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 4
Ivy was admitted to the hospital as well to rest and protect her pregnancy, placed in the room right next to Clara's.
With her barely noticeable baby bump, she knocked on Clara's door.
"Hello. My pregnancy isn't stable either. My husband was worried, so he had me admitted early."
There was a smug look on her face as she deliberately pushed her belly forward, the gesture reeking of provocation.
As Clara studied Ivy's features, a strange sense of familiarity washed over her, making her pause.
Ivy resembled Clara in her younger years, especially when she smiled. Only Clara had long forgotten how to smile after years spent walking through blood and gunfire.
She had no interest in engaging, merely casting Ivy a brief glance before turning to look out the window.
She did not blame Ivy at all. The only one she blamed was the man who had betrayed their bond.
Ivy slipped, barely managing to steady herself against the cabinet, and shot a pleading look toward Ethan nearby.
Ethan's gaze skimmed over Ivy briefly before he remained seated by the bed, tending to Clara instead.
Ivy clenched her teeth in fury.
She despised the slum apartment. It was rundown and unbearable.
What she really wanted was to live in Ethan's grand mansion.
But the thought that it was the place Clara had long cherished filled her with a twisted sense of satisfaction.
She had stayed by Ethan's side for so long—not for the title of a mistress, but for far more than that.
She wanted to be the mother of Ethan's only child. The real Mrs. Grayson.
"Ma'am, I heard you were hospitalized the moment you got pregnant. Sounds like this baby won't be easy to keep. Sometimes people just need to accept their fate, or else—"
"Shut up!" Ethan snapped in fury, his eyes blazing as he glared at Ivy.
"Who do you think you're cursing? Say one more word and I'll make sure you don't leave this hospital in one piece."
Clara watched Ethan's performance of playing the devoted protector with a blank face, her lips curling into a mocking smile.
Watching him now, who would have guessed they had been tangled together in passion not long ago?
She could no longer stand their act and turned her face away, closing her eyes.
All she wanted now was to love herself and take care of her body.
As for Ethan, they would be strangers from now on.
There was no need for her to care about what happened between him and other women.
But before she left, the two of them would have to pay for their deception.
Late at night, Clara had a nightmare.
She dreamed of the time she was pregnant with her first child, when Ethan, reckless and young, had angered a Harborcliff gang leader and been kidnapped. The man had vowed to kill him.
Everyone under him had been terrified, none daring to step forward to save him.
Only Clara, five months pregnant, had walked into the gang leader's stronghold alone, guns in hand.
She had been shot six times along the way. The child was lost, and as pain dragged her into darkness, she hadn't even thought about saving Ethan, only that dying together as a family might not be so bad.
Gunfire echoed in her ears. Clara gasped for breath, snapping awake as she forced herself upright.
Deep fear flickered in her eyes.
If the Harborcliff leader hadn't been the man who had abandoned her and her mother years ago, she would have long since...
After a long while, her emotions finally settled, a sardonic smile tugging at her lips.
Ethan was truly laughable. Did he really think controlling the underworld of Asterfall meant he could stand against Harborcliff?
Without her holding things in place, how could Harborcliff have remained so quiet all these years?
She took a deep breath, forced herself to calm down, closed her eyes, and tried to fall back asleep.
Instead, she heard a man's ragged breathing and a woman's breathless moans coming from the room next door.
She had heard those familiar voices during a voice call not long ago.
Enduring the pain in her lower abdomen, she forced herself up and limped toward the neighboring room.
The door was not fully closed. Inside, the man and woman were tangled together like beasts, their eyes filled with raw desire.
"Honey, you scared me this afternoon. I don't want to talk to you."
Ivy deliberately dodged Ethan's kiss, pressing a hand against his lips in protest.
"If you care so much about that old woman, why did you force me to be with you? If I'd known, I would've rather died than given in."
Ethan panted heavily, urgency flashing in his eyes as desire consumed his gaze, leaving only the woman before him.
"If I didn't care about you, why would I have saved the special medicine for you? I just didn't want you exposing our affair to Clara. She's been with me for so many years. Even if she hasn't done much, she's suffered plenty. If this got out, who knows what my people would say about me?"
Satisfied at last, Ivy leaned in and kissed Ethan.
"You're with her every day. I just get jealous and can't help saying a few extra things."
Ivy straightened up and straddled Ethan's waist, savoring the way his gaze burned with obsession.
"If you treat me like this again, I'll ignore you completely and leave you suffering."
Outside the door, Clara's chest rose and fell with rage.
Agonizing pain tore through her lower body, blood flowing freely, yet she seemed unaware of it.
Perhaps it was better this way. The child was gone.
She collapsed onto the floor, her face drained of all color.
A nurse's startled cry rang out, "Quick, save her!"
Numb and detached, Clara was rushed back into the emergency room by the doctors and nurses.
Behind her, the sounds of bodies colliding and mingled moans grew louder, hammering against Clara's ears.
Though she had long prepared herself for this, witnessing Ethan lost in another woman still made her heart ache.
After more than a decade, she still couldn't bring herself to let it all go.
In the emergency room, Clara finally steadied herself and said softly, "Terminate the pregnancy."
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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.