The Seventh Letter in the Mailbox

"Alan." With every ounce of my strength, I turned my gaze to him. "Do you really... hate me that much?"

He stood by the window, his back to me, posture rigid. But his voice was pure ice. "I don't hate you. I just despise you for occupying a place that was never yours."

"A place that was never mine..." The words tasted like ash. "The title of Mrs Ellie. *You* begged me to take it. Have you forgotten? Your family's empire was on the brink. You needed a 'miracle baby' to save it all. And I was the only one who could give you that child."

His body went rigid.

That was the Ellie family's deepest secret—the only reason I'd held the name of Mrs Ellie for four years.

Behind its glittering façade, the Alan's Group was rotten, clinging to life by a single thread: this unborn child.

"So what?"

He turned. His eyes held nothing but deep, unyielding revulsion. "You think I care? For Janet, I'd abandon the Alan's Group without a second thought. I'd give my life."

How noble. How utterly devoted.

And something inside me finally snapped.

Just then, Janet returned.

Gliding to Alan's side, she slipped her arm through his. "Alan," she said, her voice soft, "I've calmed your parents down and sent them home. I told them Ellie is fine, that there's nothing to worry about."

I stared, my gaze burning. How could one person be so utterly, irredeemably cruel?

She didn't just want me dead. She wanted to sever every lifeline.

Perhaps my expression was too raw, too fierce. Janet flinched—but then her smile only grew sweeter.

"Alan, look," she said, false concern threading her tone. "Ellie's labor isn't progressing. It starts and stops. That's not good for the baby." She paused, a thoughtful look crossing her face. "You know, during my internship abroad, I worked with a brilliant obstetrics professor. He taught me a method to help women in labor... Perhaps I could try it?"

Her "try" meant nurses bringing ropes to tie my wrists and ankles to the delivery bed.

Then she picked up a long syringe and drove the needle into my arm.

"Janet! What are you giving me?"

My scream was pure terror.

"Don't be afraid," she purred, all sweetness and poison. "It's to stabilize the pregnancy. You don't want to give birth, do you? I'm helping you."

Cold fluid entered my veins. The excruciating, tearing pain that had consumed me vanished as if by magic.

In its place settled a deeper, colder despair.

She was going to drain the life from me. Slowly. Deliberately.