He Harvested Our Daughter's Bone Marrow , Then I Showed Him the Fake Marriage Certificate

Eight months pregnant, and Thomas Gilbert had me committed to a psych ward fifteen times. I had him hauled to a police station sixteen.

All because whenever I leaked footage of him and his first love getting intimate, he'd have me institutionalized.

A few days of "treatment" later, I'd inevitably drag him right back to the precinct.

After ninety-nine rounds of filing for divorce, both sets of parents finally cracked under the chaos and stepped in to mediate a reconciliation.

He burned the betrothal gifts the Shen family had sent for me. I shredded the marriage contract the Liu family had drawn up for him.

At the courthouse, he held me so tight I could barely breathe.

"No more fighting."

"If you don't want her around, I'll make her leave."

"From now on, it's just us and our baby. We'll be a real family."

His voice was soft as water. My eyes burned red.

We remarried. Tracey Harding vanished without a trace.

Until the day of our daughter's first birthday party, when Lily Abbott was snatched right out from under us.

I called in every connection I had, searching everywhere like a woman gone mad.

Twenty-four hours later, I finally found my daughter in a hospital bed, barely clinging to life.

Thomas was standing right beside her.

He had another child in his arms, the same age as Lily. His tone was casual.

"Douglas has a congenital bone marrow deficiency. Our daughter happened to be a perfect match, so I had them extract a little."

The air locked in my chest. My gaze dropped to the patient chart at the foot of the bed.

Name: Douglas Gilbert.

Father: Thomas Gilbert.

Mother: Tracey Harding.

So getting rid of Tracey had been a lie.

He'd kept her. And for the sake of their illegitimate son, he'd drained our daughter's bone marrow.

I forced the corners of my mouth up. The expression on my face twisted into something unrecognizable.

Good thing the marriage certificate from our remarriage was fake too.

We were even.

...

The hospital room was dead silent.

Then Lily let out a weak, agonized whimper.

I snapped back and rushed to her side.

Her tiny body was threaded with tubes, her face white as paper.

I reached out to touch her, but my fingers shook too badly to make contact.

Thomas was still over by the other bed, murmuring softly to that bastard child like nothing in the world was wrong.

Something hot and corrosive ripped through my chest. I wanted to scream at him, but no sound came out.

The door swung open. A team of doctors filed in.

Every single one of them went straight to Thomas, crowding around the child in his arms.

I lost it.

"That bastard is fine! My daughter is the one who had her bone marrow ripped out of her!"

The doctors froze mid-step. Only Thomas glanced my way.

He set the boy down on the bed with exaggerated care, then looked at me with open irritation.

"After all these years, you still have no class."

"Douglas just came out of surgery. He's fragile right now. What's the rush?"

I stood there, stunned.

By what he said. By what he did.

From the day Lily was born, he had never once shown this kind of devotion.

I could count the number of times he'd held her on one hand.

I'd always assumed he just didn't like children.

Or that, like he used to say when we were young, he loved me more than he could ever love a kid.

Turns out he'd built an entire family on the side.

Turns out he was perfectly capable of tenderness. Just not for us.

I almost laughed.

"Thomas Gilbert, you kidnapped our daughter and had her bone marrow harvested for your bastard son!"

"You want to lecture me about class? Where's your conscience? Did you feed it to the dogs?"

Behind me, Lily whimpered again, the sound thin and raw.

I whipped around and screamed at the doctors.

Not a single one moved.

They stood there until Thomas gave a slight nod. Only then did they drift over, running through a perfunctory check on Lily.

"Your daughter is fine. She just needs rest."

The doctor's tone was offhand, dismissive.

Even someone like me, with half a medical degree under her belt, could see that was a lie. It was nowhere near that simple.

My fists clenched on their own, nails digging crescents into my palms.

"She's one year old. She just had bone marrow extracted from her body. And you think a visual exam is enough?"

"Get me different doctors. Now."

The doctors in front of me didn't so much as blink.

I bolted into the hallway and found the entire floor deserted.

After a long silence, the lead physician finally spoke.

"Ma'am, please calm down."

"Mr. Gilbert reserved every room on this floor. Without his authorization, no one gets in."

"Now if you could step aside, we need to continue the young master's treatment."

I stared the doctor down and didn't move.

Behind me, a cluster of nurses whispered among themselves, every word carrying in the stillness.

"Everyone knows Mr. Gilbert only cares about the young master. She's just the mother of some illegitimate daughter, and she has the nerve to throw a fit?"

"Exactly. If she can't even leverage her own child for status, what kind of mistress is she?"

I bit down on my lower lip until I tasted iron, then forced myself to look at Thomas.

He acted as though he hadn't heard a word. Completely unbothered.

No correction. No defense.

He was just watching the child on the other bed, his gaze lingering with a tenderness I'd never once been given.

"Stop making a scene. Douglas just fell asleep."

"No wonder God made you wait all those years before giving you a child. You don't have the first idea how to be a mother."

My eyes went wide.

My hand moved before I could think. The slap cracked across his face.

A sharp sound split the quiet. Half his face swelled red, and his brow furrowed.

"Thomas Gilbert. You know exactly why I couldn't get pregnant all those years."

He stiffened. The crease in his brow slowly relaxed into something blank.

"Enough. That was forever ago. How long are you going to hold onto it?"

I was going to hold onto it for as long as it took.

"When your company was just getting off the ground, I was the one they poured drinks into at those business dinners. I ended up with alcohol poisoning."

"When your rivals kidnapped you and threw you into the ocean, I traded myself to get you back. I nearly died."

"And then, two years ago, the first time I caught you with Tracey Harding."

I locked onto his eyes and did not look away.

"I had just found out I was pregnant. But you were so afraid it would upset her that you forced me to abort. And after that, I could barely conceive again."

Thomas couldn't meet my eyes.

I let out a bitter laugh, the taste of it like ash.

"If I'd known it would come to this, I never should have remarried you."

He finally lowered his head.

"I... You're right. I owe you for all of that."

I closed my eyes.

"You've owed me for years, Thomas. Every single one of them."