Chapter 3

I knelt on the ground, my forehead resting against my daughter's tiny headstone, crying my heart out.

"You look so pathetic."

Tiffany's voice drifted from behind me.

"She's already like this, why can't she just get the hint, divorce him, and get lost?"

She stood before me, visibly pregnant, wearing a victor's smirk.

"But you reaching this point? It was all my design, step by step."

She crouched down, leaning close to my ear, her voice laced with a smile.

"I personally dragged your daughter out of the morgue and threw her into that stray dog den on the west side of the city."

"I watched those dogs... tear her apart piece by piece. It was so satisfying."

She paused, her tone laced with a sickening pride.

"Do you know what Dr. Grant did that night, when I came home, covered in blood and the stench of death?"

"He held me... and ravished me all night."

"You bastard! You witch!"

I shrieked, scrambling to my feet, my hands clamping tightly around her throat.

I would kill her! Avenge my daughter!

Tiffany's face flushed dark, but her smile never wavered.

"Serves you right."

Her hand closed around the handle of a shovel leaning nearby. She swung it hard into my back.

A white-hot pain exploded through me, and my vision went black.

A year in the basement had already broken my body..

I collapsed to the ground like a ragdoll, unable to move.

I don't know how long it was before she crouched beside me again, dangling something in her hand.

A soft, chilling chime.

My pupils shrank-

Three years ago, before Julian's heart surgery.

I flew to the Philippines, nearly died diving the depths, all to gather those golden pearls.

I polished each one myself.

Tiffany's smile was cruel.

“Remember these? I should thank you, really.”

“Dr. Grant loved using them during our nights…slipping them, one by one, over my skin…”

“He said it let him feel your devotion.”

That raw, life-risking devotion I had once offered now felt like poison-tipped boomerangs, each one flying back to pierce my heart.

A sharp, sickening pain twisted through me.

"Get out! Tiffany, get out of my sight!"

Her eyes were cold, her words venomous and ruthless.

"Audrey, you deserve to die!"

My vision went black, and I collapsed.