“Do you want to make them pay?”
I trembled, my weak hands clutching his expensive suit jacket just to stay upright. “Why… why would you care about me? I’m just a dying, discarded wife.”
Elias’s eyes, cold and deep as the ocean, narrowed. He didn't offer me a soft smile or words of pity.
“Because I despise Sandro Rossi,” he said brutally. “But more than that, I hate seeing someone accept defeat so pathetically. You have two choices, Candice. You can lay down on this hospital floor and die crying… or you can stand up and take back what is yours.”
His words hit me like a bucket of ice water. But my heart was still bleeding for only one thing.
“My baby…” I choked out, fresh tears spilling over. “Is he okay? He hit his head—”
Elias didn’t even blink. He simply snapped his fingers.
From the shadows, an assistant in a sharp black suit stepped forward and handed Elias a sleek medical tablet. Elias glanced at it, then tilted the screen toward me.
“Your son is perfectly fine. A minor bruise. Nothing more,” Elias stated flatly.
A massive wave of relief washed over me, but it was instantly shattered. Elias tapped the screen again, bringing up a live security feed from the doctor’s private office down the hall.
The audio crackled to life.
“Sandro, I’m so scared!” Paula’s voice echoed from the tablet, accompanied by loud, dramatic sobs. “She’s crazy! She tried to hurt him! What if she comes back and tries to steal him again?”
“Shh, it’s okay, Paula. I’ve got you,” Sandro’s voice replied, soft and sickeningly sweet.
“I can’t sleep knowing she’s out there. Please, Sandro. Get a restraining order. Keep her away from us!”
I stared at the screen in horror. Paula was faking a panic attack, burying her face in Sandro’s chest while he rubbed her back.
“I will,” Sandro agreed without a single ounce of hesitation. “I’ll have my lawyers draft it today. She will never come near our son again.”
Our son.
Hearing him say that—hearing him legally erase me from my own child's life—did something to me. The heavy, suffocating sorrow that had been drowning me suddenly evaporated.
In its place, a burning, absolute rage ignited in my chest.
My tears stopped falling. My trembling hands curled into tight fists.
Elias watched the shift in my eyes. A dark, satisfied smirk played on his lips. He handed the tablet back to his assistant and looked down at me.
“Marry me.”
I froze, staring at him in shock. “What?”
“Become my wife,” Elias said, his tone entirely business, yet dripping with a lethal promise. “If you agree, I will fly in the top oncologists in the world to fight your cancer. You will not die. More importantly, I will give you the wealth and the power to completely destroy Sandro’s company. You will ruin Paula’s perfect little facade. And you will legally take your son back.”
He stepped closer, his towering presence demanding an answer. “Do we have a deal?”
I thought of my mother’s disgusted face. I thought of Sandro’s cruel slap. I thought of Paula’s fake, venomous tears.
A spark of life—of pure, unadulterated vengeance—finally returned to my soul.
“I accept,” I whispered, my voice turning to steel.
An hour later, I returned to the Rossi mansion to pack my few belongings.
The moment I pushed the front door open, the sound of laughter hit me like nails on a chalkboard.
I walked into the living room. Sandro, Paula, and my mother were sitting on the expensive leather couches, drinking tea and celebrating the baby's return from the hospital. They looked like a perfect, happy family.
The laughter died the second Sandro saw me.
His face hardened into a mask of pure disgust. He stood up, grabbed a thick document from the coffee table, and threw it violently at my feet. The papers scattered across the marble floor.
“Sign it,” he barked. “It’s a permanent restraining order and a gag order. You are leaving this house tonight. You will never speak to us, and you will never see the boy again.”
From the couch, Paula adjusted the baby in her arms and gave me a sickening, triumphant smirk.
They expected me to break. They expected me to fall to my knees, to cry, to beg for scraps of their mercy just like I always did.
I didn't shed a single tear.
I stepped forward, my muddy shoes planting directly onto the restraining order.
Sandro’s eyes widened in shock as I closed the distance between us. I looked him dead in the eye, my gaze completely numb to the man I once loved.
I reached into my bag, pulled out a sleek black folder, and slapped it hard against his chest.
“I'm not here to beg, Sandro,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “I'm here to give you my divorce papers.”
Sandro stumbled back a step, catching the folder. He stared at it, stunned, before a cruel, mocking laugh erupted from his throat.
“Divorce?” he sneered, looking me up and down. “You have no money. You have no family. You really think a judge will let you take my son?”
I didn't answer him.
Instead, I raised my left hand. Slowly, deliberately, I slid the diamond wedding ring off my finger.
I dropped it.
It hit the marble floor with a sharp clink. I raised my foot and kicked it across the room. It skidded to a halt right at Paula’s feet.
“Keep the trash, sister,” I said coldly.
I turned my back on them, pausing just before I walked out the door.
“I'm coming back for my son. And when I do, I will take everything from you.”
