The moment the baby hit the floor, I froze, my mind a complete blank.
When reality crashed down, I stumbled through the chaos, covered in blood, and crawled trembling toward my child. A vise gripped my heart, squeezing until I couldn't breathe.
I trembled as I carefully cradled him in my arms, but the faint cries from moments ago had been replaced by a dead silence.
Gazing at his small, grayish-blue face, a wave of despair so profound it stole the air from my lungs crashed over me. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
I desperately tried to push myself up to find a doctor, but my legs felt like jelly. I couldn't stand, collapsing again and again.
I slumped to the floor, holding him tightly, my hand gently patting his tiny body, futilely trying to wake him.
Before he was born, I had imagined countless nights holding him to sleep.
Throughout my pregnancy, I studied parenting, learning how to burp him, how to hold him so he would sleep soundly, and even researched infant gas relief exercises.
My parents were ecstatic about his arrival. They bought us a penthouse in Brooklyn, complete with a butler, nannies, a nutritionist, and had even arranged for a preschool teacher.
Last month, my father started planning his grand one-month celebration. That night, he excitedly called his friends in Europe and had his secretary contact business partners in China, proudly announcing he was going to be a grandfather.
The cover of the invitation was beautifully designed with Evander's name and mine, and we wrote the inside by hand.
Although Evander had been busy with financing for our FinTech company, Nexus Capital, and was rarely home this past year, he video-chatted with me every day, following the baby's growth. Whenever he saw cute baby items, he would buy them immediately, filling the entire nursery.
He, the embodiment of all our love—how could he be gone, just like that?
I raised my gaze to the sneering Sloane. I gritted my teeth, pushing off the floor to stand, but before I was steady, a nearby thug punched me back to the ground.
She held up her phone, shoving the screen in my face, her tone mocking. “Look, everyone, this is what happens when you're a bitch!”
Amidst the rapidly scrolling comments, I still managed to glimpse some of the vicious insults aimed at me.
They said I deserved to lose my child.
They lamented missing the moment Sloane dropped my baby to his death.
They also said a homewrecker like me should go to hell with my child, because you have to rip out the problem by the roots.
I stared intently at the usernames, forcing myself to memorize every single villain.
One day, I would settle the score with each and every one of them.
Sloane smiled triumphantly, grinding her stiletto heel hard into my hand, looking down on me with contempt. “Celestia? You dare touch my man, and I'll make sure you never find peace.”
As the sharp heel dug into my palm, I felt no pain.
I tilted my head up to face everyone before me and burst into manic laughter. “Every single one of you, I will not forget. For everything you've done today, I will make you pay in blood!”
Sloane laughed arrogantly. “I'll be waiting. Just try not to join your son first. We're leaving.”
I stared at their departing backs, struggling to stand again, when Sloane suddenly spoke. “Evander, what are you doing here?”
