At first, there was emptiness.
I couldn’t feel the hospital bed beneath me. I couldn’t sense the weight of my arms or legs. Even the burning pain that should have filled my lungs—lungs that had swallowed seawater instead of air—was absent. My body lay motionless, hollow, as if abandoned. Yet my mind floated somewhere in between, neither fully asleep nor awake, drifting in a fog of half-awareness.
That was when voices seeped through the darkness.
“Sir, we can’t take any more blood.” The doctor’s voice trembled with urgency. “She nearly drowned. Her lungs were flooded. Her body is already failing. If we continue, she won’t survive—especially when she’s carrying your child.”
Pregnant?
The word echoed violently in my head, snapping something awake inside me. No. That couldn’t be right. I had never suspected it—not once. My body had always been unpredictable, my cycle unreliable. And Dominic and I were careful. Always. Protection. Precautions. I never allowed myself to hope for a child because hope required certainty—and we didn’t even have marriage.
Then I heard him.
Dominic’s voice sliced through the room, cold and merciless.
“I don’t care if she’s pregnant,” he said flatly. “And if she dies, then she dies. What does it matter?” His next words were even crueler. “Her blood matches Helena’s. Helena needs it more. If I have to choose, I’ll pick Helena every time. Seraphina is nothing. She isn’t even my wife. Proceed.”
The machines hummed louder, blending into an unbearable roar. My thoughts shattered. I wanted to scream, to move, to beg them to stop—but my body refused to obey. The darkness rushed back in, swallowing everything whole.
When I surfaced again, pain greeted me like a tidal wave.
My veins felt hollow, my muscles screamed, and my entire body throbbed as though life itself had been siphoned out of me. The words I’d heard before tangled with my thoughts. Had it really happened? Or was it just a nightmare born from trauma?
A nurse noticed my eyes flutter open and approached with a tight, sympathetic smile. “Miss Seraphina, please don’t move. You lost a significant amount of blood. You were rescued after drowning and brought here unconscious. You need rest.”
My throat burned as I swallowed. “I… was I pregnant?” The question barely made it past my lips.
She paused, surprise flickering across her face before her expression softened. “There’s no indication of that in your records.”
But I knew. I had heard them. I felt it—in the aching emptiness deep inside me. My chest tightened, my womb felt unbearably hollow. Tears slid silently down my temples.
“What about… my husband?” The word tasted bitter even as I said it. Dominic wasn’t my husband. Just the man I had loved. The man who carried Adrian’s heart. The man I had trusted with everything.
“Did anyone come to see me?” I asked.
The nurse hesitated before shaking her head. “No. You’ve been unconscious for three days. No visitors.”
I forced my lips into a fragile smile. “Please… I want to be alone.”
Once she left, the silence crushed me.
That was when the real pain settled in—not the physical agony, but the kind that gnawed relentlessly at the soul. I had mistaken familiarity for love. I had believed five years of devotion meant commitment. I had convinced myself that his care was genuine.
But to him, I had never been love.
I was convenience. I was pity. I was a substitute.
And I was foolish enough to mistake borrowed warmth for permanence.
My thoughts drifted back to Adrian.
Adrian—reckless, fearless, alive in every sense of the word. He had never made me doubt my worth. With him, love was certain. Honest. Fierce. If he were alive, he would never have abandoned me in a hospital bed. He would have fought the world for me.
And now his heart beat inside the man who destroyed me.
The irony was unbearable.
I waited all day, staring at the door, hoping Dominic would walk in. He never did.
By nightfall, something inside me finally broke.
Ignoring the pain tearing through my body, I forced myself out of bed, the IV tugging sharply at my arm. The hallway was dim, eerily quiet. That was when I heard it—his voice.
I froze in place.
“Are you sure it’s okay for you to stay here?” Helena murmured softly. “What about Seraphina? You took so much of her blood for me.”
Dominic laughed under his breath. “She’ll survive. And even if she doesn’t—so what? She’s insignificant.” His voice hardened. “The baby’s gone anyway. She’ll never find out.”
The world tilted.
Baby. Gone. Never know.
He continued without mercy. “I never loved her. I pitied her.” His voice faltered briefly before turning sharp again. “Adrian died because of me. I was drunk. I hit his car. I killed him. His family gave me his heart out of sympathy, never knowing the truth. When you left me, I was shattered. So I used her. She was nothing more than a replacement. But now you’re back—and divorced—let’s finally get married.”
Helena gasped. “Dominic… yes. I would love to. I always regretted leaving you.”
My stomach churned violently. I pressed myself against the wall, barely holding myself upright.
Every truth he revealed ripped something out of me.
Dominic—the man I had loved for five years—was the reason Adrian was dead. All the nights I mourned, all the tears I shed, I never imagined the monster lay beside me. He had killed Adrian. Then he took his heart. Then he took my life, piece by piece.
The man who carried Adrian’s heart was the very one who destroyed him.
My breath came out in broken gasps. Grief tangled with rage until I couldn’t separate them anymore.
I staggered away blindly, desperate to escape. My gaze landed on a phone resting on a nearby desk. With shaking hands, I grabbed it.
There was only one number I had memorized. One final lifeline.
When the call connected, my voice cracked completely. “Brother… it’s me. Seraphina.”
There was silence. Then a sharp breath.
“Do you still care about me?” I whispered through tears. “If you do… please help me.” My hands clenched the receiver. “Help me disappear. Help me fake my death.”
