Chapter 1
I ended up in a coma for five years after being critically injured trying to save my family from a fire.
When I finally woke up, my skin was ravaged by infection and decay, and my face, once hailed as Valeria's top beauty, was now nothing but a scarred ruin.
But not one of the family members I'd risked my life for ever came to see me.
I was half-paralyzed, humiliated by the nurses, and incontinent. The only visitor I had was my husband, Edison Lawson, strolling in with the other woman, laughing at how pathetic I'd become.
"Keeping you alive is just so you know—sometimes living is worse than dying," he sneered.
The next moment, he strode over to the woman who was my spitting image.
"Melissa, look, the arsonist is right here!" he called out.
She had my face and my name.
But she was not me.
*****
She looked just like me, smiling sweetly, but the way she stared at me was pure malice.
She snickered. "Hon, why do you even bother visiting this arsonist? She's awake now. Just leave her here to rot."
That's when it hit me why my family never came.
She'd stolen my identity. She was living my life.
I desperately tried to speak out the truth, but I couldn't get a word out.
No water for days had left my vocal cords shriveled. All that came out were raspy, guttural sounds.
I wanted to tell Edison and Jason that they'd both been tricked by that evil woman.
I was the real one. I was right here!
But the imposter was already acting scared, curling up against Edison like a frightened kitten.
"Hon, you don't think she'll try to burn our house down again, do you?" she said, feigning innocence.
Then she revealed the burn scars on her hand, striking a nerve with Edison.
He immediately pulled her onto his lap, gently patting her back.
He kept pressing soft kisses to the tip of her nose.
That was Edison's old way of comforting me when I had bad dreams.
Now, when I saw him pour all that gentleness onto that imposter, my heart just sank.
All the sweet affection that once belonged only to me was now lavished on her, every last bit of it.
"I've given the orders. They'll make sure this arsonist gets exactly what she deserves," Edison said, his tone cold and merciless.
Every trace of warmth vanished from his eyes, turning to chilling indifference as he looked at me lying in that bed.
"Nobody hurts my family and gets away with it. They'll pay a thousandfold for it," he spat, his voice like ice.
The caregiver got the hint and started slapping me back and forth, not stopping for a full five minutes.
I felt like I'd just been struck by lightning.
For five years, I'd been used as a practice subject for injection, lost an eye, and got smacked and yelled at by the caregiver whenever they felt like it.
Turns out, all that "special treatment" was a gift from the one I loved most.
I screamed in my heart, "Edison, please, look at me.
"I'm the real Melissa, the one you truly love.
"That woman is a fake!"
Suddenly, I remembered that tune I used to hum when Edison and I first fell in love.
If I could just hum it, he would definitely recognize me as the real Melissa.
With my hoarse voice, I forced out a few off-key notes.
To my shock, it wasn't Edison who reacted first. It was my son, Jason Lawson.
He snatched the syringes from the caregiver and stabbed them hard into my fingertips, one after another.
"Mom and Dad are going easy on you, so why do you keep provoking us?" Jason snapped.
"Just because you're insane, you think you can get away with everything? Don't forget. I'm still underage!" he shouted.
He lost it completely, stabbing those syringes into me with all his strength, like a little beast lashing out in rage.
He roared, "If it weren't for you, my little sister would still be alive.
"A needle for her—your payment for what you did to her."
He drove the syringe deep into the sole of my foot, and blood gushed out in thick streams.
But I just stared blankly at my flat stomach.
I had been pregnant then.
To save Edison, who was trapped in the greenhouse, I got smashed in the stomach by a falling glass pane.
The first life lost in that fire was my baby girl.
She was so tiny.
On the sonogram, she was still happily sucking her little thumb.
I was the one who took her life with my own hands.
Jason's next words hit me like a punch to the gut, snapping me out of my grief.
"Why are you still alive? Who's going to pay for my grandma's life?" he yelled.
"This needle is all the pain you owe her," he growled, jabbing it into me.
It felt like a lightning strike.
No way. I saved Cheryl first.
"Jason, stop," Edison said.
I watched in horror as Jason was about to drive the next needle right into my heart.
But Edison grabbed his hand just in time.
Hope flickered in my chest again.
Did he finally recognize me?