Branded the Other Woman

Too Late to Turn Back

"Hello? Hello? Are you still there?"

I parted my lips and was about to respond when a hand suddenly shot over and snatched my phone away.

Belinda didn't even glance at the caller ID. She raised her arm and smashed the phone hard against the concrete floor of the station. The screen shattered into a spiderweb. The back cover flew off, and the battery rolled into a corner.

The caller ID flickered one last time before going dark.

"Trying to collude with your accomplices to trick me?" Belinda sneered, grinding her heel into the broken screen. My cracked phone screen crunched beneath her shoe as she spat, "You're not going anywhere today. You'll be sitting in a holding cell if you don't confess!"

I looked at her and then at the ruined phone on the floor. I felt oddly calm.

I turned, found a chair, and sat down. "Fine. I'll do as you say. I won't go anywhere."

After all, I wasn't the one desperately trying to live. No, the one fighting for his life was her husband.

Belinda eyed me suspiciously, clearly wondering why I had stopped arguing.

Just then, her phone rang.

She eyed me with her beady eyes. Then, she smirked, thinking she had me pegged. "So that's why you suddenly calmed down. Your accomplice has been waiting for this, huh?"

She declined the call without hesitation. "I'm telling you right now. You're not fooling me."

However, a text message popped up on her screen the moment she hung up.

'Ms. Belinda Kingsley, this is the Hematology Department of Northcrest Medical Center. Your husband, Mr. George Coleman, is currently in critical condition in the ICU. A critical illness notice has been issued. Please come immediately.'

"That's right," I taunted icily. "I hired people just to trick you. Doctors, nurses—every single one of them is a paid actor. Don't believe a word of it. Your husband must be perfectly healthy. He's probably in a meeting at the company right now."

Her hand holding the phone trembled slightly, panic flashing across her face. Nevertheless, she doubled down after my taunting, as if to prove she hadn't been deceived.

So, she tossed the phone onto the desk. "Not bad. You almost convinced me. A critical illness notice, huh? You've got quite the imagination."

Karen nodded vigorously beside her. "Exactly! Belinda, don't fall for it. This must be that tramp's accomplices. They must be nervous since we've gone to the precinct. They're probably trying to lure you away so she can escape!"

The phone rang again.

This time, it wasn't a call. Instead, it was a WhatsApp video request.

The alert chimed several times before Belinda, visibly irritated, picked it up. When she saw that it was coming from her husband's WhatsApp account, she visibly brightened with smug satisfaction. "My husband's calling me on video. Let's see how you keep lying now."

She accepted the call, only for a doctor in a white coat to appear on the screen.

"Are you Ms. Belinda Kingsley, Mr. George Coleman's wife?" the doctor asked quickly. "I'm his attending physician, Dr. Calvin Jeffries."

Belinda stared at the screen, her smile slowly stiffening.

"You… you really went all out, didn't you?" Her voice had lost its earlier confidence, replaced by an awkward, forced laugh. "Even got a white coat? A badge, too? Scammers these days are getting pretty professional."

Calvin turned the camera. The image shook for a moment before settling on the entrance of a hospital room. Belinda recognized it instantly—it was her husband.

"George?"

She snapped her head toward me the next second. I gave her a small, mirthless smile. That was when everything went black. I'd fainted.

I'd be an idiot if I ever donated bone marrow to her husband after all this.