Chapter 3

I said nothing to expose his lie.

Cold rain tapped thinly against the rough gravestone, yanking my mind back to that night — a night that felt like plunging straight into frozen ice.

That year, I was eight months pregnant with Travis’s child.

Back then, the second Travis found out I was carrying his baby, he’d spared no expense, showering me with Chicago’s most lavish luxuries without hesitation. Yet right as he swore endless, fervent oaths of love to me, a string of high-resolution photos landed on my phone from an unknown anonymous number.

In the pictures, my husband Travis lay bare in a hotel bed, tangled tightly with Renee — the street orphan he kept as his mistress. He held her close, his embrace so tender it looked genuine.

Every single frame was a sharp blade, stabbing straight into my eyes.

I had not yet grown cold and restrained back then. Eight months heavy with child, utterly unraveled and distraught, I stormed into that hotel amid a raging thunderstorm, blinded by agony and unstopping.

I crashed the suite door open, eyes burning crimson with grief. Before I could utter a single word of questioning, Renee lunged straight for me.

Amid the frantic screams and chaotic scuffle, a vicious, calculating glint flashed across her eyes. She shoved me with brutal force, and my body tumbled headfirst down the towering spiral staircase.

Agony ripped through me in an instant. I rolled down the cold steps like a broken, discarded doll, vivid, sickly bright blood bleeding across the floorboards.

I clung to life for three days and three sleepless nights in the frigid emergency room, bleeding relentlessly, before I slipped into premature labor and gave birth to a baby girl.

But my daughter — broken by that catastrophic fall and deprived of oxygen for far too long — never got to open her eyes. She drew her last breath before she could catch a single glimpse of this world.

In the desperate emergency rescue to save my life, I suffered irreversible catastrophic hemorrhage. To keep me alive, doctors were forced to remove my uterus entirely.

I lost my ability to bear children forever. I lost the baby I’d fought tooth and nail, sacrificed everything to carry.

Right after our baby died, Travis was consumed by overwhelming guilt and regret.

He called off all his business affairs without a second thought. He knelt by my hospital bed day and night, breaking down in tears and begging for my forgiveness. He watched my every move as if staring at a ticking time bomb, treading on eggshells around our marriage, terrified the slightest wrong move would shatter what was left of us.

But how long could a man like him stay trapped in remorse?

It took barely any time for my hollow, sleepless, wordless despair to wear thin his patience.

One night, when I crumpled into broken sobs once more, he kicked a wooden chair over violently. He pinned me down with bloodshot eyes, snarling and demanding to know why I clung to the past like a bitter, vengeful woman.

“Helen, how much longer are you going to drag this on?” He stared down at me, his tone icy and unsparing — words carved to slice my soul apart. “A stillborn child means nothing. You’re still young. Even if you can never conceive again, we can always adopt a child at worst.”

That exact moment, the old Helen — the girl who once clung to his sleeve and begged him to turn back — died for good. Every last piece of me turned to cold ash at that single sentence.

After that day, I was finished. I never shed another tear in front of him again.

And once my tears stopped falling, Travis dropped all pretense of restraint, growing crueler by the day. He moved Renee straight into our villa, let her settle into our marital bedroom as if the place belonged to her.

I craved to drag them both down into ruin with me. I ached to tear Renee apart piece by piece. The thirst for revenge burned sharp on my tongue. Yet I gravely underestimated how ruthless Travis could truly be.

He twisted all blame onto me. To shield Renee’s fragile, fabricated innocent act, he ordered his men to pin my arms behind my back and lock me away in the private underground prison built by his own gang.

Down in that sunless underground hell — no daylight, only the putrid stench of dried blood — Renee’s men tortured me endlessly.

They pressed a high-voltage stun baton repeatedly against my already broken, damaged body; the acrid smell of scorched flesh filled my nostrils, making me crave death just to end the torment. In the bitter dead of winter, they dumped bucket after bucket of icy water over my body, until my limbs seized up entirely from hypothermia. They shoved my face deep into muddy, sewage-soaked ground, starving me for days on end — I was forced to fight sewer rats for rotting scraps of food to survive.

In that dungeon, I stopped begging.

I finally understood: tears and lingering old affection were worth less than grime, worthless against a man’s power and cold-blooded betrayal.

By the time they tossed me out of that private prison like a lifeless stray dog, Renee had already given birth to Travis’s daughter, brimming with arrogant triumph.

Worse still — the thing that fueled every ounce of hatred in my bones — Renee wanted to trample me underfoot forever. She bribed a black-market doctor to induce labor prematurely, deliberately aligning her daughter’s birthday with the burial day of my dead infant daughter.

From then on, every year on that date, my baby lay buried in cold earth, battered by wind and rain. Meanwhile, Travis would cancel all high-priority meetings, book Chicago’s most luxurious five-star hotel, and celebrate loudly with Renee and their daughter, playing out the perfect, blissful family facade.

The wind swept withered dead leaves across the cemetery once more, the dry debris slapping sharply against my calves.

I tore my gaze away from the tiny earthen grave mound, locking my eyes directly onto Travis’s. My voice stayed steady, devoid of any tremor.

“Travis. The day before your so-called amnesia — what were we doing?”

His whole body jolted violently. He darted his eyes away in blind panic, scrambling to dig up one of his fabricated sweet memories from our nineteen-year-old days.

“We were… at the West Loop docks.”

He swallowed hard, forcing his tone warm, bright and utterly sincere. He tensed every muscle, terrified the slightest hesitation would expose his sham to me.

“The wind was raging that night. You kept dragging me out for strawberry pie. I refused to go, so you hid my bike keys on purpose. I flew into a rage and chased you half a city block. Then I caught up to you, pinned you against the brick wall…”

The faster he rambled, the fainter his voice trembled, a tiny crack in his polished performance.

I listened silently, studying his face as he struggled to uphold the mask of his nineteen-year-old self.

When he reached the part where we embraced under the streetlamp glow, I burst out laughing.

I laughed uncontrollably — then hot tears streamed down my cheeks unbidden, crashing heavily onto the cold gravestone before me.

“Yeah,” I said, holding his gaze, every glimmer of hope for the future drained from my eyes. My voice dropped to a soft whisper. “Those days were good, Travis.”

I exhaled a shallow breath, the words barely audible.

“But I can never go back.”