A chill ran through me. My body felt like it had turned to ice.
“Gio… what… what is this?” My voice barely left my throat, trembling.
He stepped down from the stage and gripped my chin, forcing my eyes to meet his. “You really don’t know?” His voice was low, venomous. “You killed my twin. You killed Sabrina. Did you think I’d ever love you? I married you so you’d rot beside me, suffer forever by my side.”
Something inside me cracked. I laughed—bitter, jagged, and hollow—and, without thinking, I smashed the nearest champagne bottle against his head right there, in front of everyone.
After that night, our marriage became nothing more than punishment. That’s when I finally saw the truth. The man I had married wasn’t my savior. He was my jailer. Every time I tried to escape, every time I dared to whisper the word “divorce,” he’d punish me until my body forgot how to move and my voice forgot how to speak. In his world, love was not love. Love was possession. And I was his property. For eight years, we destroyed each other, piece by piece.
Now, the end was near.
I stared at the cancer report in my hands. “Gio,” I said quietly, voice almost swallowed by the pain in my chest, “can we… just stop fighting for once? Just for half a month? That’s all the time I have left anyway.”
He looked at me as if I’d cracked a joke. “Oh, now you’re lying? Do you really think death absolves you of what you owe me?”
I dropped my gaze. “In half a month, you’ll see. I’ll give you your answer then.”
He laughed, low and cruel, like a blade scraping stone. “Fine. Half a month. Let’s see how you plan to pay for two lives.”
Then, without another word, he took Isolde’s hand and strode out of the auction hall. He didn’t come home that night.
---
The next morning, every news outlet carried the same images: Gio Ramirez, the feared mafia lord of the Eastern Quarter, leaving a hotel hand-in-hand with Isolde. She wore white, a serene smile curving her lips the same way Sabrina’s once had.
Of course they would. Isolde had never been born looking like Sabrina. She had carved herself into that shape. Surgery. Every angle, every curve copied from photographs and gossip magazines.
Isolde had been my enemy back in school. She hated me, always wanted what I had: Gio, money, power, attention. I had tried once to tell Gio the truth. That Isolde wasn’t naturally like Sabrina; she had shaped herself to crawl into my sister’s shadow. He didn’t believe me.
“You’re jealous,” he said. “Pathetic, for measuring yourself against a dead woman.”
After that, I never spoke of it again.
I put my phone down and ate slowly, my stomach twisting, dull pain gnawing at me like it always did. Pain had become familiar.
The front door slammed. Gio entered, dark suit sharp, presence heavier than the air itself. His men waited outside, heads bowed, silent sentries.
He frowned when he saw me at the table. “Why are you still here?”
I stayed quiet.
He smirked, that cruel, calculated smirk. “Didn’t you say you’d give me your explanation in half a month? Why aren’t you preparing for that?”
Before I could respond, my stomach clenched violently. A sharp, metallic taste coated my tongue. I shoved my chair back and ran to the bathroom, barely reaching the sink before vomiting. And then blood came. Panic flared. I tried to hide it.
The maid’s gasp cut through the room. “Madam! Are you… pregnant?”
Gio’s expression shifted instantly. He stormed forward and gripped my wrist with a force that made me wince. “Pregnant?” His voice dropped low, hard, lethal. “Two months ago… that night. Don’t tell me this is your plan—to use a baby to make me forgive you?”
I pulled free. “I’m not pregnant! And even if I were, I’d never keep your child.”
He didn’t believe me. His jaw clenched tight. “We’re going to the hospital. Now.”
“I said no!” I spat back, fear and fury tangled.
He grabbed my arm again, rougher this time. And in that moment, I realized it didn’t matter how little time I had left—Gio would never let me go in peace.
His brows drew together, that same dangerous look he gave men before ordering their execution. “Since when are you afraid of hospitals? What’s wrong with you today? Truly sick in the head.”
I laughed weakly. “Yeah… you finally got that right. I am sick.”
He studied me, cold and calculating. “Fine. Don’t want to go? Then don’t.” He turned to the maid, voice flat and deadly. “Bring the abortion pills.”
My heart dropped. “Gio, don’t—”
But the maid was already moving. She returned with a dark, thick, bitter-smelling liquid.
Gio grabbed my chin. “Drink.”
“I told you, I’m not pregnant!” I shouted, trying to push him away. He shoved the rim of the bowl to my lips, and the liquid burned as it slid down my throat before I could even spit it out.
The pain came instantly. Sharp. Twisting. Unbearable. My hands clutched my belly as sweat ran down my back. Then the metallic taste returned. Blood. Everywhere. My vision swirled. Darkness edged into my sight.
Distantly, I heard him shouting my name, muffled and underwater.
When I woke, I could barely move.
“She’s not pregnant,” a man said urgently. “Why did she take the pills? Her stomach is badly damaged. We need to pump it immediately.”
The cold tube slid down my throat. I tried to scream. Only a strangled sound emerged. The pain tore through me, inside and out. My stomach cramping, burning, twisting.
“Hang in there,” a nurse whispered near my ear. I bit my lip until I tasted blood and gripped the sheets like they were my lifeline.
By the time they rolled me out of the operating room, half-conscious, the lights above blurred into streaks. I heard the doctor’s voice again, cautious this time.
“Mr. Ramirez… your wife’s condition is far worse than we expected.”
