Eleven Miscarriages, One Final Cut
After her eleventh miscarriage, Clara Fulton became pregnant again. To protect the pregnancy, she lay in a hospital bed day after day, enduring injection after injection, waiting for the special drug meant to save her child.
Then she discovered the truth. Her husband of eight years, Ethan Grayson, had already given that one dose of the special drug to his newly pregnant mistress.
Clara wiped the tears from her face and made a ruthless decision, ending the pregnancy she had fought so desperately to keep.
She no longer wanted a man who wavered between women. But anyone who betrayed sincerity would have to pay a price.
She took out a phone she had never once used and dialed the only number saved on it.
"You wanted me to acknowledge you as my father, didn't you? Come pick me up in a week. I'll take your seat."
She had no idea that after she left, Ethan would kneel before every god he could think of, praying for nothing but her return.
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Chapter 3
Ethan was startled, his face turning pale as he hurried to help Clara up.
"Honey, what's wrong? Does your stomach hurt? Is the baby acting up again? What's going on with you? Is it the smell of the soup that's making you sick?"
His voice was filled with concern. His eyes reddened with distress as he urgently called for the doctor.
Even as Clara was wheeled into the emergency room, she could still hear Ethan's hoarse pleas.
"Doctor, please. I'm begging you. Save my wife."
After another round of emergency treatment, Clara once again managed to keep the child in her womb. Under the effects of anesthesia, she slipped into unconsciousness.
Familiar pain washed over her. She frowned and opened her eyes, only to hear Ethan speaking with his close friend, Damian Pierce. She chose to shut her eyes tightly.
"Ethan, you should give the special drug to Clara first. Ivy is only newly pregnant. She doesn't really need it yet."
Damian was the one responsible for developing the special drug and had grown up with Ethan since childhood.
He had never approved of Ethan and Clara being together and had always disliked Clara in particular.
Yet even now, he showed a hint of reluctance toward her situation.
Ethan's expression was firm. "No. Ivy is different from Clara. She can't handle any risk. Clara is strong. Even if the baby's gone, she'll survive it."
"But if there's no special drug and the baby's gone, how are you going to explain that to Clara?"
"No explanation is needed." Ethan gently stroked Clara's cheek, his words chillingly cruel. "We'll just prescribe some vitamins and tell her it's the special drug. It's the first batch anyway. Problems are normal."
Damian sucked in a sharp breath.
"But she's been with you for so many years. She's risked her life for you more than once. Back in Harborcliff, if she hadn't nearly died protecting you, you would've been—"
Ethan's fingertips turned icy, his voice sharp as a blade.
"You don't need to keep reminding me. I'm the one who controls the syndicate in Asterfall, and I survived back then because my own woman sold her body for me. I know she did it to save me. But she's tainted. I want my child to have a clean mother. What's wrong with that? I know I owe her. But I'm a man. I can't get past this. I can't stand the looks of ridicule from others."
Ethan let out a cold snort. "Everyone who knew about it back then is already dead. But there are still people in Harborcliff. They've stayed quiet all these years. They're probably afraid of me. One day, I'll wipe them out and repay the humiliation I suffered."
Clara kept her eyes tightly shut, biting her lower lip hard, forcing herself not to react.
So this was what he believed all along. That when he was captured by the local gangs in Harborcliff, trapped in danger, she had stormed the syndicate's headquarters alone to save him and had been violated in the process.
All these years, he had despised her for being "tainted," unwilling to let a child be born from her body.
How utterly absurd.
"Clara really seems to care about this baby. If she loses this one too, what if she can't handle it?"
Ethan scoffed softly and reached out to pull the blanket over Clara.
He leaned down, his breath brushing unconsciously against her neck, making Clara's breath catch.
Disgusting.
That indescribable wave of nausea surged up again.
After she heard the door close, Clara slowly opened her eyes. Tears flowed like a river.
She knew very well that many people in the research institute had been placed there by her biological father, for her sake.
For the sake of the child in her womb, she despised him, yet still felt a trace of gratitude.
But she never expected that after learning this, Ethan would be determined to kill the child in her womb, caring only about the mistress's baby.
She clamped her hand over her mouth, refusing to let a single sob escape.
Then she sent a message to the man bound to her by blood, telling him to withdraw everyone from the research institute. Ethan was not to benefit from them.
"Honey, you're finally awake. Don't worry, the baby is fine."
Ethan knelt by the bedside, his eyes red as if he'd been crying for a long time. His hand rested gently on Clara's belly, his gaze filled with the glow of a loving father.
Who could have guessed the disgust he felt toward the child inside her?
"Mrs. Grayson, seeing how much Mr. Grayson dotes on you, I finally understand why you're so determined to have a child for him. He's worth it. Unlike the husbands I've seen before, who only get angry and force their wives through injections and medication."
The nurse administering Clara's injection couldn't help sighing. Clara felt nothing but bitterness.
At least those husbands truly wanted their children to be born. Unlike hers…
"I miss my mom. I want to go home and see her."
Clara looked up at Ethan, watching every change in his expression.
Ethan paused briefly, then quickly recovered.
"Once you give birth, I'll take you back to see her. In your condition, it's not convenient for you to leave the hospital."
His expression was open and calm, giving no hint of deceit.
"But before giving birth, I want to visit the old place. I want Mom to give me some courage. I'm afraid I won't make it off the operating table."
Ethan seemed oblivious to the deep sorrow in her voice. He sat beside the bed and pulled her into his arms.
"Don't worry too much. You and the baby will be fine. If you want to go back, that's fine too. I'll have someone clean things up so you won't get hurt."
Clara understood. He was planning to deal with the mistress in advance.
That was fine. She didn't want to see that woman either. She just didn't want that filthy pair to keep defiling her mother's house.
What she never expected was that she would still come face to face with the mistress Ethan had protected for so long.
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8.0
Elena never planned on marrying a stranger, especially not someone engaged to her sister. But when her sister disappears days before the wedding, Elena is forced into an arrangement she never agreed to, with a man she knew nothing about.
Nathaniel Sinclair, billionaire heir with his dreamy looks and charming attitude is just as unenthusiastic about the situation as she is. Their marriage begins with distance, awkward silences and the quiet understanding that neither of them asked for this.
But as days turn into weeks and forced proximity becomes a regular thing, Elena starts to wonder: what happens when two people trapped in an arrangement begin to fall for each other?
It was never meant to be love. But love has a way of rewriting the rules.
7.1
I woke up gasping for air, expecting the cold concrete of a prison cell, but my fingers sank into the plush leather of a luxury Lincoln. I was twenty-four again, wearing the silver silk dress from the night my life was systematically destroyed.
Beside me sat my cousin Catrina, the woman whose carefully crafted lies had orchestrated my ruin and sent me to a penitentiary for five years.
In my first life, this was the night the dominoes fell. Catrina stole my jewelry to paint me as mentally unstable, and by morning, I was stripped of my medical license and labeled a criminal. My mother’s family, the Montgomerys, stood by and watched as my father’s company was devoured by wolves, treating my existence like a "liability" that needed to be managed. I still felt the phantom tremors in my hands from prison fights and the stinging betrayal of being discarded by the people I called family.
I had lived through five years of absolute hell, a former surgeon rotting in a cell while the people who framed me toasted to their success at galas I was no longer invited to.
"Don't be selfish, Dawn," Catrina whispered, reaching for the necklace that would later be used as evidence against me. "Let the jewelry shine on someone who actually matters."
She thought I was still the fragile victim she could manipulate, but she didn't realize I had returned from the grave with the cold, clinical calculation of a fixer.
Instead of walking into her trap at the gala, I forced the car onto a dark service road and dragged a dying billionaire, Jennings Stafford, from the wreckage of a burning SUV.
He was the only man powerful enough to destroy my enemies, and as I stitched his wounds with stolen supplies, I didn't ask for a thank you.
I looked him dead in the eye and proposed a contract that would set the world on fire.
"I want a strategic marriage. You get a harmless wife with a legacy name to calm your board, and I get immunity from everyone who ever touched me."
The bill for my five years in prison had finally come due, and I was here to collect.
7.8
Helen was finally brought back to the luxurious Gallagher estate as their long-lost blood relative.
But her new family didn't welcome her; they looked at her with undisguised disgust.
The matriarch mocked her stench of poverty, while her step-sister Candice treated her like a feral animal. The patriarch, Fredy—who had built his empire by betraying Helen's mother—tried to break her spirit. He blackmailed Helen into attending a high-society gala by threatening to cut off her grandmother's medical funds.
At the gala, Candice squeezed into a diamond-encrusted gown, desperate to seduce the guest of honor, Damian Montgomery. Damian was the most powerful man in New York, and he was currently tearing the city apart looking for a mysterious woman named Jane.
Overhearing this, a sick, greedy smile spread across Candice's face. She planned to impersonate Jane to claim Damian's wealth and completely crush Helen under her heel.
"Hide in the corner tonight. Don't you dare try to speak to anyone important!"
They all thought Helen was just a helpless, uncultured country girl they could easily manipulate and step on to secure their stolen legacy.
What they didn't know was that Helen was the real Jane. She was the lethal shadow who had saved Damian in the woods, shattered his grip, and robbed his highly guarded vault just the night before.
Helen calmly adjusted her simple black dress and stepped into the ballroom, ready to tear their stolen world apart.
7.2
Nina had been by Julian's side for ten years, ostensibly as his personal doctor, but in reality, she was his lover.
Whenever he was injured in conflicts, she treated him; during his moments of loneliness, she was there to comfort him.
Nina believed that if she devoted enough, she would eventually win his heart.
That was until his idealized love returned to the country, rendering Nina worthless in his eyes, and he discarded her like yesterday's news.
Even his assistant couldn't bear to see it and advised Julian to appreciate her, but he scoffed at the suggestion. "Nina was never part of my life plan. I kept her around because she bore a slight resemblance to Aria."
In that instant, Nina's infatuation seemed like a joke.
When he wrapped his arm around his idealized love's waist, smiling as he asked her to help plan their wedding, Nina didn't cry or cause a scene; she just smiled through her tears and obediently agreed.
Then she turned around and dialed a number. "There are seven days left in the ten-year commitment. I am applying for termination, and from now on, I will have nothing to do with Julian."
9.8
Adeline's stepmother had secretly drugged her for years, turning a child genius into a drooling, mentally disabled laughingstock just so her stepsister could steal her life.
But when her greedy father sold her off to Griffin Herring—a violent, untouchable billionaire psychopath—to save his company, things took a deadly turn.
Before the wedding, Griffin attacked her in a dark alley, nearly snapping her neck before stealing her grandfather's silver necklace.
That necklace held a micro-drive with her family's deepest secrets, and without it, she had nothing.
Back at the estate, her situation only worsened. Her stepsister Damaris paraded around in the Herring family's diamond engagement gifts, trying to force-feed Adeline wet dog food on an Instagram live stream.
When Adeline's calculated "clumsiness" ruined the video, her furious father locked her in a damp, rusted basement.
"Give her to the psycho," her stepmother hissed through the door. "Let him lock her away forever."
Listening from the shadows, Adeline's fists clenched until her palms bled.
Her supposed mental fog wasn't a tragedy—it was a calculated assassination of her mind. They had destroyed her childhood and were now throwing her to a monster just to keep the billions.
The dull, empty look in Adeline's eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a razor-sharp, chilling clarity.
She pulled a thin surgical needle from her messy bun and picked the heavy iron padlock in ten seconds. It was time to break into the billionaire's penthouse, take back her necklace, and tear them all apart.
8.1
Allison was hiding in a dusty small-town garage, working as a mechanic to suppress the lethal, experimental serum freezing her veins.
But a call from her estranged, wealthy father shattered her peace.
He threatened to permanently freeze her dead mother's trust fund if she didn't return to the family estate immediately.
That trust fund held the only key to the truth behind her past and her survival.
When she stepped into the sprawling mansion in her faded hoodie, her family treated her like a stray dog.
Her stepmother mocked her cheap clothes, and her half-brother called her a piece of trash.
Her father tossed a vocational school enrollment form at her, telling her to learn to sew so they could marry her off to anyone desperate enough.
Her perfect, porcelain-doll stepsister Gwyneth even deliberately smashed a glass of boiling milk against her own leg.
"Why did you push me?!" Gwyneth screamed, crying tears of fake terror to frame Allison.
"You vicious bitch! You're just as sick as your mother!" her father roared, raising his hand to strike her.
They looked at her with absolute disgust, thinking she was just a stupid, uncultured hick they could easily manipulate and destroy.
They had no idea that the girl standing before them was a lethal operative who already possessed all their offshore tax ledgers and darkest secrets.
Allison easily caught her father's wrist mid-air, her grip like a steel vice.
"I'm not going to a trade school," she whispered coldly, ripping the form into pieces. "I am going to Crestwood Academy."
It was time to take back everything that belonged to her, with interest.