Chapter 1

My daughter was critically ill, but my husband took the money I'd finally scraped together and gave it to his childhood sweetheart to pay off her debt.

I begged him to at least use part of it for our daughter's treatment.

But he thought I was jealous. "Can you quit making a scene? Helen and I are close friends. There's nothing going on."

In the end, my daughter died on that hospital bed because the surgery wasn't done in time.

Meanwhile, his childhood sweetheart was posting vacation photos. [Huge thanks to my childhood bestie for funding this trip. Best friends for life.]

In the photo, my husband was standing with her, their fingers intertwined like a couple madly in love.

I left behind the divorce papers, deleted all his contact info, and disappeared from his world for good.

And he went mad searching for me for the rest of his life.

*****

To raise money for my daughter's surgery, I begged everyone I could and borrowed from every friend and relative I knew, but it was still nowhere near enough. I kept calling my husband, yet he never picked up.

Drowning in panic and despair, I watched my daughter die painfully in my arms. The illness had ravaged her until she barely looked like herself. Numb, I carried her out of the hospital.

My body felt drained of every last bit of strength, and my mind was filled with her face while she was still alive. There is no pain worse than outliving your own child.

After the media helped us raise some donations, I truly thought my daughter had a chance. But Kevin Quinn quietly transferred every cent away. By the time I found out, it was already too late, he had given all the money to Helen Hart.

I called him countless times, starting with anger and ending in desperate pleading. I threw away my pride and sobbed in the hospital room, hoping he would think about our daughter for once. All I got back was his endless impatience.

He said, "Are you done yet? To trick me, you'll really tell any lie, won't you? You even used our daughter's illness to scam money from friends and family? You don't deserve to be called a mother."

He refused to believe our daughter had suddenly fallen gravely ill, and he treated taking the money like it was nothing. "Helen needed cash right away, so I sent it to her. You should thank me for doing a good deed.

"Using money you scammed out of people on our daughter would've only brought her bad karma anyway."

In his mind, our daughter was still healthy. He had forgotten that after one huge fight, we'd already been living apart for more than half a year, and our daughter hadn't seen her father in a very long time.

Kevin had made it clear that until I figured out what I'd done wrong, I shouldn't even think about seeing him.

I didn't know where he'd gone or where he was living, and he had warned me not to show up at his company because it would "look bad."

When I had no other choice, all I could do was call and ask him for money.

We were husband and wife, yet we felt like strangers. He thought I wanted money to feed my vanity, so he refused without hesitation. In the end, I could only borrow from friends and relatives.

What I never expected was for him to pull the rug out from under me like that. In utter desperation, I sent him photos and videos of our daughter lying in that hospital bed.

He insisted it was all staged. "Janet Young, I had no idea you were this shameless. You even dragged our daughter into your little act. How's she supposed to face people when she grows up if you teach her this kind of crap?"

I never thought he could be this twisted over a matter of life and death.

He called my money filthy, yet didn't hesitate to hand it to his precious childhood sweetheart. I finally snapped and went straight to Helen's place, determined to ask how she could spend my daughter's life-saving money so calmly.