Chapter 3

I stood before the basement door, my fingers trembling slightly on the keypad lock.

I tried my own birthday – incorrect. Then I tried Julian’s birthday – still incorrect. An unspeakable chill rose in my heart. I turned and went back to his study, opening his computer, trying to find an answer.

On his calendar, a date marked with an asterisk caught my eye. My intuition told me it was Delilah’s birthday.

I returned to the basement, my hand shaking as I entered the numbers. Correct. The cold electronic voice ripped my heart to shreds.

“Couples need privacy. That’s how a relationship lasts.”

Julian’s tender expression when he said those words was still fresh in my mind. Turns out, his so-called privacy was just a shield for secrets he shared with someone else.

I pushed the door open, and the sight before me nearly suffocated me.

The entire basement was packed wall-to-wall with photos of Delilah, and pictures of them together.

Each one was carefully laminated and preserved, neatly arranged in chronological order.

In the center of the main wall was a family photo of their eleven-person family, with Delilah in the very middle, smiling radiantly.

I could barely stand. He had spent an entire decade weaving a deception under the guise of love, all just to fulfill his idealized 'white moonlight's' wishes.

And my children and I? We were nothing but tools for him to achieve his goals.

If it weren't for her, my children could have grown up healthy, instead of becoming 'nourishment' for the woman in those pictures.

I had doubted myself countless times, filled with self-doubt and guilt.

But now, it was clear: I was just a puppet, completely manipulated.

He knew I was in agony, struggling, yet for ten years, he never showed me an ounce of pity.

The passionate devotion I thought we shared, the gentle warmth of those nights—it was all just a mere echo of another woman.

I scanned the room and found an exquisite safe in a corner.

I opened it, and inside was a thick stack of documents. The undeniable words printed on those pages completely shattered my world.

From being kidnapped and imprisoned by the cult leader to being rescued by him, everything had been a script, a conspiratorial plot they concocted.

The only goal was to make me fall hopelessly in love with him. The last page of the document bore his signature. I collapsed to the floor, tears streaming down my face.

The man I had always seen as my salvation was the demon who had personally pushed me into hell.

After I calmed my emotions, I took photos of all the pictures and documents as evidence.

Immediately, I left and went to a private clinic owned by a friend I hadn’t contacted in a long time. She looked at me worriedly.

“Extracting the fetus for external incubation is incredibly invasive, like a live dissection. It will cause severe damage to your body, and the baby will also face certain risks.”

“Are you really sure?”

I held back my tears. “I’m so sorry, my baby… But to save your life, Mama has to do this.”

I endured excruciating pain during the procedure, then dragged my still-unstable body home.

Julian was already there. I had thought he’d spend the night with Delilah.

Seeing my pale face, he immediately came to support me. “Why are you so pale? Where have you been?”

I forced myself to stay calm. “I felt unwell this afternoon and went to the hospital… The doctor said… the baby was gone again…”

He looked surprised, quickly pulled me into a hug, and gently comforted me. “It’s okay, we can try again.”

With that, he scooped me up in his arms and carried me into the bedroom, initiating forced intimacy.

“For us to have our own baby soon, we need to try hard, don't we?”

As he spoke, his burning hot hand was already exploring beneath my dress.

At that moment, I felt utterly disgusted. I had just supposedly 'miscarried,' and he was already impatient to 'plant seeds' again.

Even though I was weak, my face pale, he was completely indifferent. He never cared about me.

I suppressed my rage. “I want to rest… The baby’s gone, I’m heartbroken.”

But he was relentless, holding me tight. “Baby, I know you’re sad, but for our love’s fruition, we need to try, don’t we?”

I closed my eyes, forcing down the nausea, and let him finish. He immediately fell asleep, while my heart was ashes.

He exhausted his energy with Delilah, then came back to play the part of a loving husband, not even bothering to pretend anymore.

I put on my bathrobe and walked into the study, silently printing out a divorce agreement. A decade of emotions would finally come to a close.

Seven days later, the Sterling family was set to hold a grand 'recognition ceremony' for a son.

Publicly, it was announced as a way to foster good relations with the Delilah family and strengthen their long-standing family ties.

The true purpose of the ceremony was for him to officially enter Delilah's oldest child into the family lineage.

It was to pave the way for Delilah’s children and help her secure the future inheritance of the Sterling empire.

I had once been naive, thinking that Julian had ‘adopted’ the child from Delilah because he ‘felt sorry for my infertility.’

He wanted to compensate for my inability to continue his bloodline, which was why he let me raise the boy under the guise of a foster mother.

I had actually believed it and was once filled with tearful gratitude. I was almost stupid enough to raise a child for my enemy.

He claimed to love me incessantly, yet behind my back, he systematically cleared obstacles and secured status for his cherished 'white moonlight.' This farce had to end.