He Killed Our Baby for His Mistress, So I Bought His Empire

On my thirty-second birthday, the gift I'd waited so long for turned out to be my husband, Lewis Thomas, and my adopted sister, Violet Fox, dragging me into an underground lab with a hundred people watching.

Bodyguards stepped forward and pinned my arms. Violet held up the drug for everyone to see. Lewis stood off to the side, his face blank.

More than a hundred of them, all polished and glittering, watched the scene the way people watch an animal in a cage, contempt in their eyes, smiles on their lips.

The needle went into my skin, and a wrenching cramp tore through my lower belly. Warmth spilled out of me at once, staining the pure white lab table a bright, wet red.

Amid the murmurs of all those wealthy guests, Lewis kissed Violet's cheek and pulled the side of her face against his chest. "Don't look. You faint at the sight of blood."

My husband looked at me, at the agony written all over my face, and felt nothing.

"You need to grow up. This is your sister's experiment. All you lost was a child."

Lewis and I had known each other thirteen years, from the day we met, to the day we understood each other, to the proposal, to now, our fifth year of marriage. For thirteen years we'd dreamed of the day we'd have a baby.

That was why I'd endured it, five rounds of IVF before one finally took.

And he'd let a whim of Violet's, a genetic experiment on a living body, take my baby away from me for good.

The doctor had already told me. I would never be able to conceive again.

Once the lab was empty and I was the only one left, I pulled the bloody needle out of my arm and, my head swimming, took out my phone.

The moment it lit up, a livestream notification popped up.

I tapped it without thinking, and there they were, Violet and Lewis, stripped from the waist up, chests pressed together, moving against each other.

The comment feed was flooding with gifts, everyone screaming at them to take more off.

I closed the stream and dialed a number that had lain quiet on my block list for five years.

"I've made up my mind. I'll divorce him, and then I'll come to you."

...

"You're sure you want the divorce, want to join our project? We could get a special assignment at any moment and have to ship out. Take some time to think it over." Professor Armstrong's voice pressed me again through the receiver.

I bit down on the tip of my tongue to steady my voice. "There's nothing to think over, Professor. Lewis cheated on me."

"From college until now, the two of you were the perfect couple in everyone's eyes at that school." There was a sigh under his words.

Professor Armstrong had been our faculty advisor back in the day. He'd watched Lewis and me weather everything together.

I glanced at the file beside my hand and let a mocking curve pull at my mouth. Thirteen years of feeling, worth less than the novelty a stranger brought.

Seeing how firm I was, he stopped trying to talk me out of it.

Lewis had found his true love. And I was going to go find my own life.

After I hung up, I took the file and had a car drive me straight to Thomas Group's headquarters.

The moment I walked into his office, I set it down in front of him. "Sign it."

Lewis raised an eyebrow, looking at me with impatience. "You know I never sign anything without reading it."

I looked straight into his face. "It's the report from the experiment a few days ago. You killed my child, and now you won't even sign the report on it?"

"Killed? That fetus of yours was meant to be weeded out! Survival of the fittest. You don't understand that?" His back went rigid, his neck strained as he shouted at me.

I lowered my eyes. I couldn't be bothered to argue.

"You should thank Violet. If it weren't for her, do you think you'd be getting to drop that burden in your belly this easily?"

"Don't be so thin-skinned about it."

I kept my eyes down, my hands balled into fists under the desk, the knuckles white. "Of course."

Soon I forced the mist in my eyes to clear and stared, unblinking, at that face of his.

He seemed to see through the disappointment in my eyes, and relented. "I'll have to look it over. Give me five minutes."

With that, he took the file into his hands.

I watched his face, and saw something serious surface in his eyes.

It was Lewis's occupational habit. Any document that passed through his hands, he had to read to the last word and turn over in his mind for a long while before signing.

He was just about to open the cover when his personal assistant shoved the door open and burst in.

Lewis glared at him, furious.

"Something's wrong, Mr. Thomas. Miss Fox, she—" The assistant caught sight of me and stopped short.

"Out with it! Never mind who's here!" The fury in Lewis's eyes gave way entirely to worry.

"Miss Fox has been hospitalized!" The assistant no longer looked at me. "The experiment a few days ago frightened her. She hasn't been able to eat these last few days—"

Lewis shot up from the leather chair, his eyes vicious on me. "You're the one who frightened Violet!"

For days I'd been fighting my way through the pain of losing my child, and he was worried about Violet being frightened.

Somewhere along the way, Lewis had shown me nothing but a poker face. And now his own face was hung, plain and bright, with worry.

Not for me. For that adopted sister of mine who had everything. Violet.

I straightened up, and a dry, cracked voice came out of my throat. "Sign it before you go. You were there at that experiment too, after all."

His gaze swept over me, more impatient now. "Are you done?"

"Can't it wait till I'm back?" His face was dark. "You only lost a child. She's gone two whole days without eating!"

I forced out a smile. "Sign it. This is the one time I'll ever ask you to sign something. The last time too."

His expression eased a little.

He knew what a stubborn woman I was. I'd never once let him give me a gift of his own accord.

He snatched up the pen, flipped carelessly to the last page, and signed without so much as a glance. "There. Are you satisfied now?"

"Your sister needs me right now. And you, my wife, keep badgering me over a signature. Take your experiment report and get out!"

He threw the file onto the floor.

Ever since my parents adopted Violet, she'd taken away every bit of family love I had. My parents always felt she was an orphan, that she needed their love more. And now she'd taken my love away too. She'd even destroyed the only child I would ever have.

Lewis didn't notice how red my eyes had gone. He hurried out, leaving me alone in his office.

I picked the file up off the floor and left.

The employees pointed and whispered, all of them laughing at how much I'd meant it.

I took out my phone and called the one person I hadn't spoken to in five years.

Rudolph Mason.

"I want to see you now." That long-lost voice came through the receiver.

"Give me seven days. In seven days I'll come to the city where you are." I turned him down.

The divorce papers needed seven days to take effect. And in those seven days, I was going to let them taste what it felt like to lose everything.