Chapter 3

My gaze darkened.

While the police were taking my statement earlier, they also checked the surveillance footage from the amusement park.

Everyone was shouting and panicking, and in the midst of it all, Lily lost her balance and accidentally fell from the upper floor.

After the accident, the park's manager had accompanied me to the hospital, and even after learning the fall was an accident, he had told me they would give me a large sum of money as compensation.

"Is this money from your lover to get rid of the baby?" Vanessa exclaimed, raising her voice like she'd just stumbled on some juicy gossip. "Why else would a man give you cash?

"Richard, your wife is truly something."

If Richard had only been suspicious before, Vanessa's constant fanning the flames made him almost certain I was at the hospital for an abortion.

"Jessica, have you no shame at all?" he asked coldly. "Honestly, I'm starting to doubt if Lily is even my own flesh and blood."

Those words cut me to the quick, like a knife twisting in my heart.

"This is not money from a lover for an abortion." I did not want my deceased daughter to be heartbroken, and I tried to explain the situation to Richard.

"Then call the man who gave you the money. We'll settle this face-to-face," Richard said, his voice cold as steel.

"She could easily rope in some random guy to help her pull one over on you," Vanessa interjected sarcastically. "Your wife seems like a real piece of work."

Sophie whined softly, "Dad, aren't we getting ice cream?"

Richard looked at her affectionately and pinched her cheek. "Of course, we're going right now."

Then his gaze snapped back at me, frigid. "I'm not going to waste my breath arguing here. I'll come back to settle the score with you after I take Sophie home.

"Get ready. I'm going to have a DNA test done with Lily."

Seeing him hold Sophie and turn to leave with Vanessa, I called out to him one last time. "Richard, are you truly not going to see Lily one last time?"

Though I harbored a million resentments against Richard, Lily's last wish had been to see her father.

For the sake of her final request, I decided to swallow my pride for a moment.

Richard stopped and turned, looking at me with a detached calm. "Jessica, you make me sick."

His words hit me like a ton of bricks, crushing the very last bit of tenderness I had left.

I scrubbed the tears from my face.

My legs felt like lead as I dragged myself toward the morgue.

I knelt beside Lily's tiny body and cried until I passed out cold. When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed.

Because the amusement park camera clearly recorded that Lily had simply lost her footing and fallen, there were no criminal charges to worry about.

The hospital asked me when I planned to send Lily's body to cremation.

"As soon as possible," I whispered from bed.

Seeing my devastated state, the doctor hesitated before saying, "While you were unconscious, we tried to contact Lily's father."

Seeing the doctor's troubled expression, I could already guess Richard's attitude. "What did he say?"

The doctor replied, "Mr. Sterling went ballistic. He accused us of being scammers, said you put us up to this just to tear his family apart."

I had been unconscious for a whole day, yet Richard was still with Vanessa and her daughter.

It was clear they were the true family unit.

Lily and I had been the odd ones out from the very beginning.