Lily, my daughter, recited the story I had taught her.
“My daddy loved Mommy very much,” she told Ethan, her voice small
but clear. “They were the bestest couple.”
She said it to protect me.
To shield me from the pitying looks, the whispered questions about a
fatherless child.
Ethan’ s face had contorted with a strange anger.
He had stormed out.
Now, he stood before me, cold and cruel.
“I don’t like looking at your kid. Get her out.”
His words were like ice.
I looked at him, this man who had once claimed to love me.
This man who had systematically destroyed my life.
“Ethan,” I began, my voice trembling. “Lily … she’s not … “
My mind raced. How could I tell him? How could I make him believe me?
He had to know. For Lily’ s sake.
“What?” he snapped, his patience clearly wearing thin. “She’s not what?
Not your angel anymore? Not worth fighting for?”
His eyes, usually so cold, held a strange mix of anger and something
else.
Something that looked disturbingly like desire.
Before I could force the words out, the words that would change
everything, he spoke again.
His voice was low, almost a caress, but laced with menace.
“Want me to help?” he murmured, stepping closer.
“Want me to let your precious Lily stay in the hospital? Want me to pay
for those expensive treatments?”
I nodded dumbly, hope flickering faintly.
He smiled, a slow, cruel smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Then be useful, Sarah.”
He reached out, his fingers brushing my cheek. I flinched.
“Olivia’s health is delicate,” he continued, his voice dropping to a
whisper. “She needs her rest. But I … I have needs.”
The implication was clear.
Vile. He wanted me.
In exchange for Lily’s life.
My stomach churned.
Trapped.
I was utterly, completely trapped.
I looked into his eyes, searching for any sign of the man I once thought
I knew.
There was nothing.
Only cold calculation.
And that dark, possessive desire.
Numbly, I nodded.
What choice did I have?
Lily needed me.
She needed this.
His smile widened.
“Good girl,” he said.
The encounters began again.
Always furtive.
Always degrading.
In empty boardrooms after hours.
In the cold sterility of unused guest suites.
Never in his bed. Never in mine.
Always tinged with his resentment, his possessiveness.
And my deep, soul-crushing shame.
He often asked, his voice a sneer in the darkness, “Who’s better, Sarah?
Me? Or your dead husband?”
I never answered.
I just closed my eyes and thought of Lily.
Her smile. Her laughter.
Her fight for life.
That’ s what kept me going.
It was the anniversary of my parents’ deaths.
Five years since Ethan’ s revenge had shattered my world.
The pain was still a raw, open wound.
I asked Olivia for permission to visit their graves.
She was surprisingly agreeable, feigning sympathy.
“Of course, Sarah dear. Family is so important. Take all the time you
need.”
Her eyes, however, held a glint of something cold and calculating.
At the cemetery, Oak Ridge, the autumn leaves crunched under my feet.
I laid flowers on their headstones.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry, Dad,” I whispered, tears blurring my vision.
“I’m trying. I’m trying so hard.”
I found a quiet spot for myself too, under a large oak tree.
The experimental trial I had signed up for … it was looming.
The one that paid so much. The one with such high risks.
I felt like my own end was near.
Maybe it was for the best.
I missed so many calls from Ethan. My phone was on silent.
When I returned to the penthouse, it was chaos.
Olivia was on the sofa, pale and trembling.
An oxygen mask was nearby.
Ethan was pacing, his face a mask of fury.
“Where the hell were you?” he roared when he saw me.
“Olivia had a medical emergency! She deliberately hid her medication!
She could have died!”
He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my flesh.
“You almost killed Olivia again!” he snarled, his face close to mine. “Just
like your father did! And all to visit his grave? His worthless grave?”
His eyes were wild.
He pulled out his phone, his thumb jabbing at the screen.
“Get some guys,” he barked into the phone. “Oak Ridge Cemetery. David
Miller’s plot. Dig it up. Scatter the ashes in the city dump.”
My blood ran cold.
Horror, pure and absolute, ripped through me.
“No!” I screamed. “Ethan, no! Please! Don’t do this!”
I fell to my knees, prostrating myself before him.
Clutching at his legs.
“Anything! I’ll do anything! Please, not my father’s grave! Please!”
This was the first time I had broken down so completely in front of him.
The first time I had begged, truly begged, for mercy.
Olivia, nestled in his other arm, watched with wide, innocent eyes.
She feigned concern, fanning the flames of his rage.
She feigned concern, fanning the flames of his rage.
“Ethan, darling,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “She looks so
pitiful. Maybe … but what if she tries to hurt me again? What if she’s not
truly sorry?”
Ethan looked down at me, his face implacable.
No mercy.
No compassion.
“You’ll pay for your father’s sins,” he said, his voice like stone. “And for
yours.”