limp, her vision tunneling to black. The last thing she heard was Nurse Sarah screaming her name as the emergency call button blared.

When she woke again, it was dark outside. The room was quiet, lit only by the soft glow of the monitors on the bassinets.

She pushed herself up, needing the restroom. Her legs were unsteady as she used the wall for support. The door to her room was slightly ajar, and as she passed, she heard two nurses speaking in hushed tones at the station down the hall.

"It's the lady in the VIP room, Mrs. Barnett," one said. "She hemorrhaged badly during the delivery yesterday. When her husband was signing the consent form outside the OR, he actually told the doctor, 'If you can't save the mother, save the children.'"

The other nurse gasped. "I heard from my colleague in obstetrics that it was critical. The doctor asked him if he consented to a hysterectomy to save her life, and he hesitated for a full five minutes, like he was calculating the pros and cons."

"My God, that's horrifying! He treats his wife like a baby machine!"

The fragmented conversation was the final blade, twisting in her already shredded heart. While she was fighting for her life, her husband was weighing her value.

All the love, all the hope, turned to ash.

She didn't go back to bed. She leaned against the cold wall until the nurses' footsteps faded. There were no more tears. They had all been spent.

Calmly, she walked back into her room, picked up the bowl of soup the nurse had left, and began to eat, one spoonful at a time.

When Sarah came in later, she was relieved to see the empty bowl.

Alicia wiped her mouth. "Sarah, could you please get my laptop for me?" she asked, her voice steady. "There's something I need to look up."

Her eyes were terrifyingly calm.

Destiny Barnett, hidden behind oversized sunglasses and a surgical mask, moved like a phantom through the hospital's VIP wing. Her mother, Pamela Barnett, scurried behind her, equally disguised.

"Destiny, are you insane?" Pamela hissed, grabbing her daughter's arm. "You shouldn't be here! What if a reporter sees you?"

Destiny yanked her arm away. "I can't wait! I need to see that bitch's miserable face with my own eyes! And I need to make sure the doctors collected the cord blood!"

Pamela's face paled under her mask. "The cord blood was collected," she said, her voice low and strained. "But... there's a problem."

"What problem?" Destiny's voice shot up, sharp and shrill.

Pamela frantically shushed her, glancing down the empty corridor. She pulled Destiny into a nearby fire escape, the heavy door clicking shut behind them, sealing them in the cramped, concrete stairwell.

"What is it?" Destiny demanded, her voice a harsh whisper. "Wasn't there enough? Was the viability low?"

Pamela took a deep, shaky breath. "It's not that. The... the tissue typing was a complete failure. The doctor said the cord blood is useless for your leukemia."

Destiny froze. Her sunglasses slid down her nose, revealing eyes wide with disbelief. "How is that possible? She's my cousin! We're related by blood, how could it not be a match?"

Pamela's gaze darted away, unable to meet her daughter's. "The doctor said... it would only be impossible if you two weren't blood relatives at all."

"Not blood relatives?" Destiny laughed, a humorless, ugly sound. "Are you kidding me, Mother? Aunt Hillery was your sister!"

Pamela's lips trembled. The secret she had kept for over two decades finally spilled out. "Hillery was your aunt, yes. But Alicia... she wasn't Hillery's biological child. She was... she was a bastard your uncle brought home from the outside!"

The secret exploded in Destiny's mind.

It took her a full minute to process the information. Then, a rage more potent than any she had ever felt consumed her.

"That bitch! She's a bastard?" Destiny shrieked, her voice echoing in the stairwell. "She tricked us! She made me wait a whole year for nothing! My entire plan is ruined!"

Her leukemia was a lie, but the cord blood was meant to cement an even bigger one—a lie that would have secured her place as the next Mrs. Rivera. Now, the key piece of her puzzle was worthless.

"Destiny, calm down!" Pamela pleaded. "This isn't the time. Since the cord blood is useless, Barron..."

"Barron?" Destiny sneered. "He can never find out about this! If he knew I orchestrated this whole thing for a useless outcome, he'd kill me!"

A vicious light gleamed in her eyes. "Alicia ruined my plan, so I'll ruin her! She thinks she can use those babies to stay by Barron's side? I won't let her."

She shoved the fire escape door open and stormed down the hall toward Alicia's room, ignoring her mother's frantic calls.

Alicia was on her laptop, researching California family law statutes regarding custody of newborns.

The door flew open with a bang.

Destiny burst in like a hurricane, her face twisted with a crazed hatred.

"Alicia Barnett! You liar! You bastard!" she screamed, lunging for the bed.

Alicia instinctively threw her arms up to protect herself. The laptop flew from her lap, its screen shattering as it hit the floor.

Destiny's hands closed around Alicia's neck, pressing her down into the mattress. Her eyes were bloodshot. "Why don't you just die? You and your little mongrels should all die!"

Weak from childbirth, Alicia was no match for her. The world began to go dark around the edges as her air supply was cut off.

With her last ounce of strength, she grabbed the water glass from her bedside table and smashed it against Destiny's forehead.

The glass shattered. Water and blood streamed down the side of Destiny's face.

Destiny shrieked in pain, her grip loosening.

At that exact moment, nurses and security guards, alerted by the noise, burst into the room and pulled the hysterical Destiny away.

Pamela ran in after them, saw her daughter's bleeding head, and immediately started screaming. "Alicia! How could you be so vicious? Destiny just came to see you out of kindness, and you attacked her!"

Alicia gasped for air, her neck already showing the dark marks of Destiny's fingers. The screaming and accusations were a chaotic buzz in her ears, but one word cut through the noise like a shard of ice.

Bastard.

She stared at the mother-daughter duo, their faces a mask of false indignation. Her own face was a mask of cold, hard clarity.

She didn't argue. She just looked at Destiny and asked, her voice low and steady, "You just said... I'm a bastard?"