I pressed my lips together and awkwardly pulled out of Kevin's embrace.
He froze for a moment, then gave an understanding smile and asked, "Are you still upset at me for missing our wedding anniversary yesterday? I tell you what .... I'll grant you one wish, as a compensation. What do you think?"
My heart skipped a beat and I took out the divorce agreement, flipped to the last page and handed it to him.
Before I could speak, Kevin had already taken out a pen, signed his name with a grand motion and handed it back to me without even looking at it, chuckling.
“You … you're almost thirty years old and still love these childish games. What is this, some promise letter? Fine, I promise ... that it won’t happen again.”
I squeezed a smile, because he was right. There would never be a next time, because our relationship was about to end.
Suddenly, the front door rattled under heavy pounding and when I opened it, Cora stood there. The moment Kevin saw her, his eyes instantly softened with tenderness.
However, unexpectedly, Cora's eyes welled up with tears, she pushed me aside forcefully and rushed into Kevin's arms in just a few steps.
“Kevin, what are we going to do?” She sobbed. “Little Nate is missing! The kidnappers just called and told me that they’re going to kill him to vent their anger on your daughter, whom you had with Kelly. They even said once Little Nate is dead, I’m next. Kevin, I’m terrified!”
At that time, Kevin, who was holding Cora, had been trying to comfort her. However, when he heard that, he froze, erupted in fury and kicked me down the stairs. Then he shouted, "Kelly, you're so vicious! Not only did you fail to protect our daughter and let her get hurt, but now you want to harm Nate!”
I tumbled down more than ten steps and the knife wounds on my back split open again, soaking my shirt in fresh blood.
“Hurry up and call the kidnappers to release her! Otherwise, I'll tear your daughter to pieces!" he yelled.
A chill ran through my entire body. Barely holding on, I gasped and, almost at my last breath, said, “It wasn’t me … I don’t know anything.”
Kevin walked toward me step by step, grabbed me by the collar in rage, choked me and hissed, "You don't know? It seems you won’t take the easy way and prefer the hard way."
He dragged me by the hair all the way to the hospital. All the way there, people stared at my miserable state with curious eyes.
Kevin kicked open the door to his daughter’s ward. His daughter, who had just woken up, struggled to sit up on the bed and in a frightened voice, she called out, “Daddy.…”
Kevin raised the knife, pointing it at his daughter and glared at me, then growled, “Speak! Where did you have Little Nate taken?”
I shook my head desperately and pleaded frantically, “I don’t know, I really don’t know…”
The knife blade came closer to her daughter’s neck and she was so scared that her face turned pale. She struggled violently, causing the stitches on her wound to tear open again.
“Mom … I’m scared…” she cried out.
Seeing her terrified expression shattered my heart.
“No!”
Ignoring the pain, I crawled over and grabbed Kevin’s pant leg, begging and repeatedly knocking my forehead against the floor in desperation. “Please spare our baby. She’s just been kidnapped. This will cause her to have a stress response. Please let her go first. You’re her father!”
Before, Kevin would have been heartbroken and scooped me up to comfort me. Yet, now, he didn’t waver at all. He slammed the knife fiercely down onto the bed. My daughter screamed in terror. Just a hair closer and it would’ve sliced off her finger.
I howled in agony, “What will it take for you to believe me? I told you, it wasn't me. I don't know!”
Seeing my trembling daughter, I couldn't help but tremble myself.
Apparently furious that I still refused to reveal the whereabouts of his son, Kevin sneered and swung the knife handle, striking me hard on the back of the head. Then I fell into a coma and sank into an endless dream.
How did my ten years of marriage to Kevin, which had started with such love and harmony, gradually turn into mutual loathing?
I was the high-and-mighty heiress of the Johnson Family. It was charity for me to spare him even a glance. However, Kevin had the kind of fearless courage only the young and naïve possess. Even when people mocked him for throwing himself at me, he still stubbornly kept chasing after me.
During university, he bought me breakfast every day for four years and personally came to the basement of the dormitory building to pick me up.
On every holiday, he prepared special surprises for me. Even during holidays, he would work the hardest and most exhausting jobs at my family’s construction site just to catch a glimpse of me when I came to inspect the site.
He confessed his feelings to me ninety-nine times and was beaten ninety-nine times by the Johnson Family’s butler. However, he never gave up.
Eventually, I was moved by his persistence. On my twenty-fifth birthday, I agreed to marry him despite everyone’s objections.
After marriage, he loved and respected me. So I felt that my family’s judgment of people was nowhere near as accurate as mine based on how good Kevin was to me.
He was very insecure, so to make him feel worthy of me, I took matters into my own hands and clashed with his uncle from the Dawson Family, who had been causing him trouble, until he was finally included in the Dawson Family's genealogy.
I thought we would live out a peaceful life like that forever, until the day I did his laundry and found Cora’s necklace in his suit pocket.
Cora and I had been friends since childhood. That necklace was the gift I gave her for her eighteenth birthday, with her initials engraved on it. I would never mistake it for others. That was when I learned Cora was Kevin’s ex-girlfriend from before college and his first love.
Back then, when his illegitimate status was exposed and he lost everything, Cora dumped him instantly. However, once Kevin returned to the Dawson Family and had made his mark, she cozied up to him under the guise of “discussing work" and yet Kevin did not hate her.
Later, during my time alone with Kevin, Cora kept interfering. If we were on a date, she’d turn it into a threesome, or she just took Kevin away.
This caused a rift between me and Kevin. I brought it up with him many times because I could not take it anymore, but he said I was being unreasonable and just jealous.
After scolding me, he would hug me and comfort me, “I know you love me too much and I love you too, but I also have to work. Cora was so heartless to abandon me back then; how could I still like her?”
Then he continued, "Cora and I only have work-related interaction now, that's all. Kelly, the most important thing in a marriage is trust, so you have to believe me.”
When I looked into Kevin's eyes, I chose to trust him. I never imagined my patience would only encourage Kevin to go even further.
We had been married for ten years, yet the child he had with Cora was already ten years old!
***
When I finally woke up, I barely had time to catch my breath before Kevin’s bodyguards burst through the door. They grabbed me, threw me in the car and sped back to the Dawson Family's residence. My wounds hadn’t even begun to heal and the rough hands of the bodyguards tore open fresh ones.
In the living room, Kevin sat with Cora nestled against him. The atmosphere was oppressive, with a grand display and I had no idea what they were up to.
Their son, Nate Dawson, lay pale-faced and with closed eyes on the sofa.
I was roughly pinned to the ground by the bodyguards.
“Kelly, I have found my son, but he’s possessed. The master said it’s because you’re incompatible with him. For his condition to improve, you need to be whipped forty-nine times … seven times seven … until his condition improves. Kelly, you understand, don’t you?”
