Blood streamed down my forehead, blurring my vision.
Lila looked down at me with undisguised contempt, her expression dripping with smug satisfaction.
Graham released me and spoke, his voice cold as ice. "Cecilia, all you have to do is swear you'll treat this child well and publicly acknowledge that you begged Lila to carry it for you. Do that, and we'll forget what happened today."
I stared at him, every ounce of grief and fury I'd buried erupting at once. I grabbed the teacup from the table and hurled it at his face.
"You're despicable, Graham!"
Crash.
A body crumpled softly into Graham's arms. Blood trickled down Lila's forehead as she gazed up at him with wounded devotion.
"Graham... this time, I finally got to shield you."
"All those years ago, I betrayed our love—but I had no choice. Thank you for never stopping loving me."
Graham's face contorted with rage. In one vicious motion, his foot connected with my stomach, sending me flying two meters across the room.
"You're dead, Cecilia. You actually tried to hurt her."
I curled into myself on the cold floor, a broken laugh escaping my lips. Somewhere distant, I heard my mother-in-law's shriek of alarm, Graham's frantic voice—all of it swirling together as waves of agony tore through my abdomen. Warmth seeped down my thighs.
What a happy little family, I thought. Too bad I was never meant to be part of it.
Graham's figure vanished through the doorway without a single backward glance.
With the last shred of strength I possessed, I fumbled for my phone and dialed.
"Professor... I'll join the research program. I'm never coming back."
"Good. I'm sending someone for you now."
A rush of heat flooded between my legs. The world tilted, and everything went black.
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a hospital bed. A nurse adjusted my IV line, shaking her head.
"Honestly, how could you be so careless? Those poor babies—twins, a boy and a girl. Only a month along."
My eyes flew wide. I bolted upright. "What... what did you say?"
"You were carrying twins. The blunt force trauma caused a miscarriage." She clicked her tongue in reproach. "What kind of mother lets something like this happen?"
Her voice faded into static. My hand drifted to my stomach—flat, empty, wrong.
Tears slid down my cheeks, falling one by one onto the back of my hand.
So there had been two of them. Two little lives, arriving full of hope—only to find a mother too pathetic to protect them.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to the silence. "Mommy was too weak. But never again. Never again."
I walked out of the room with hollow calm, the divorce papers clutched in my hand. Finding the VIP suite wasn't difficult.
Graham sat at Lila's bedside, tenderly holding a glass of water to her lips.
I felt nothing. Not a flicker of pain. Not even grief.
I tossed the papers onto the bed.
"Sign them, Graham. Unless you want your son to spend his life as an illegitimate bastard who can never see the light of day."
Before Graham could respond, Lila sprang up and slapped me across the face.
"Shut your mouth! Who are you calling illegitimate?"
She seized my collar, her lips brushing my ear as venom poured out in a rapid whisper:
"Graham told me everything. You're nothing but trash—some gutter rat who grew up eating garbage. Did you really think the Sanchez heir would ever carry blood as filthy as yours?"
Her nails dug into my skin. "He doesn't hate children, Cecilia. He just couldn't stomach the thought of having them with you. Every time he touched you, he pretended he'd hired a whore."
I held her gaze, my expression perfectly still.
Then I smiled—slow, cold, razor-edged—and slapped her so hard her head snapped to the side.
"Fine. I'm a whore." I leaned in close. "And you? You crawled into bed with a man I'd already used up. Don't flatter yourself into thinking you're anything special."
Lila let out a piercing shriek and crumpled backward onto the bed.
My forehead cracked against the nightstand with a sickening thud. Blood poured down my face, warm and relentless.
Graham's expression twisted with rage. He kicked me to the floor, his voice thundering through the room.
"Cecilia! You just won't rest until Lila's dead, will you? Barging into her room to attack her!"
I tried to speak, but the pain stole my voice. Only a strangled gasp escaped.
Then Graham scooped me up and carried me out, rushing toward the corridor.
The onlookers' whispers followed us like flies to rot.
"That Mrs. Sanchez is absolutely feral—storming into a patient's room to assault her!"
"Well, ten years married to the Sanchez heir and not a single child to show for it. Now that someone else is pregnant and taking her place, of course she's lost her mind."
A nurse arrived and guided me back to my room, her eyes soft with pity.
I had barely lain down when a line of police officers filed through the door.
"Are you Cecilia Harding?" The lead officer's voice was clipped, professional. "Someone has reported you for assaulting a pregnant woman. You'll need to come with us."
I lifted my head, my voice hollow. "Was it Graham Sanchez who filed the report?"
The officer nodded.
I swallowed the metallic tang pooling in my throat and forced my trembling body into the squad car.
