Chapter 1

To give my daughter, Lily, a childhood connected to nature, I put on worn-out overalls and carved out a small vegetable patch at the edge of the estate.

That was until today, when a vicious dog lunged without warning, sinking its teeth into Lily's calf. Blood instantly stained the dirt.

I threw myself over my daughter like a madwoman to protect her, only to be viciously whipped across the face with a diamond-studded leash.

"Where did this lowly gardener come from! You hurt my dog—can your two worthless lives afford to pay for it?"

A young woman in a haute couture white dress, her pregnant belly protruding, sneered and waved her hand. "Where is security? Beat this crazy, pathetic woman and her little thief of a bastard to death, and throw them out of the estate!"

Holding my convulsing daughter, I said, "Beat us to death? Have you asked the master of the estate?"

The woman giggled coquettishly.

"My boyfriend is the master of this estate! With just one word from him, he could crush you like an ant!"

What a coincidence.

The "masters of the estate" she spoke of... I know them both.

One is my husband.

And the other... is my son.

......

"Mommy! Help! It hurts!"

A massive, vicious dog had its jaws locked onto my five-year-old daughter Lily's calf!

Blood poured out.

"Lily!" I yanked at the dog's drool-covered jaws with my bare hands.

The fangs pierced my palms, sending searing pain through me. I used all my strength to free my daughter's leg from the beast's mouth.

A sudden, sharp pain struck my back as a high-heeled shoe kicked me viciously in the spine.

I stumbled, tumbling into the mud.

"You filthy peasant! Can you pay for hurting my dog?!"

A shrill, arrogant female voice exploded above my head.

"Take your dirty hands off! Don't touch my precious 'Caesar'! He is a purebred, worth a hundred times more than you two dirt-grubbing peasants combined!"

This woman, Sienna, not only failed to call off the beast, but violently yanked her genuine leather leash, agitating the dog into shaking its head even more frantically.

A sickening, spine-chilling crunch of bone echoed.

"Mommy... Lily's leg broke... Lily hurts so much..." My daughter's face turned white as a sheet, beads of cold sweat covering her forehead, her voice so weak it was barely a whisper.

"Get away!" I lost my mind entirely.

I grabbed the gardening shears from the ground and plunged them mercilessly into the dog's eye!

The dog let out an agonizing yelp and finally released Lily's leg, retreating to the side with a face full of blood.

I immediately tore off my jacket and pressed it against Lily's profusely bleeding wound.

Her tiny body trembled violently in my arms. The torn flesh and the ghastly white bone fragments were like a red-hot knife violently twisting in my heart.

"Are you crazy?! How dare you hurt my dog!" Sienna shrieked. She lunged forward, raised her hand, and delivered a deafening slap across my face.

The strong taste of copper instantly filled my mouth, and half my face swelled rapidly.

"You dare glare at me?!" Sienna's scarlet-painted fingernail nearly poked into my eye.

"Listen to me clearly. I am the future mistress of this estate! If you frighten the heir in my belly, ten of your worthless lives wouldn't be enough to pay for it!"

"A stinking gardener like you, daring to run wild on my territory?"

Clutching my dying Lily, I listened to every word spilling from her mouth. My heart felt as though it had been plunged into ice water—aching with cold, yet so absurd I almost wanted to laugh.

She was actually standing on my territory, showing off some "heir."

In this estate, and indeed within the entire top-tier syndicate, there was never any need for an heir passed from father to son.

Because it all belongs to me.

I forced down the murderous rage surging in my eyes, my voice hoarse. "Call an ambulance... My daughter needs a hospital."

"An ambulance? Hahaha!" Sienna acted as if she had heard the funniest joke in the world.

She kicked over a nearby water bucket, splashing filthy water all over me. "A worthless life deserves an ambulance? You ruined my dress and hurt my dog. If you don't get on your knees and lick my shoes clean today, neither of you is walking out those gates!"

I reached into my pocket with trembling hands and pulled out my phone. Just as I dialed 911—

A high heel stomped viciously onto the back of my hand, grinding down hard. The phone slipped from my grasp.

"Calling the cops?" Sienna scoffed. "You stupid thing! In this city, even the Chief of Police has to act on my boyfriend's orders! You expect them to care whether you and your lowly brat live or die?"

Before her voice had even faded, she swung that heavy dog leash, bringing it down mercilessly right across my face and neck!

The heavy, sharp metal cut deep into my forehead and cheek. The excruciating pain of flesh being torn open struck me, and warm blood instantly gushed, blurring my vision.

Curving my body tightly to shield Lily in my arms, I could only clench my jaw, forced to endure the fiery, stinging agony of the leash whipping against me like a venomous snake.

Still unsatisfied, Sienna slammed her muddy sole onto the side of my face, ruthlessly grinding my head into the mud.

Gravel scraped the skin off my cheek. The suffocating humiliation of being trampled underfoot, combined with my daughter's feeble whimpers, pushed my limits of sanity to the breaking point.

Pointing at me as I convulsed in pain in the mud, she shrieked at the arriving security guards: "What are you standing around for? Beat her to death! I want her to watch with her own eyes as the little bastard in her arms is thrown to feed my dog!"