Chapter 2

Their daughter was over four…

The words struck like thunder, leaving me trembling.

Had Ethan and Vanessa Reed already been together four years ago?

Then what had I been to him when I was pregnant a year ago?

Suddenly, my babies and I felt like the cruelest joke in the world.

He was playing happy family with the woman who murdered us, while my children and I were nothing but rotting flesh?

He was the one who had told me about his poor sperm motility. He was the one who had cried because he didn’t want the Hayes family line to end with him.

To give him what he wanted, I had been willing to endure anything.

The twins inside me had been conceived through IVF. It had taken hundreds of injections to keep the pregnancy viable.

Every memory became another blade, stabbing the softest part of my heart.

I looked at those two dark-red little bodies. The pain was unbearable.

With a man, the difference between love and indifference was painfully clear.

If he loved you, you were worthy of bearing his children.

If he didn’t, your children didn’t even deserve a chance to be born!

Ethan reflected the tissue covering my skull and continued. “There are multiple fractures to the head, consistent with repeated blows from a blunt object. The degree of closure in the lambdoid suture suggests the victim was approximately twenty-five.”

He paused for a few seconds, then looked over the body.

I stared at him, certain he had recognized me.

But the coldness in his eyes never changed.

His expression grave, he told Ryan, “The killer likely incapacitated her with a blunt object before torturing her. The wounds, damaged tissue, and discoloration all indicate an extremely brutal assault.”

I wrapped my arms around myself and sobbed.

Every injury he described felt like a hand closing around my heart.

Back then, I had wanted him to save me. God, how desperately I had wanted it.

But Ethan had been the one who pushed me into hell.

That year, his first love, Vanessa Reed, was supposedly kidnapped.

Ethan was stuck in traffic. He threatened to kill himself unless I, her personal bodyguard, went ahead to rescue her.

I had never dreamed it was a trap Vanessa had set for me.

I lay in the grass with blood pouring from my head.

Vanessa proudly displayed the weapon she had used to beat me.

A trophy.

Blood and tears blurred my vision.

But I could still see exactly what it was—the trophy Ethan had treasured so much he had never even let me touch it.

The murderous resolve in Vanessa’s eyes sent a chill down my spine.

Clutching my stomach, I bowed my head and begged. “Vanessa, I’ve never done anything to you. Please let me go. I promise I won’t tell anyone what happened today. Just let me live.”

Vanessa smiled without answering.

Then she crouched down, grabbed my hair, and forced my head up. “The only people who can’t talk are the ones without tongues. Let me help you with that.”

She forced my mouth open and used a pair of pliers to yank at my tongue.

Once. Twice…

The pain was so severe I couldn’t scream. All I could force out was a broken sound in my throat.

With a look of disgust, Vanessa tossed aside the pliers and a piece of bloody flesh.

Her eyes were venomous. “Ethan is mine! Claire Bennett, who the hell do you think you are, carrying his children?”

My heart lurched.

Instinctively, I covered my stomach and tried to crawl away.

Vanessa gave me no chance. Her face twisted as she pinned me down and kicked my belly with all her strength.

I curled up on the ground, making helpless, muffled sounds.

Still unsatisfied, she took out the sulfuric acid and splashed it over me.

My skin burned as though someone were slicing away my flesh an inch at a time. The pain cut straight through me.

White fumes rose from my nose and eyes as they began to dissolve.

I rolled on the ground, reduced to a wounded animal.

“Stop fighting it,” Vanessa said shamelessly. “Do you really think Ethan will come save you? Remember how he talked you into becoming my bodyguard. I’m the person who matters most to him!”

“Tell me—if I say you were working with my kidnapper and the two of you ran away together, who do you think he’ll believe?”

As she bound me with rope, she sneered. “You thought a baby could tie Ethan to you? How naive. The day he gave me that trophy, he said he was giving me all his glory and happiness. I’m the woman he loves!”

Agonizing cramps tore through my belly. I fought desperately to get away.

Vanessa saw what I was trying to do. She viciously stomped on my arms and legs until they broke, her voice triumphant. “You’re the one who came between us! I’ll send you and your babies straight to hell! Remember this—I’m the one who wins!”

She shoved me into the lake. The rock tied to the end of the rope dragged me farther and farther down.

I knew I had lost. My love for him had cost me everything.