Right in front of Raiden, I was ready to jump off the building.
At the very last second, he caught me, shaking as he begged for forgiveness.
Like every man caught cheating, he cried and admitted he was wrong.
He said it was all a misunderstanding. He said he still loved me and pleaded for another chance.
That night, Raiden knelt before me, tears running down his face as he looked up. “Elysia, please forgive me just this once, okay?”
I made the second biggest mistake of my life. I decided to forgive him.
For the sake of our child.
Because of the love, I still couldn’t let go of.
Also, because my mother had just been in a car crash, and I had nowhere else to go.
So, Raiden and I ended up back together.
Not long after, I became pregnant again and gave birth to our second child, Amara.
Like Castor, Amara was taken away as soon as she was born.
The excuse they gave was that Raiden needed to stay focused on work and couldn’t stand the noise of children.
To catch even a glimpse of my two children, I had to show up at the old mansion before sunrise each day to complete my chores.
Make tea, pour drinks, massage shoulders, and pat backs.
I even had to kneel and wash Jennifer’s feet.
All of it just to earn a little sympathy, so she would let me stay close to my children.
But what I received for all that effort was Raiden’s endless cheating and my children’s growing hatred.
Castor never once called me “mom.”
Whenever he saw me, he would frown and mutter, “That dumb village woman is here again. I don’t want to see her.”
Amara still couldn’t speak, but she would only cry and reach for her grandmother instead.
Meanwhile, my mother’s illness kept getting worse.
My children’s coldness and the burden of life left me completely drained and hopeless.
When I needed someone’s support, when I was desperate for comfort, Raiden had already built a new family with another woman.
That day happened to be our wedding anniversary.
Castor turned down my invite to celebrate. Raiden ended my call without a word.
His mistress, on the other hand, was the one who sent me a video of them together in bed.
Hearing their intimate voices, I completely broke down inside. I lost control and cut my arm with a knife.
By the time Isabella rushed into the bathroom, I had already lost nearly all my blood.
Terrified, she called Raiden for help, but this time, he didn’t return home until early morning.
He crouched in front of me, smiling as his eyes swept over my wounded arm.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to die?”
“It’s been all night. Why are you still here, hanging around the Curtis family like a stray dog?”
Those words crushed the last trace of calm I still had. Without thinking, I jumped from the balcony.
I survived. Only one leg was broken.
Jennifer dismissed all the gossiping reporters, dragged me into my mother’s hospital room, and stared down coldly.
“The ICU costs twenty thousand dollars a day.”
“If you dare embarrass the Curtis family again, I’ll make sure your mother dies with you!”
That was when I finally understood, death could be a kind of mercy.
I couldn’t let go of the love I once had, nor could I cut off my bond with blood.
So I could only keep crawling through this marriage, stripped of pride and dignity.
Watching my son and daughter drift further away from me.
Watching Raiden flirt with one woman after another.
Watching them use my mother’s life to keep me trapped.
Marrying into money was both a sweet joy and a heavy chain.
Cinderella had climbed to the top and became Mrs. Curtis, but the prince was still lost in his own world of love games.
