Everyone knew the truth except me.

A sickening feeling of being entirely excluded made my stomach churn violently.

That afternoon, Ethan came home.

His attitude was much gentler than it had been over the past few days.

He brought along some crab-roe buns from the shop I loved most.

He had also bought a bouquet of flowers.

Lilies.

The exact same flowers he had given me on our wedding day.

He arranged the flowers in a vase in the living room, placed the crab-roe buns on the table, and then sat down right beside me.

"Lana."

His voice was very soft.

"I'm sorry."

"I shouldn't have touched your people yesterday."

"As for Felix, I've already ordered his equipment to be returned."

I didn't look at him.

"Did you also order the things he uncovered to be returned?"

He gave no answer to that question.

"I prepared a gift for you."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box.

He opened it.

A diamond ring.

When we got married back then, we couldn't afford a ring.

This was meant to make up for it.

He held the ring out in front of me.

I looked at it.

It was easily worth millions.

"Ethan."

"Yeah?"

"Do you really think a single ring can buy my silence?"

His hand froze in midair.

"Who is Seraphina?"

"Lana..."

"If you won't tell me, I'll find out myself. You can block me once, but you can't block me for the rest of my life."

"Or you can sign the divorce papers right now. I'll stop digging, and it won't be any of my business who you choose to spend your life with."

He pulled the ring box back.

He stood up.

The last trace of warmth on his face faded away bit by bit.

"Why can't you just accept our life as it is now?"

"I provide for you, I protect you, and I give you whatever you ask for."

"Why do you insist on digging until the absolute end?"

"Because whatever you are hiding from me must be far more severe than a simple affair."

He turned and went upstairs.

The bedroom door was slammed shut.

Mrs. Higgins cleared away the crab-roe buns.

As for that bouquet of lilies, I told her to throw it into the trash.

Chapter 10

The turning point came with sudden brutality.

Three days later, Seraphina was hospitalized.

A threatened miscarriage.

It wasn't my doing.

I hadn't even seen her.

Supposedly, her emotional state had been too volatile, and combined with her naturally weak constitution, her pregnancy had been unstable from the start.

Ethan stayed by her side at the hospital for three days and three nights without closing his eyes.

The news came directly from Harvey.

"Look, I'm really not lying to you this time. Ethan is losing his absolute mind."

Harvey's tone over the phone carried an anxious caution.

"The doctors are saying the baby might not make it."

I sat inside the house, listening until he finished speaking, and then hung up the phone.

Whether her child made it or not had absolutely nothing to do with me.

Yet, after disconnecting the call, I realized my hands were shaking.

Three years ago.

The exact same hospital.

The exact same threatened miscarriage.

Back then, Ethan had also stayed awake for three days and three nights.

He was guarding me.

In the end, we couldn't save the baby.

The child was lost.

I had suffered massive hemorrhaging on the operating table, and the doctors issued two critical condition notices.

He stood out in the hallway for six agonizing hours.

When he finally came out, the back of his shirt was completely drenched in sweat.

He had pressed my hand tightly against his chest, repeating the same words over and over again.

Close your eyes, Lana. You don't have to look. I'll shield you from it.

That was the single sentence he had spoken most frequently throughout our lives.

From the moment my stepfather swung a liquor bottle at my head, to the moments I was losing consciousness from the blinding pain in the delivery room.

He would always use his own body to block the danger ahead, using his hand to cover my eyes.

Close your eyes. You don't have to look. I'll shield you from it.

And now, who exactly was he shielding?

I shook my head.

I forced myself to stop thinking about it.

I grabbed my coat and walked out the door.

I didn't head to the hospital.

Instead, I drove to Seraphina's apartment.

Ethan wasn't there, and her bodyguards had followed him to the hospital.

Felix had managed to uncover the digital code to her door lock before his operation was compromised.

I entered the numbers.

The door clicked open.

The apartment was far more cozy than I had imagined.

Every corner was filled with the traces of two people living together.

There were sticky notes attached to the refrigerator, written in Ethan's unmistakable handwriting.

The milk is on the second shelf. Make sure to drink two glasses every day.

I'll be a bit late coming home today. Go ahead and eat first; the food is in the pot.

Sera, don't run around blindly. It's freezing outside.

Sera.

He called her Sera.

He called me Lana.

The sheer weight of an intimate nickname could apparently be pressed upon two different women at the exact same time.

I didn't alter or move a single item in the apartment.

I merely stood in the center of the living room, taking in my surroundings.

Then, my eyes caught sight of a brown kraft paper envelope resting on the coffee table.

Two words were written across it.

To Alaina.

It was Seraphina's handwriting.

I had seen it before in the screenshots of the text messages she had sent me.

The envelope was unsealed.

Inside was a letter accompanied by a legal case file.

The letter consisted of only a few short lines.

Alaina,

If you are reading this letter, it means you finally couldn't help yourself and came here. The harder Ethan tries to guard my true identity, the more desperate you are to find out. I know you.

But he refuses to let me tell you directly, so I could only resort to this method.

Go ahead and open the file.

Once you finish reading it, you will finally understand exactly why Ethan loves me and no longer loves you.

You will also understand exactly why I had the audacity to walk into your home and sit in your chair.

Enjoy the surprise.

I opened the file folder.

The first page.

A photocopy of Seraphina's identification card.

Original name: Seraphina Madeline.

The second page.

A certified birth certificate.

Mother's column: Madeline.

My hand froze completely.

The third page.

A photograph.

The woman in the photo was in her early forty's, immaculately preserved, her makeup flawless, wearing a haute couture suit.

It was the exact same woman who had accompanied Seraphina to my house last time.

Two words were scribbled on the back of the photo.

My Mom.

The fourth page.

A certified DNA paternity test report.

Tested individuals: Madeline and Seraphina.

Conclusion: Paternity confirmed.

The fifth page.

Another certified DNA paternity test report.

Tested individuals: Madeline and Alaina.

Conclusion: Paternity confirmed.

I snapped the file folder shut.

The papers trembled in my hands.

It wasn't out of fear.

It wasn't out of sorrow.

It was a crushing sensation surging out from the very depths of my bones, heavier than my stepfather's fists, more agonizing than the loss of my unborn child.

My mother.

Madeline.

The woman who had abandoned a six-year-old version of me, vanishing entirely without a trace.

When I was being beaten black and blue by my father and stepfather, when I was on the verge of being sold off, and when Ethan killed a man and went to prison for ten years just to save my life.

Where exactly had she been?

She had been raising another daughter.

Naming her Seraphina.

Dressing her in haute couture, housing her in grand estates, and allowing her to grow up entirely without a single care in the world until the age of twenty-three.

And then, this daughter she had so meticulously cherished arrived to steal my husband.

Sleeping in my husband's bed.

Carrying my husband's child.

Sitting in my armchair inside my home.

Calling me her sister.

While the mother who had vanished from my life for twenty years stood right behind her, watching me with a smug smile.

My phone began to ring.

It was Seraphina's number.

I answered it.

Her voice drifted over the line, laced with the distinct acoustic echo of a hospital room.

"Have you finished reading it, Alaina?"

"Are you surprised?"

"You grew up without a mother, but I've always had one. You were raised in the mud, while I was raised in absolute luxury."

"And now, I've even taken your husband away from you."

"Tell me, Alaina—which one of us do you think our mother loves more?"