Just moments before the nurses wheeled me into pre-op, my phone buzzed on the tray beside me. One new notification. A message. No text, no greeting—just a single video file from Marcelline.
I should’ve ignored it. Deleted it without a glance. But curiosity, or maybe pain, got the better of me.
My trembling fingers tapped on the screen, and suddenly, the image flickered to life—Toby and Marcelline.
She was straddling his lap, his mouth buried against her neck, whispering something low and rough that made her laugh breathlessly. Her nails scraped down his chest with the confidence of someone who had done it countless times before—someone who knew every way to make him fall apart.
Then he kissed her.
Slow. Possessive. Too familiar. The kind of kiss that used to silence the world for me.
But it wasn’t the kiss that killed me. It was what I noticed next. When he leaned back, his shirt slipped off his shoulder, revealing a mark—a small, red, spade-shaped birthmark just below his collarbone.
That was when I knew.
Toby.
Not Leon. Not anyone else. Him.
A bitter smile curved my lips, the kind that belongs to someone who just found their own grave. There it was—the final confirmation. Yet, somehow, my heart still refused to let go. It kept reaching for one last illusion. One last miracle.
So I did the one thing I promised myself I wouldn’t. I called him.
If he answered… if he heard my voice… if he still chose me, I would let everything go—the betrayal, the lies, the fake death, the other woman. I would forgive it all for our child. For the love that refused to die no matter how much it bled.
The phone rang once. Twice. Then a click.
“Aria…” His voice came through, deep, tired, familiar. “I’ve got something to take care of. Let the driver take you home. We’ll talk when I’m back.”
Then came a sound that froze my veins—
A moan. Soft at first, then louder. A woman’s moan.
Marcelline’s.
There was no mistaking her. No hesitation. She didn’t even try to muffle it. Another sound followed—her voice trembling, breathless, calling his name.
“Toby…”
The line went dead. A dull beep… beep… beep… filled the silence.
I didn’t cry this time. My tears were gone. My soul was dry.
I looked at the nurse beside me, my voice hollow, steady.
“It’s fine,” I whispered. “Go ahead with the procedure.”
And as the lights above blurred into white, I swore to myself—
The next time he hears my voice… will be the last time he ever breathes in peace.
---
By the time I returned home, darkness had already swallowed the sky.
The marble floors gleamed cold beneath my shoes as I stepped into the house—and there he was.
Toby. Still wearing Leon’s mask, still pretending to be the noble twin, the grieving man who had lost his brother.
“The driver said you went shopping after your appointment,” he said lightly, smiling like nothing was wrong. “You didn’t buy anything?”
His tone was casual, teasing. Normal. As if I hadn’t just buried the only part of him he didn’t even know existed.
Halfway through, his smile faded. His gaze locked on mine. He noticed—the redness in my eyes, the swollen lids, the dry tracks of salt on my cheeks.
“Aria… what’s wrong? Did something happen?” His voice softened. “Did you… see something at the hospital? Did you miss Toby again?”
He moved closer, pretending concern. His hand hovered near my arm.
“It’s alright,” he murmured gently. “That baby inside you—that’s Toby’s legacy. That’s what keeps him alive. Hold on to that.”
I stared back at him. Those eyes—gray, smoke-soft, full of that familiar flicker that used to melt every part of me. The same eyes I once trusted with my entire being.
And now, they were the same ones I saw in that video, looking up at Marcelline while she moved over him like I was already dead.
I turned away without a word and walked straight to my room.
---
The moment I hit the bed, exhaustion claimed me. For the first time since his “death,” I slept without tears, without nightmares.
In my dream, he was eighteen again—nervous, flushed, his hands sweating as he confessed under a fading sunset.
“Aria… I really like you. Will you be my girlfriend? I swear I’ll treat you right.”
And I believed him. Maybe because the sky was gold that day. Maybe because his eyes carried a kind of light I would never see again after the lies.
I said yes. And that one yes destroyed me forever.
---
When I woke, morning light was spilling through the curtains, too bright, too cruel. I was still sitting in bed, lost in nothingness, when the door creaked open.
Marcelline walked in.
The woman who ruined everything. The one he gave me up for.
But she didn’t look like someone dying. Her skin glowed. Her cheeks were flushed. Her lips painted. And she was wearing my silk robe—the ivory one trimmed with lace.
The same one Toby used to say made me look like “heaven wearing sin.”
And worse, I could smell it—the faint trace of my perfume. The one I wore the night he proposed.
Marcelline stopped at the foot of my bed, arms crossed, lips curling into a smile that was all venom and vanity.
“You know why I sent you that video?” she asked, voice honey-sweet but sharp as glass. “You honestly thought he was Leon? You believed I was your sweet sister-in-law?”
She laughed softly, stepping closer, her tone darkening.
“Wake up, darling. I’ve been sharing your husband’s bed all this time.”
The words hit like shards.
Her laughter rang through the room—rich, cruel, mocking. She spun once, the robe swirling around her legs.
“Poor Aria,” she said with a sigh of fake pity. “You really thought I was dying? God, no. I just needed space… and a reason for people not to question why he was always with me.”
She turned, eyes glinting like a knife.
“I had Toby the moment I came back. He was easy to win. Tell me, do you honestly think a man like him would ever choose someone as fragile as you over me?”
Her voice dropped to a deadly whisper.
“Oh, and before I forget—” she leaned in, smiling wider, “I’m the legal wife. Paper signed. Seal stamped. You were just the warm-up act.”
She laughed again, a victorious, echoing sound that filled the room like poison.
“Toby Mercer may have loved you once, Aria,” she said, voice soft but cruel. “But he’s mine. Always has been. Always will be.”
