Chapter 3

Damon, flanked by four black-suited bodyguards, blocked the operating room doorway.

His designer suit accentuated his lean, powerful build, and he radiated an intimidating presence.

"Ashley, did you hear me talking to you?"

"What? Only three months divorced and you don't recognize your ex-husband?"

His gaze swept past me, and before I could answer, his face immediately changed when he saw Serena on the operating table.

Serena lay there with an oxygen tube, her face deathly pale.

Damon's eyes instantly filled with heartache, and the icy chill in his voice was directed right at me. "Ashley, what did you do to her?! She was perfectly fine when she left this morning! What are you people pulling behind my back?!"

Serena weakly lifted a hand, reaching for Damon. "Damon! She's trying to kill me!"

Her voice was raw and broken. "She was stirring a scalpel in my stomach! She even said, 'One more cut, and you'll never have kids again!' I begged her to stop, but she just kept going, I thought I was going to die from the pain..."

Before she could finish, she suddenly coughed violently, her chest heaving. The monitor began to emit a sharp alarm.

She gasped for air, then shrieked with all her strength, "It's your ex-wife, Damon! Damon, she's just jealous! Jealous that I can give you children, jealous that I'm going to be Mrs. Thorne!"

I raised my hand, tossing the blood-stained gauze into the medical waste bin. Then I picked up the surgical record and slowly waved it in front of Damon. "Mr. Thorne, a ruptured abscess in her lower region led to sepsis. If your fiancée had arrived forty minutes later, she'd be in the morgue right now."

Before Damon could take it, Serena snatched it away. "Damon, she's lying! She's deliberately framing me! Because she knows you divorced her for me, she's using her position to get revenge!"

Serena yanked out the IV needle on the back of her hand. "Damon, look! She deliberately missed the vein, and she left bruises all over my body, even on my neck!"

"She even threatened me! She said she'd send my medical records to all the media, so everyone would know that you married a woman inferior to her!"

I turned my head to look at Serena.

She did indeed have bruises all over her body.

But these were already there when she arrived at the hospital.

Clearly, they were marks of passion.

Damon hugged her, then stomped on the surgical record lying on the floor. "Ashley, you tried to blackmail me into marrying you using Grandpa's medication and failed. Now you want to destroy Serena?"

He scoffed. "St. Jude's Hospital? And you think you're fit to work here? It seems I was too lenient with you when we divorced, letting you get away with touching my woman. Ashley, clearly you haven't learned what happens when you cross Damon."

As he finished speaking, two bodyguards quickly stepped forward and twisted my arms behind my back.

I was forced down in front of Damon and Serena.

I looked up at him, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "Damon, aren't you curious why she's so desperate not to have surgery?"

The bodyguards tightened the restraints on my hands, the straps cutting into my skin, sending sharp pain through my body.

I was still recovering from a traumatic childbirth and was even still breastfeeding; I was far from healed.

The bending motion made my abdominal pain flare up.

Cold sweat beaded on my forehead as I forced out each word,

"She has seventeen handsome men contacts saved in her phone. Last week, she was with three different guys in hotels. Go ahead, call your private doctor, and ask him how serious a 'promiscuous' lifestyle can be!"