Chapter 1
The surgical lights were a sickly white, staring down at me like a pair of eyes that never blinked.
The pain tearing through my abdomen came in wave after wave, until it felt like it would shred me apart. But I clenched my teeth and twisted every ounce of will into a single strand, for one thought alone: to see him, even just once; to hear him call me Mommy, even if it were the only time in my whole life.
"Waaah—"
That bright, piercing cry split the deathly silence of the operating room. In that instant, the pain ripping through my body faded into some distant background noise. Trembling, I lifted my hand, reaching for that small, warm bundle, aching to pull him into my arms and tell him: Mommy's here.
But I touched nothing.
"It's a boy. Vitals normal—he's healthy." The nurse's voice carried clearly. And the very next second, what met me was not my child, but a flurry of hurried footsteps.
I forced my head to the side. Through my blurring vision, I saw a nurse carrying a swaddled bundle, slipping past the screen and hurrying down the corridor without a backward glance.
"Wait… that's my child…" The scream broke apart in my throat, and before I could even struggle, darkness swallowed me whole.
I woke three days later. The ward was terrifyingly quiet, thunder rumbling low beyond the window, pressing down on my chest, one beat after another.
Thorne sat at my bedside. That face I had once loved down to my bones was now cold as ice. He didn't even look at me. He simply tossed a document onto the nightstand, the paper hissing through the air with contempt.
"Sign it, now that you're awake."
I stirred my fingers; the searing pain cleared my head completely. "Thorne, where's the baby? Where's my son?"
The air froze for a moment. He turned his head slowly. There wasn't a shred of warmth in those eyes—only naked disgust. "Don't mention that little curse."
"How… how is he?" My heart clenched, tighter and tighter.
"Stillborn."
The word drove into my heart like a rusted, blunt blade.
"That's impossible! I clearly heard him cry! The nurse said he was healthy!" I struggled to sit up, only to be yanked back down by the pain of my wound.
"Enough!" Thorne shot to his feet, looming over me like a judge sentencing a condemned prisoner. "Congenital deformities, severe organ failure—the doctors did everything they could. This is the price of your insistence on keeping him. Seraphine, you make me sick."
Before the words had faded, the attending physician pushed open the door, his tone cruelly matter-of-fact. "Ms. Vane, you hemorrhaged badly during surgery. Your uterus sustained severe damage. I'm sorry—the chance of you carrying another child is… almost none."
Uterus damaged. Unable to conceive.
My mind detonated; the world twisted out of shape.
"Sweetheart, don't be sad. Truly, it's for the best." A voice, so tender it made me want to retch, drifted out of the shadows.
Delphine, in an impeccably tailored suit, walked gracefully to my bedside and leaned in to stroke my cheek. I knocked her hand away with everything I had left. She wasn't the least bit ruffled; she only whispered against my ear, every word a poisoned needle. "Thorne needs a healthy child to carry on this family. You couldn't even protect yourself—so what makes you worthy of a dynasty like this? Face reality. You're nothing now—a broken, discarded piece of trash."
I looked at Thorne, the man who had once sworn to love me for a lifetime. He was glancing impatiently at his watch. "Sign it, take your settlement, and get out of this house. Don't make me say it twice."
Thunder cracked outside; a bleach-white flash lit the ward. With a trembling hand I signed my name—on a divorce agreement. Tears fell in fat drops, smudging the ink.
My child, gone. My marriage, gone. Even the last of my dignity as a woman, ground under their heels like garbage.
In the pouring rain, the bodyguards dragged me out the hospital doors. Looking back at that glittering mansion, I felt not a shred of relief—only a cold, unfamiliar chill spreading slowly through my blood.
The echo of the nurse's words—"Vitals normal—he's healthy"—rang thin and shrill through the storm.
Had I really only imagined it, in the moment I was dying?