There was a time when I thought Sean was my salvation. When my parents and even my childhood best friend, Liam Hayes, completely abandoned me for Vanessa.
Sean appeared like a saviour from the heavens. When a guest at the hotel I worked in tried to grope me, it was Sean who stepped in and saved me. When my parents threw me out of the house into a snowstorm, it was him who opened his door to me. Even when he first met Vanessa, he didn't waver at her.
He even told my parents and Liam that he didn't believe that I was the type of person to deliberately lose my sister.
But I didn't expect that at my marriage to Sean, Vanessa pulled out a small bamboo flute.
Sean’s eyes lit up like never before.
He held Vanessa’s hand and said he had been searching for her for ten years.
From that moment on, I could do no right.
As long as Vanessa was around, I was the villain in here.
Even our child—my child—became nothing but a mistake in his eyes.
***
I lay quietly on the cold operating table, numb like a corpse.
My silence seemed to catch Sean off guard. He let out a mocking laugh.
"Had you realized sooner, maybe you would not be suffering now."
I looked at my arms and legs. They were bruises and deep marks from my earlier struggle.
But I did not respond to his cruelty. My voice was calm, almost detached.
“Give me the divorce papers.”
Even though I had rejected the system’s final mission to make them regret hurting me, it kept urging me to sever all ties.
Sean’s expression froze. “What did you just say?”
I knew why he was so shocked. He had once offered me an outrageous compensation to divorce him for Vanessa and I had refused.
Even after he neglected me…
Even after he humiliated me time and time again in public, I never once brought up divorce.
But now, I closed my eyes and said it again.
"Let's divorce, Sean. At the very least… I couldn’t let the child be delivered to death by his own father.”
For a moment, Sean looked shaken. But it didn’t last. His eyes turned cold again.
“Don’t think you can manipulate me with moral guilt,” he spat. “I’ve hired the best doctors. That bastard won’t die.”
"You think everyone's as heartless as you—using a child as a tool?"
A sharp pain twisted through my chest, but I didn’t argue. He never believed me anyway.
“Didn’t you always say you wanted your freedom?” I asked softly.
"Just as well, I also don’t want our child to have a father like you, either.” I continued.
He stared at me, his expression shifting as if trying to figure out if I really meant it.
Then Liam—my childhood friend, the second target I was supposed to win over—spoke from the side. He was also the lead surgeon for this horrific operation.
“If you don’t sign, how much longer do you plan to delay Vanessa’s treatment?”
Only then did Sean take the divorce papers from his secretary and scribble his name.
He slammed them down onto my body.
“You’re the one at fault,” he sneered. “Don’t even think about getting a single cent.”
I didn’t ask why I was suddenly the villain. I didn’t care anymore. After all, I’d be dead soon.
The surgery wouldn’t take long—maybe an hour. My hand gently stroked my belly, a quiet goodbye. I’m sorry, little one. Mommy couldn’t protect you after all.
Then, I felt a soft flutter. A tiny kick. Like a little hand pressing back. And I finally broke. Tears streamed silently down my cheeks.
***
At the side, Liam, who was also my second Raider, swore that he would protect me for the rest of my life watched without emotion. Seeing me soaking in tears, he snorted coldly, “Don't act out, someone as vicious as you would care whether your child is alive or dead?”
I looked at his warm face, but his eyes were full of contempt and couldn't help but let out a miserable laugh:
“Liam, you said you would protect me for the rest of my life.”
He was my childhood friend, the boy who once risked everything for me. He was supposed to love me.
In the beginning, Liam did not believe that I was the one who lost Vanessa. Back then, when my parents locked me in a room and nearly starved me, it was Liam who climbed on the 20th-floor balcony to bring me food.
He didn't even blink at the danger.
He'd just smiled and said, "When we grow up, I'll take you away from here."
But Vanessa—who already had plenty of friends at school—fixated on Liam.
She chased after him constantly.
After one pitch to deliver water, Liam mentioned Vanessa to me again, from whether she is the green tea that fights for a favour, to whether we misunderstood her.
I didn't make a sound and Liam turned into an awkward silence.
That day, I finally understood why his affection for me—once almost full—had started to drop. He was still kind to me, yes. But he was even kinder to her.
He skipped class for Vanessa, fought for her and even stabbed the school's department head for her—all because Vanessa claimed he gave her “creepy” looks.
That professor had a spotless twenty-year career. He was strict, yes. But never once accused of anything inappropriate. But Vanessa had shown up in skimpy clothes. He scolded her. And she cried to Liam, who without hesitation, stabbed him.
The day his affection for me dropped to 30%, I felt that madness turn toward me too. He showed up with a bag of my favourite snacks, acting as if nothing had happened. I followed him without question. He took me to an abandoned warehouse. And when the door slammed shut, Liam kicked me to the ground.
“You’re a girl too—how could you photoshop nudes of Vanessa?! If you didn't make up rumors about her, she wouldn't have been targeted by that bad old man, the director of education!”
No matter how much I screamed and cried that I didn’t do it—he didn’t listen. He ripped off my clothes. Took pictures of me in my underwear. And then he also took away my clothes with him.
"Since you like calling people sluts so much," he said, "why not experience it for yourself?"
I cried all night in that freezing factory, too afraid to come out.
Liam didn’t return.
A homeless man eventually found me. I fought back, broke his head open with a brick and ran.
When my parents picked me up from the police station, Liam even said that I had stripped myself naked to seduce him.
The fact that I offered myself to seduce Liam spread all over the school. Everyone called me a slut and all the punks wanted to come and touch me.
I was scared to get through to my senior year but managed to apply to a top foreign university.
Liam, however, said that I drugged Vanessa during the exams, causing her to play poorly.
He pinched the photo and threatened me to give up graduate school to Vanessa.
My only hope was shattered and even the way to repeat the exam was blocked by him.
Just because he was afraid that I would get into graduate school again and continue to victimize Vanessa.
From then on, I could only do odd jobs to support myself. But Liam still does not stop, but where I am a little bit of a place, he has to send gangsters to make a scene. Until I met Sean, he stopped. Only because, Vanessa hope through me, to approach Sean.
Even though she didn’t love Liam, he gave her everything.
Just like now—he was willing to break the law, to lose his medical license, to cut open my body in order to cure her.
When I reminded Liam of the promise he once made to me, his expression twisted in disgust.
“You?” he spat. “You’re not even worthy of that memory.”
