Chapter 3

Seraphina's POV

I stood in the center of the living room, my fingertips still carrying a slight tremor.

I'd cried, broken down, despaired.

But now, I was terrifyingly clearheaded.

What use was crying?

My child had already been taken from me, murdered. I didn't even know where my child was buried.

I slowly lowered my head, looking at Harper sleeping peacefully in the crib.

I loved the wrong person and raised the wrong child.

I took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the surging emotions in my chest, picked up my phone, and dialed a number.

"Hello."

Ashton on the other end seemed to have been waiting for me. His voice was low. "I found the information you wanted."

My fingers tightened sharply.

"Tell me."

Ashton was silent for a second, his tone very low. "The day you gave birth a year ago, the surveillance at the Summers private hospital was deliberately deleted."

"But I recovered part of it."

"The child you gave birth to was alive."

This sentence struck like thunder, crashing violently into my mind.

My breath caught. I could barely stand.

Alive.

The child I gave birth to was alive.

My child wasn't stillborn.

"Then where is my child?" My voice became urgent.

Ashton sighed heavily, somewhat reluctant. "What comes next, you might not be able to handle."

"Your child still died."

"The specific cause of death was hidden."

"The delivery nurses were forcibly transferred. One has already left the country, the other... died in an accident three months ago."

Ashton's voice contained suppressed anger. "But I found that on that day, there was an extra 'medical waste disposal record.'"

"That record was personally signed and taken away by Peyton. The male infant was directly cremated afterward."

My pupils constricted sharply.

My child died just like that. In their eyes, my child was just "waste."

My nails dug deeply into my palm.

"What about the ashes? Where are the ashes now?"

Ashton paused, slowly speaking.

"The funeral home records show the ashes were sent to the basement of the Summers family's abandoned villa..."

A buzzing suddenly filled my ears.

My child had been burned to ashes. He was in a dark place.

He had no name and no identity.

I suddenly laughed, a laugh that sent chills.

"Good."

After that, I didn't hesitate and immediately went to the Summers family's former villa.

The basement was cold and damp. I searched every corner but couldn't find the urn.

My hands began to tremble. The emotions I'd barely suppressed in my chest instantly surged up.

Just then, my phone rang.

I opened it to a text message:

"Are you looking for your son's ashes?"

The next second, another message popped up.

"I have them."

"Do you want them?"

Immediately after came a photo.

In the photo was a small, somewhat dirty white urn. The box was just casually placed on a vanity.

Next to the urn was Lily's hand, looking arrogant and malicious.

My fingertips dug viciously into my palm. The piercing pain in my flesh couldn't match one ten-thousandth of the pain in my heart.

The phone vibrated again.

"Actually, I didn't want it to be this way."

"But who told you to cling to the position of Mrs. Summers?"

"Tell me, what's the point of keeping a dead child?"

"Might as well exchange it for something valuable?"

My eyes completely turned cold.

I slowly typed a reply.

"What do you want?"

The other party's response came almost instantly.

"Very simple."

"Just divorce Peyton, and I'll return the ashes to you."

I didn't want that rotten man anyway.

I sent Ashton a text. "I want to divorce Peyton. And the day I leave, immediately withdraw all investments in the Summers Corporation."

Peyton had always thought I was a weak woman who could only depend on him to survive.

He never knew I was the heir to the New York Summers family.

Back when he was starting his business and on the verge of bankruptcy, I begged my family to quietly invest, pulling him out of the mire.

Now that I was divorcing him, it was time to let him lose everything again.