Chapter 1
“Joseph, when are you finally going to throw Emma out of our house?”
Susan’s voice drifted through the office door. His stepmother.
“Why do I have to keep pretending to be your stepmother?” she complained. “I’m the one who should be your wife.”
“Be patient a little longer,” Joseph murmured. “Once I strip the rest of her company clean, it’ll all be over.”
Through the narrow crack in the door, I saw him lean down and kiss her. Softly. Tenderly.
“I can’t wait anymore.” Susan pressed his hand to her rounded belly. “Look at me. What happens when our baby is born? Is he supposed to spend his whole life as your dirty little secret?”
I stood outside the office, cold spreading through every inch of me.
On the other side of the door stood my husband, Joseph—the man I had been away from for two weeks on business—and Susan, his so-called poor stepmother.
When I noticed something wrong with the company’s financial data, I booked the first flight home and came straight from the airport to the office. I hadn’t told anyone I was coming back.
I never imagined this was what I would find.
I pushed the door open a little farther.
Susan was six months pregnant, practically hanging off Joseph’s neck.
And my husband—the man who had always been gentle and considerate with me—was soothing her with that same endless patience.
“Enough,” he said softly. “I promise. Once the baby is born, I’ll claim you as my wife. You and the child will have the place you deserve.”
“Besides,” he added, “you’ve always known my marriage to Emma was fake.”
“That’s more like it.”
Susan purred, dragged one finger lazily across his chest.
“Then what are you going to do about Emma? She’s pregnant too. If she dies with the baby, won’t that cause trouble?”
Joseph’s voice turned dismissive.
“She’s just a tool. If she dies, she dies.”
“The child she’s carrying should never have existed in the first place.”
“If I hadn’t needed her to stay willingly by my side, I never would’ve touched her.”
“And the only reason I married her was for the shares in her name.”
My mind went blank. For a second, it felt as if the floor had disappeared beneath me.
After the wedding, I had always felt something was off about Susan.
She and Joseph were too close. Too familiar. Too intimate.
But a few months ago, Joseph told me his father had died in an accident and left almost nothing behind. Susan was already pregnant at the time and had no one to rely on.
He said he couldn’t bear to abandon her.
I had even felt guilty for suspecting them. So, I let Susan move in next door. I accepted her without hesitation.
After the wedding, I gave Joseph access to everything I had.
I never imagined that from the very beginning, it had been a trap.
Fighting down the nausea and hatred rising in my throat, I took out my phone and aimed the camera through the crack in the door.
I recorded everything. The obscene scene. The vicious conversation. Every ugly word.
Then I turned and left without making a sound, as if I had never been there at all.
By the time I got home, it was late. I sat alone in the cold living room, replaying the video again and again.
Every word cut into me like a blade. Over and over.
I lowered my hand to my abdomen. Tears slipped down my face without a sound.
The front door creaked open.
Joseph and Susan walked in, one after the other.
When Joseph saw me sitting there, panic flickered through his eyes. It vanished almost immediately.
He came toward me the way he always did, gentle and warm, reaching for me as if he meant to hug me.
“Emma, why did you come back early? You should’ve told me. I would’ve picked you up.”
I stepped away from his hand and looked at him coldly.
“Didn’t you say you were on a business trip too?”
My coldness clearly annoyed him, but he hid it well.
Susan, on the other hand, walked forward with her pregnant belly and a look of open provocation.
“Emma, why are you giving Joseph attitude the second you get home?”
“Do you have any idea how exhausting it is for a man to deal with people all day? Why can’t you be more understanding?”
I didn’t even look at her. My eyes stayed fixed on Joseph.
“Joseph, I have a question for you.”
Susan’s expression darkened when I ignored her. She grabbed my wrist.
The moment I thought of her and Joseph—and the child inside her—I felt something twist painfully in my chest.
I shook her off.
The next second, Susan cried out and collapsed straight onto the floor.
I instinctively stepped back.
She clutched her belly and screamed.
“My baby! Joseph, my baby!”
Joseph’s face changed instantly. He rushed forward, scooped Susan into his arms, and glared at me like I was a murderer.
“Susan is pregnant!” he roared. “She’s carrying my dead father’s child, and you shoved her?”
His eyes were bloodshot. His face twisted with fury.
