"This child is your own flesh and blood. The doctor said if we wait two more hours, he won't survive..."
I had been married to Antony for three years. Three years of being the dutiful Mrs. Gilbert, keeping my place, never making a fuss.
Even when I knew his heart had always belonged to Betty, I swallowed it in silence.
All I wanted was to bring this baby into the world.
I lowered myself as far as a person could go. For this child, I was willing to give up everything.
"Please... just let me deliver this baby. I'll hand everything else over to Betty!"
Antony looked down at me, his gaze cold and remote.
"As if it's yours to hand over."
"Everything Betty wants, I'll give her myself."
"I made her a promise. Only she would bear my firstborn."
His tone was flat, but every word cut like a blade.
"The eldest son of the Gilbert family inherits everything. Your child was conceived in wedlock. I'll give him the best life, provide for him for as long as he lives."
"It's only a two-hour delay. That small inconvenience is something my son can handle."
Handle?
That was a living, breathing life!
A tiny being who had spent ten months inside me, kicking me every day, responding to my voice.
My whole body shook with sobs. Pain and despair crashed over me like a tide, dragging me under.
The doctors and nurses watched me. Their eyes brimmed with sympathy, but not one of them dared defy Antony's orders.
The cold needle pierced my skin again.
The fluid crept into my veins. The contractions intensified violently, yet somehow I couldn't feel them anymore.
I stared at the ceiling with hollow eyes.
And I felt the movement inside me fade. Little by little.
From frantic thrashing, to feeble squirming, to nothing at all.
"No fetal heartbeat!"
The doctor's voice trembled. "The baby... there are no vital signs!"
In that moment, something inside me died too.
I couldn't tell if it was real or a dream. Voices swirled around me, urgent and frantic.
"Where's the family? Who here is Lauren Fisher's next of kin?"
"The patient is critical. She needs emergency surgery. We need a family member to sign the consent form!"
No one answered. No echo came back.
A young nurse nearby spoke up.
"I recognize her. Isn't she Mrs. Gilbert? Her husband is Antony Gilbert. He just went home to make bird's nest soup for the woman in Room 7."
Then, in the middle of all that chaos—
A calm, measured voice cut through.
"I'll sign."
The air went still.
The doctor looked up, confused. "And you are? What's your relation to the patient?"
"I'm her... older brother."
The paperwork was handled quickly after that.
I was wheeled back into the operating room for another emergency procedure.
But even after surgery, the doctors' faces remained grim.
"The patient's will to live is dangerously weak. The surgical outcome is far from ideal."
"Whether she wakes up depends entirely on her."
I knew.
I was the one who didn't want to live anymore.
But just as the last flicker of fight drained out of me, a man's voice reached me from somewhere above.
"Lauren Fisher. Are you really going to die like this? Quietly? Like a coward?"
"The people who killed you, who killed your child, are still out there. Living their lives without a care in the world."
"They'd be happy if you died. Happy you got out of the way. Is that really what you want? To give them exactly what they're hoping for?"
No.
I would not die like this.
I would avenge my child.
A nurse's startled cry rang out beside me.
