Chapter 6
The darkness in the hospital room felt thick, heavy enough to swallow the neon glow outside the window.
Diana lay on the narrow bed with her eyes open, staring at the strip of cold light leaking in beneath the door.
Footsteps in the hallway came and went, drifting closer, then hurrying away again.
Only then did she let out a small breath.
She knew she wouldn't fall asleep anytime soon, but she couldn't keep bothering Edward. The thought alone made her feel ashamed.
Her mind was packed with shards from the last two years, and each one had a rusty barb. The moment she touched any of them, it tore her open all over again.
Right before the wedding, Nicholas had waited for her outside the lab.
It had been late at night. When Diana pushed the door open, she saw him standing at the end of the corridor, half-hidden in shadow.
He held a warm cup of soy milk, condensation beading on the plastic. She didn't think about how strange it was, that he'd shown up at all.
She walked over and asked, "Were you waiting for me?"
Nicholas shoved the cup into her hands, his voice flat. "I was in the area."
Diana cradled it, her fingertips wrapped in warmth.
Back then, she'd been naïve enough to believe he wasn't as cold as he looked, that beneath that detached exterior there was something softer.
She'd thought that was what happiness looked like at the beginning.
But that dream lasted seven months after the wedding, before Nicholas crushed it with his own hands.
That day, she'd taken a pregnancy test with two bright lines to his study.
Nicholas sat behind his massive desk, not even bothering to lift his head. He only flicked his eyes toward the little plastic stick.
With his fountain pen, he nudged it away as if it were something dirty, his calm terrifying. "Diana, get rid of it."
She froze, unable to process what she'd heard.
"Nicholas," she said, her voice shaking despite herself. "This is our baby. I've already felt it move."
Nicholas leaned forward and pinched her chin between his fingers, his eyes nothing but barren ice.
When he spoke, his voice was so cold it seemed to strip the air from her lungs. "It never should've come into this world. And it definitely shouldn't have come from you."
Two bodyguards walked in, seized her arms, and dragged her out.
When Diana woke up on the operating table, her abdomen felt hollow, as if something essential had been scooped out and thrown away. The lingering anesthesia left her shaking with a deep, helpless chill.
She stared up at the surgical lights, bright and merciless, and felt her strength bleeding out of her little by little, soaking into the sheets beneath her.
The next year, the same kind of despair happened again.
Nicholas didn't give her a chance to beg this time. He had people take her straight to a remote clinic, as if she were a problem to be handled quietly.
She remembered looking out the window at withered branches and realizing the last ember inside her had finally gone out, leaving only gray, dead ash behind.
A sudden ringtone snapped her back to the present.
Diana struggled onto her side and reached for her phone.
The same unknown number. Another message. The kind of message that could shatter the shape of everything she thought she knew.
[Want to know why Nicholas hates you?]
[Because of your mom. His mother's death was caused by Gemma.]
Diana brought the phone closer and read it twice, convinced her eyes had to be playing tricks on her.
Her mom?
Gemma Garcia, fifty-two, retired. She'd never even had a write-up for showing up late at work. She didn't socialize much, didn't do holiday visits, and her biggest hobby was stopping by the neighborhood grocery store after work to pick up a box of strawberries.
Someone like that—what could she possibly have to do with The Kennedy Family?
Diana knew Nicholas's mother had died of illness a few years ago, and the Kennedy Family didn't like to talk about it.
In the two years since she'd married in, no one had ever told her anything. She'd never pushed.
That text didn't match what she knew at all.
But Nicholas's words from last night—"It's all for revenge"—didn't match a hatred with no reason, either.
Whoever was texting her knew something.
She didn't reply. She flipped the phone face down beside her pillow.
The next morning.
Outside the courthouse, the wind cut hard and cold.
The time read 8:55 a.m.
Diana stood quietly with her back against one of the rough stone columns by the entrance.
Yesterday, Edward had worried about her condition and asked a nurse to buy her a change of clothes from a nearby mall. It was clean and decent, but she was so much thinner now that the oversized coat hung off her frame as if it belonged to someone else.
The cuffs kept sliding down. She tried rolling them up twice, but the fabric was too slick and fell right back into place.
In the end, she stopped trying and let the sleeves droop.
Nine o'clock sharp.
A black Maybach pulled up at the base of the courthouse steps.
The door opened. Nicholas stepped out, long-legged and composed, his gaze sweeping the area like he was scanning for something mildly inconvenient.
His eyes passed over Diana's pale face without stopping for even a second.
He climbed the steps on his own, walking straight toward the glass doors.
"Wait." Diana's voice cut through the air just as his hand was about to close around the handle.
Nicholas paused—barely half a beat.
He turned, looking down at her with obvious impatience. "What now? Another stall?"
Diana met his eyes and didn't flinch. "I just need you to answer one question."
She bit down hard, then forced the words out, each one deliberate. "You hate my mom and me so much… is it because of your mother?"
Nicholas's hand jerked away from the door handle.
The calm, distant mask he wore cracked the instant he heard her say it.
In the last two years of marriage, Diana had seen plenty of his expressions—indifference, boredom, mockery, that polished arrogance he carried like a tailored suit.
But she'd never seen this.
On his handsome face was something raw and real: anger that looked like it had been burning for years. It surged up from somewhere deep, ripping through the careful restraint he always kept in public, leaving a jagged, ugly edge.
He took a hard step toward her, closing the distance.
"You've got the nerve to bring her up?" His voice dropped low, every word squeezed tight through his teeth. "Who the hell do you think you are, saying her name?"
Diana stumbled back one step until her spine hit the icy column.
"I want the truth."
"What good would it do?" Nicholas moved closer again, his tall frame blocking out the light, caging her in.
The cold in his lowered voice was worse than a shout. It made her skin prickle.
"You think knowing what happened back then means you can pay back what you owe?"
"Even if I laid out every detail right now, can you change the fact that she's dead?"
He stared into Diana's eyes like he could tear her apart with the look alone.
"I'm telling you, Diana."
"You and your vicious mother don't even qualify for redemption."
Diana lifted her chin, stubbornly holding his gaze.
"Then say it. Say it clearly."
"What did my mom do that was so unforgivable you thought two innocent lives should be buried with it?"
"Your so-called revenge—besides torturing me, besides killing your own flesh and blood—what does it prove?"
Nicholas's chest rose sharply, the breath he took looking almost violent.
He stared at Diana's pale, unyielding face. His mouth moved like he was about to speak, like something had almost slipped free.
But then the fire in his eyes hardened into pure contempt.
As if she didn't deserve to hear the past from his lips.
Right when the standoff turned suffocating, Nicholas's phone rang in his pocket.
The urgent sound sliced through the silence.
He frowned, pulled it out, glanced at the screen—and his face shifted fast. The tight fury eased, replaced by something that looked too much like panic.
He answered.
It was quiet around them, but the wind carried pieces of a woman's frantic sobs from the other end of the call, broken and sharp enough for Diana to catch.
"Nicholas, get to the hospital, now!"
"Holden's transplanted heart is having a severe rejection. The doctor says his life could be in danger any second. Please—hurry!"
The violent edge vanished from Nicholas's face, wiped clean in an instant.
"I'm coming right now!"
