Chapter 3

Behind that door was the nursery I had prepared for my daughter.

Soft pink walls, a white wooden crib, and a little blanket I had hand-knitted hanging over the rail.

Every late night, I had sat in that room, imagining what she would look like when she was born.

Would she look like me? Or would she have his eyes?

And now, he was bringing the woman who caused her death into that sacred space.

Cold wind blew through the open window, chilling the tears on my face.

It felt like thousands of needles stabbing into my skin.

Enduring the searing agony in my abdomen, I sprinted over and blocked the doorway. "This room is for my daughter. Neither of you steps a foot inside!"

Ethan frowned. "Nora, calm down. Chloe is just staying here temporarily—"

"Temporarily? You're putting her in the nursery?"

"It's sitting empty anyway!" he snapped, losing patience. "Do you have to make everything so difficult?"

"It's not like your baby is around anymore..." Chloe muttered quietly.

Her words hit me like a serrated blade.

Stabbing straight into the unhealed wound in my heart.

While I stood frozen in shock, Chloe pushed past me and walked right into the room.

She stood beside the crib, bent down, and pulled a red velvet box from the nightstand drawer.

Inside was a gleaming solid gold baby bracelet.

My mother had spent ten years saving up for that gift for her granddaughter.

"How pretty," Chloe cooed, holding it up. "Is this for a baby?"

"Put it down," I warned, my voice shaking with fury.

She ignored me, turning to Ethan with an innocent smile. "Ethan, can I put this on Mia? Just to see?"

"I said put it down!"

She ignored my scream and slipped the gold bracelet onto her daughter's tiny wrist.

That was my mother's gift to my baby.

She had saved every spare dollar, buying tiny gold pieces month after month for ten years.

Back in college, when my mom's heart condition flared up, she had gripped my hand from her hospital bed:

"Nora, this is the blessing I'm leaving for my granddaughter. If my heart gives out before I meet her, promise me you'll put it on her wrist."

And her granddaughter never got the chance to take a single breath in this world.

"It's just a bracelet," Ethan said casually. "When we have another child, I'll buy you a much bigger one."

"A bigger one."

Hadn't he killed my child with his own hands?

Where did he get the audacity to talk about 'when we have another child'?

I stared at him, laughing bitterly through my tears.

I had convinced myself that he saved Chloe out of professional duty, that a life had been on the line.

Even through my grief and hatred, I tried to tell myself he was just being a doctor.

But now, he had bought her a condo in cash, brought her into our home, tried to move her into my baby's nursery, and let her take my mother's heirloom.

The truth was simple: she had always owned the deepest corner of his heart.

The untouchable pedestal reserved for his 'first love.'

That lingering obsession had driven this supposedly cold, rational surgeon completely insane.

"That was left to me by my mother!" I grabbed his shoulders, screaming into his face. "If she wants gold for her brat, tell her to ask her own damn mother!"

"Take it off right now, or I'm calling the police and pressing charges for theft!"

"Nora!" He shoved my hands away, his voice harsh. "Chloe is just trying it on! Why do you have to be so petty?"

"Ethan, don't blame Nora," Chloe whimpered, her eyes welling with tears. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have touched it. I just... Mia doesn't have a grandmother. Seeing this bracelet, I just wanted her to feel what it's like to be loved."

She reached for the bracelet, pretending to take it off.

"Leave it on," Ethan commanded.

He turned back to me, his gaze colder than ice. "Nora, when did you become so vicious? Chloe and her baby have suffered enough. Can't you show a shred of empathy?"

"Me? Vicious?"

I bit the inside of my cheek until blood filled my mouth.

I lunged forward to rip the bracelet off the baby's wrist.

Chloe shielded her child and shrieked, "Ethan!"

"Smack!"

A brutal slap struck Ethan across the face.

Blood trickled from the corner of his lip.

It was a blinding, sickening red.

Just like that night years ago.

During our sophomore year, five thugs had cornered me in an alley.

Ethan, skinny and bruised, had stood stubbornly in front of me, covered in blood.

He had smiled through the pain and said, "Nora, I'll protect you for the rest of your life."

I stared at the blood on his lip.

Every ounce of energy drained from my body.

And the void in my chest opened up just a little wider.