Chapter 2 The Cruel Lie

The liquor hit harder than I had expected. The burn tore down my throat and seemed to blaze all the way to my womb.

I curled up in a corner backstage, cold sweat soaking through the thick clown costume.

A violent cramp seized my abdomen.

I bit down on the back of my hand to keep from crying out.

I apologized to my baby, begging him to endure just a little longer.

This was a debt I owed his father. If we could just get through tonight, if he could finally let go of his anger, maybe he would treat us a little less cruelly...

"Hey! You dead in there?"

The dressing room door was kicked open.

The maid looked at me with open disgust. "Ms. Crowne's birthday banquet has started! Get out there already!"

I pushed myself up against the wall, swallowing the pain.

In the mirror, a grotesque face stared back at me-white greasepaint caked thick, a blood-red grin painted wide across it. It was absurd. Revolting.

A red-and-green bodysuit clung to me, a ridiculous tail stitched to the back.

This was the role Killian had assigned me.

Once, I had been his most cherished love. Now, I was his clown.

The banquet hall blazed with light.

"Look! The shameless clown is here!"

Dozens of mocking, contemptuous stares pierced through me.

"Oh my God, is that really Cynthia? The former rich girl?"

"Dressing up like this for money. What a well-trained lap dog."

I listened numbly, dragging my heavy legs to the center of the hall.

Killian sat at the head of the room.

Vivian was nestled in his arms, dressed in a custom white gown, radiant as a princess.

"Oh my, it really is Cynthia." Vivian covered her mouth as she laughed sweetly. "Killian, you're so cruel. How could you let her dress like that?"

Killian looked away, his voice cold and rigid. "If she's here to atone, she should look the part."

Then he turned to me, "Begin your show. Don't disappoint Vivian."

I drew in a shaky breath and began to move, ignoring the stabbing pain in my abdomen.

I stumbled. Rolled on the floor. Spun in circles like a trained lap dog.

Each movement triggered waves of laughter around me.

"Hahaha! Look at how pathetic she is!"

"Fall harder next time!"

I moved like a puppet, performing for the very people who had once bowed and scraped before me.

Suddenly, Vivian rose from Killian's arms, a glass of red wine in hand, and walked toward me.

"Cynthia, you dance so well." Her smile was syrup-sweet, but cruelty glittered in her eyes. "But dancing alone is boring. How about... you perform a little face-plant for us?"

Before she finished speaking, her diamond-studded heel shot out and hooked sharply around my ankle.

Already weak, I crashed hard onto the floor.

The pocket watch hidden in my inner pocket slipped free and rolled to Vivian's feet.

It was my mother's watch.

And years ago, when Killian and I had pledged ourselves to each other, he had personally chosen it as a gift for her.

"Give it back!"

I lunged for it like I'd lost my mind.

But the heel was faster.

Vivian's thin stiletto came down hard on the watch.

The glass face shattered instantly, and the photograph of my mother inside was crushed beneath her heel.

"Vivian!" A sharp shout rang out.

Killian, who had been silent all this time, suddenly shot to his feet. His eyes locked onto the shattered pieces on the floor, shock and anger flashing through them.

"Who told you to touch that?"

He recognized it.

He still remembered.

A fragile, aching hope rose in my chest.

"Oh, Killian, why are you yelling at me like that?"

Vivian flinched at first, then pouted as if wronged. Yet the tip of her heel pressed harder into the broken pieces, grinding them deliberately.

"It's just something that belonged to a dead woman. Keeping it only brings bad luck. I'm helping Cynthia let go."

"What did you say?" I froze.

Vivian looked down at me from above.

"Cynthia, you don't actually believe your murderer mother is still alive, do you?"

My heart skipped violently.

"What... are you saying?"

Vivian pulled out her phone and shoved the screen in front of my face.

"Take a good look, Cynthia."

It was a photograph of a death certificate.

Deceased-Serena Hartwell.

Time of death-Three months ago.

Three months ago?

"That's impossible... that's not possible!" I shook my head wildly. "Killian showed me the surveillance! Just yesterday! I saw her lying in the hospital bed!"

"Surveillance?" Vivian let out a cold laugh. "That was just looped footage. Only an idiot like you would believe it."

She crouched down and leaned close to my ear, whispering viciously. "Your mother's life support was pulled three months ago when the hospital bills went unpaid. Her body was dumped into Blackfield Pit. By now, the wild dogs have probably finished with her."

It felt like lightning had split my skull open.

My mother had died three months ago?

Then all those days in Gutterdeep-being humiliated like a lap dog, selling my dignity for a few thousand dollars, nearly poisoning my unborn child just now to keep her oxygen line intact...

It had all been a joke.

Everything I had endured over the past three months had been nothing but a complete and calculated lie.

"Killian..."

I turned stiffly to look at the man seated above us in silence.

My Alpha.

My only hope.

"You knew... all along, didn't you?"

Killian's face had gone ashen. For the first time, a flicker of panic cracked through his usual cold composure.

"Cynthia..."

He did not deny it.

His silence drove into my already shattered heart like a rusted, dull blade-and twisted.

So in his eyes, I had never even been a person.

He must have found it amusing-watching me struggle and degrade myself for someone who was already dead.

"Ha... hahaha..."

I started laughing.

The sound was sharp and broken. Tears washed through the greasepaint on my face, warping the red grin into something twisted and grotesque.

The two pillars that had kept me alive were gone.

My mother was dead.

And the last fragile thread of love and illusion I still clung to for Killian snapped.

"Cynthia..." Killian stepped toward me instinctively. "Listen to me. It was to make you atone..."

"Shut up." I cut him off.

In that moment, I needed neither his explanation nor his mercy.

I rose slowly from the floor.

No longer groveling. No longer trembling.

"Congratulations, Killian." I let out a quiet breath. "You've won. You finally killed the Cynthia who loved you... with your own hands."

Since Killian destroyed everything I had.

I no longer wanted him either.