Chapter 3

When I finally stumbled into the hospital that day, the doctors had already stopped the resuscitation.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Anderson. We did everything we could."

Those words were like a death sentence, instantly draining every ounce of my soul from my body.

But the tragedy didn't stop there.

Hearing the news, my parents rushed to the hospital. Blinded by grief, my father lost control of the car and slammed into a bridge pillar.

My father died on the spot. My mother held on in the ICU for three days, but after learning that my father was gone, she completely lost the will to live and followed him in death.

In just a few short days, I lost my son, my parents, and every single family member and pillar of support I had in this world.

Kyle's stubble was a mess, his eyes completely bloodshot.

He crawled to me on his knees, his eyes brimming with agony, remorse, and guilt. "Selena, I'm sorry... I'm so sorry! I really didn't know things would turn out like this. I was just so desperate and lost my mind. I only wanted to force you to tell me where he was. I never thought the bodyguards would actually pull the plug. I never thought Noah would actually die!"

He painfully gripped his hair, his voice hoarse and broken. "What happened to your parents, that's my fault too. It's my sin... Selena, I regret it so much... Please, please just give me a chance to atone, okay?"

I stared blankly at the man I had loved for so many years.

If it weren't for him, my Noah wouldn't have died! My parents wouldn't have died!

"Get lost," I rasped, practically biting the flesh in my mouth to pieces as I glared at him. "Kyle, you are going to rot in hell."

And the most devastating irony of all? The very next day, before Noah's body was even cold, Madeleine's supposedly "missing" son turned up at an amusement park, completely unharmed.

Madeleine brushed it off effortlessly, explaining that the boy was just being playful and had simply played a game of hide-and-seek with them.

I sat in the morgue, staring at the freezing bodies of Noah and my parents, for three whole days and nights.

The day I returned from the morgue, I held a handful of sleeping pills, originally intending to end it all and join my family.

But a second before swallowing the pills, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Looking like a ghost—weak and pathetic.

Why? Why should my entire family be dead, while they get to trample over the corpses of my loved ones and continue living their blissful, happy lives?

I flushed the sleeping pills down the toilet. That afternoon, Lucas, the top divorce and estate lawyer in New York, knocked on my door.

From that moment on, the gentle, enduring Selena died in that morgue. What survived was a demon crawling straight out of hell, born only for revenge.

"Mrs. Anderson! Are you going to sign or not?! The patient's blood pressure has bottomed out!"

The doctor's frantic, agitated urging violently yanked me out of the abyss of my memories and right back into reality.

Dorothy was so panic-stricken she was on her knees, pounding her own thighs.

I let out a cold sneer and finally signed my name on the consent form. The sharp scratch of the pen tearing against the paper echoed in the dead-silent hallway like a death knell.

Die?

No, Kyle, that would let you off way too easy. Death is a release, but I am going to make you wish you were dead.