David hadn't even finished talking before my mother-in-law's messages came flooding in.
【Vera Sullivan, what kind of wife are you? You just let that little fox Dora Fox walk all over you?】
【I don't care what you have to do. I want my son back safe and sound. Otherwise I'm coming for Dora Fox first, and you second.】
【Who are you on the phone with? Why is the line always busy? Vera Sullivan, answer me. Do you even have an ounce of respect for me as your mother-in-law!】
My head was splitting. I turned the phone off.
Just like last time, Byron and Dora had been caught in a massive avalanche.
In conditions that extreme, the guide had vanished and the rescue and medical teams couldn't move an inch.
Byron thought he'd prepared for everything, that the tragedy from his previous life wouldn't repeat itself.
But he'd forgotten: no one wins against nature.
Refuse to respect it, and you'd better be ready to be swallowed whole.
The day after Byron and Dora went missing, the rescue team contacted both me and my mother-in-law.
The moment Mabel heard something had happened to Byron, she stormed into the hospital and demanded I prostrate myself every three steps all the way to the holiest church she could find and pray for his safety.
I refused. Mabel, who had always been so careful about appearances in public, jabbed her finger at my face and called me a venomous woman.
“How did the Whitney family end up married to a curse like you? A disgrace to this house. An absolute disgrace.”
“No father, no mother, raised in a children's home. I said from the start you had no business setting foot in the Whitney household. But my son knelt in the family hall for three days and three nights, not a drop of water, not a grain of rice, and I loved him too much to say no.”
“Now my son could be dead for all we know, and you don't lift a finger. Heaven won't forgive this. You'll pay for it.”
No matter how she raged, I felt nothing.
And the things she said weren't exaggerations.
In the beginning, Byron loved me deeply.
Even when the whole world stood against us, he still chose me without hesitation.
Once, when he was overseas on business, I caught a cold and a fever, took medicine, and fell asleep before I could pick up his call. When he couldn't reach me, he panicked so badly he abandoned a deal worth hundreds of millions and flew back.
When my cramps were bad during my period, his eyes went red with worry, and he'd stay up the entire night rubbing my back and my stomach.
There had been so many beautiful, precious memories between us.
None of that stopped him from changing.
By the third year of our marriage, he started saying I wasn't presentable enough. Other men's wives could hold their own at a dinner table and still run a household, he said. They were worth showing off.
He picked me apart until I felt worthless. I suggested getting a job, easing myself back into the world. He immediately backtracked and said that wasn't what he meant.
By year six, he was barely coming home.
Friends around me warned me that a man acting the way Byron was acting would almost certainly end up cheating. I hired a private investigator. Nothing turned up.
Byron didn't have another woman.
He just didn't love me anymore.
In year ten, Byron met Dora Fox.
Dora was the artsy type. Melancholy and brightness lived side by side in her, fragility braided with strength, and it drew Byron's gaze effortlessly.
But her most striking quality was her hunger for extremes, for risk. She was nothing like me, dull and uninteresting, whose entire world revolved around Byron.
I watched the man I loved fall for someone else.
And there was nothing I could do.
A ringing phone shattered the memory.
It was David.
Mabel saw the caller ID and snatched the phone out of my hand before I could answer.
“Is there news about Byron?”
Wind and snow howled through the phone. David was gasping for breath, his voice distorted by exhaustion.
“Mrs. Whitney? Here's the situation — conditions are brutal out here, and we still haven't found Byron. But there's good news: Dora and the baby are both fine.”
Mabel's eyes went venomous, spit flying as she shrieked. ：“Why is that slut Dora Fox still alive? She did this to my son — she deserves to rot in the deepest pit of hell!”
“Mrs. Whitney, please calm down——”
David's voice cut off. A few seconds later he erupted into a shout of wild, disbelieving joy. ：“Mrs. Whitney, they found Byron! The rescue team is carrying him over right now.”
“Thank the Lord, thank God!”
Mabel was shaking so badly she nearly dropped the phone.
The call was still connected.
Half a minute passed before David's voice came back. ：“Mrs. Whitney, you and Vera need to prepare yourselves. Byron, he……”
