I toyed with the dagger and leaned close to Evie.
Zavier, who hadn’t flinched even when his finger was cut off, instantly panicked and threw himself over her protectively.
“Don’t touch her! Tiffany, don’t force me to fight you with my life!”
That look, that tone, dragged me back to the bloody night five years ago.
That night, when the enemies came, all ten bodyguards in the villa were killed. Their leader demanded that Xavier hand me over, promising that if they had their fun, he would be spared.
His eyes were red as he shielded me, forcing himself to stand against them all. And he had said the exact same words. “Don’t force me to risk my life. I’m afraid there aren’t enough of you to die.”
Then he had turned, gently covering my eyes with a silk scarf. “Don’t look. Your brother is here. To bleed for you, I’m willing.”
Too many people had died that night. By the end, I had grown numb to the screams echoing around me.
At dawn, I discovered he had already prepared a plane ticket for me, one way, and only for me.
Blood dripped slowly from his severed finger, each drop striking my ears like a drum.
He tore a piece of his shirt and expertly bound the wound. “Tiffany, don’t force me to hate you.”
The memory overlapped with eight years ago.
When he had chopped off my boyfriend’s hands, he had smiled at me and whispered, “Tiffany, hate me. If you can’t love me, at least hate will make you remember me.”
Perhaps our relationship had twisted from that very moment, a wrong beginning, destined never to have a good ending.
Evie pulled the gun from Zavier’s waist, trembling so violently her movements were chaotic.
“If you dare hurt Zavier, I won’t let you live!”
Too bad the fool hadn’t even known how to pull the trigger.
I advanced step by step as she screamed frantically, panic dripping from every word. In a flash, I struck her wrist and wrenched the gun into my own hand.
I leveled it at her forehead.
Evie collapsed like rotting flesh, clutching her head as she crouched in terror, her screams piercing the air.
“If you want revenge, know your place. Zavier, your taste is appalling.”
I took the ashes with me and left the chaos behind.
But Zavier didn’t return home, and likely never would again.
A night passed, and the world outside whispered that I had fallen from favor, that the blood-drenched demon who licked knives had been replaced.
For Evie, he had reformed himself, even going to prison to apologize one by one to those he had wronged, all in the name of accumulating virtue for their next child.
He reshaped the company, cutting every tie to the Morrison family. But I knew the only person he truly wanted to sever—was me.
He could shower Evie with gemstones worth tens of millions without hesitation. At a single word from her, he would spend recklessly to build a church.
When I heard the news, I laughed until I doubled over, tears streaming down my face.
“Denver, do you think God would even dare live in a man like that’s church?”
Denver said nothing.
But I understood, we had long since lost any protection from God. We were destined to dwell forever in darkness and blood.
He did so much, so much, for Evie, and I only pretended not to see.
Then the doctor’s message arrived. Evie was pregnant again, and Zavier was overjoyed, convinced it was the blessing of building the church.
He began preparing their wedding, blocked my number, and let only his lawyer contact me about the divorce.
I handed the phone to Denver.
“Sir has really gone too far this time. Tiffany, are you truly going to divorce?”
I shook my head. “In my life, there is no divorce. Only widowhood.”
“He wants a wedding, doesn’t he? Then I’ll give him a wedding.”
The night before their wedding, Evie sent me a message.
[I told you long ago, you can’t conceive because of your sins. But I am different from you.]
[Tiffany, give up. Zavier can only be mine.]
I laughed, cold and low.
She wanted Zavier, the man. What I wanted was his life.
On the wedding day, the hall was packed with guests, the same people who had once witnessed my wedding with Zavier.
He drove the wedding car to the hotel to pick up the bride. The door opened, the light dimmed, and a figure in pure white appeared, her back ethereal, like an angel.
He rushed forward, impatience blazing, and embraced what he thought was his salvation.
“Evie, thank you….”
In that instant, he turned, and blood burst forth.
My cunning smile was revealed.
The lights flared on, and the floor was no longer covered with red petals, but with rivers of blood.
