Eight months pregnant, and the housekeeper's daughter had suddenly drawn up a "prenatal wellness plan" for me.
It required me to sit outside in 108-degree heat for six hours a day.
By the time I was on the verge of my baby's heartbeat stopping, I begged her to open the door and let me inside.
She just sat there eating chilled watermelon, smiling sweetly. "Ma'am, pregnant women need plenty of sunshine. It's good for your health. I'm only doing this for your own good."
The doors were locked. Not a single person dared open them.
I couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed a flower pot and smashed through the glass window on the balcony.
An hour later, Bernard Farley stormed in, fresh from cutting a meeting short, and tore into me before I could say a word.
"Sharon Fox, how can you be so vicious? Do you have any idea that your little tantrum with the glass put Ivy Winfield in the ICU with heatstroke?"
"Bernard, you have time to worry about the housekeeper's daughter, but you can't spare a thought for your own wife and child? If I'd stayed out there any longer, the baby inside me would have died!"
Bernard studied me for a moment, his expression unreadable. He said nothing, turned, and walked out.
That night, I was dragged out of bed and locked inside a roasting chamber with iron walls on all four sides.
Outside, dozens of the Winfield family's relatives had gathered.
Bernard stood with his arm around Ivy's waist, watching me with cold eyes.
"Sharon, you're cruel beyond measure and completely unrepentant. Today I'm standing up for Ivy and giving her the justice she deserves."
My heart sank, falling and falling, until there was nothing left but complete disappointment in him.
I pulled out my phone without hesitation and dialed.
"Jacob. The Farleys and the Winfields. Don't spare a single one. Kill them all."
——
The moment the words left my mouth, the color drained from every face in that crowd of relatives outside.
Only Bernard let out a cold scoff.
His contemptuous laugh was a signal. The crowd caught on a beat later and erupted into howling laughter.
"Miss Fox, do you still think you're some underworld princess? Your brother had his limbs hacked off and was mutilated beyond recognition three years ago. Who exactly are you trying to scare?"
"Exactly. If Mr. Farley hadn't been kind enough to take you in, you wouldn't even be fit to carry Ivy's shoes!"
Bernard listened to them humiliate me, a faint smile on his lips. He didn't say a word in my defense.
He pulled Ivy close by her slender waist, strolled to the small window, and rapped his knuckles casually against the glass in front of my face.
"Sharon. Hot in there? Figured out what you did wrong yet?"
The red thermometer mounted on the iron wall read 122 degrees. They had cranked the roasting chamber to its limit.
The air inside was suffocating, hellish. My skin had already turned an angry, scalded red.
I gasped for air, mouth wide open, but every breath drove needles through my chest. I was smothering.
Sweat poured off me in sheets. My voice came out raw and shredded. "Bernard, what's my crime? Not wanting to roast alive? Wanting to get into an air-conditioned room? If I hadn't forced my way inside, your child would already be dead!"
I opened my mouth to say more, but a violent, twisting cramp ripped through my lower abdomen under the blistering heat.
The baby kicked frantically. I doubled over, crouching, curling around my stomach, and screamed.
"Bernard, let me out! It's too hot in here, the baby can't take it! Isn't this the child you've been desperate to have?!"
Bernard's gaze dropped to my belly. Something dark and unreadable shifted behind his eyes.
Watching his reaction, I felt the last warmth in my heart go cold, degree by degree.
My body was fragile. Before this pregnancy, I had been pregnant five times. Every single one ended in a miscarriage.
Each time, Bernard had been so devastated he looked ready to kill someone.
This time we had been more careful than ever, guarding every week, every day, and we had finally made it to eight months.
I remembered the night I'd been cooking him birthday noodles and the heat from the stove had set off frantic kicking in my belly. He'd been furious and terrified all at once, and he'd stayed up the entire night watching over me.
And now, because of Ivy's absurd claim of heatstroke, he had locked me inside a roasting chamber with his own hands.
The bitterness burned through me. I clenched my teeth and was about to speak when Ivy swayed against Bernard, clutching her head, her voice barely a whisper.
