Chapter 3

Julian went pale with panic. As her knees buckled, he caught her. "Don't be scared, baby. I'm right here. I'll destroy this entire room right now."

I was horrified, my eyes widening.

Spitting out a mouthful of blood, I screamed, "Julian! Don't you dare!"

He didn't even look at me, just roared at his security detail, "Tear it down! Smash everything to pieces!"

The men in suits pulled baseball bats and crowbars from the security armory.

"No! Stop!" I shrieked, dragging my broken body across the floor. "Please! Stop it!"

Wood splintered, glass shattered, and the smiling portraits of my children were ripped from the walls and trampled underfoot. The noise was deafening, like a violent symphony of destruction.

I threw away all my pride and dignity. The former heir to the Sterling family knelt on the floor, clinging to Julian's expensive Italian leather shoes, weeping tears of blood.

"Please, make them stop! I know I was wrong! Julian, I give up! I don't want the title of Mrs. Vance! All the money, all the shares, you can have it all! Please, just don't touch my babies' altar anymore!"

My heart-rending cries would have drawn pity from a demon, but Julian just looked down at me with cold indifference.

He kicked me away, breaking my grip, and pointed at the two mahogany boxes on the main pedestal. "Bring me the trash she put in those boxes."

A bodyguard grabbed the urns and brought them over.

I shook my head frantically, screaming at the top of my lungs, "No! No! God, please no!"

I tried to lunge forward, but a heavy boot pressed down on my spine, pinning me firmly to the floor. I could only watch helplessly as Julian handed the urns to Chloe.

She opened the lid to Liam's urn and waved a hand in front of her nose, feigning disgust.

"Ew, baby, it stinks. It's just full of dirty gray powder. Serena, are you sick in the head? Using this filthy stuff to fake your kids' deaths? I never wanted to compete with you, why are you doing this to me?"

Then, she looked me dead in the eye, a wicked, triumphant smirk playing on her lips.

She tilted her hands, and the urns slipped through her fingers.

Crash.

The mahogany slammed into the marble floor, shattering into pieces. The pale, ashen remains of my six-year-old babies exploded into a cloud of dust, scattering across the floor and mixing with the dirt from the bodyguards' shoes.

"Oops," Chloe said, covering her mouth with her hand in mock surprise. "My bad. The baby just kicked too hard, and I dropped it. I'm so clumsy."

Lying on the floor, watching my children's remains be desecrated, the last shred of my humanity completely shattered. The grief vanished, replaced by an all-consuming, apocalyptic hatred.

"Liam! Lily!" I roared, struggling frantically to break free from the men holding me down, my eyes almost bleeding from the pressure. "I'm going to kill you! I'm going to kill both of you!"

Julian stepped forward and delivered a vicious backhand slap to my face. The crack echoed through the room.

"Shut your filthy mouth!" he snarled. "It's just fireplace ash! If you scare the baby in Chloe's belly, I'll make you wish you were dead!"

My cheek slammed into the ground. Half my face swelled up instantly, one eye puffing shut. I lay gasping and bleeding in my children's ashes.

A cold sneer touched the corner of Chloe's mouth as she leaned closer to Julian. "Julian, darling... do you think Serena's going to curse my pregnancy? What if her evil energy makes our baby come out deformed? If anything happens to him, I'll kill myself."

Julian stroked her hair. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I know exactly how to fix her attitude. Take her down to the vivarium. Let her spend the night with my collection."

The bodyguards hauled me up by my hair.

I stopped fighting. They dragged me like a ragdoll down the winding stone stairs into the estate's subterranean level, straight into Julian's climate-controlled vault, where he kept his illegal collection of rare, highly venomous spiders and scorpions.

They threw me into the dark glass enclosure and locked the heavy steel door.

Within minutes, I felt them. Hundreds of tiny, sharp legs skittering across my bare arms, legs, and face. Then came the stingers.

It was a localized, blinding agony that spread like wildfire through my entire nervous system. I collapsed to the floor, screaming until my voice gave out.

But even as the neurotoxins ravaged my body, the physical pain couldn't touch the void deep within my soul.

Was this how my babies felt?

I thought deliriously, tears mixing with the blood on my face.

When the coyotes attacked? When the vultures pecked at them? Were they crying for Mommy, too?

My blood seeped into the floorboards. My agonized screams echoed through the ventilation shafts, reaching upstairs.

Sitting in the living room, Julian heard the screams.

An inexplicable wave of unease suddenly gripped his chest.

For a fleeting moment, he considered telling the guards to let me out.

But Chloe sensed his hesitation. She sighed pitifully. "Julian... if my foster parents hadn't forced me to move to Europe six years ago, we'd be married by now. We'd have our own cute little kids running around. And instead, I'm treated like some dirty secret, getting bullied by your wife."

The tactic worked instantly.

The flicker of pity in Julian's eyes was replaced by cold resolve. He pulled her into his arms. "I know, baby. I'm sorry. Don't let that crazy woman ruin your night. Let's go home."

Before leaving the estate, he instructed the head of security, "Keep her in there until dawn. Tomorrow, drag her and the kids to my corporate office. Make them kneel and apologize to Chloe."

I was left in the dark.

It wasn't until 3 A.M. that Grandma Eleanor forced the doors open, wielding a shotgun and threatening the security staff.

By the time they pulled me out, I could barely breathe, covered head to toe in welts and blood.

Eleanor held me and wept, immediately calling her private medical team to administer antivenom.

Once I was finally stabilized, I didn't rest. Refusing painkillers, I dragged my battered body back to the living room.

With bloody fingers, I crawled across the floor, meticulously sweeping up every speck of ash, every splinter of wood, doing my absolute best to separate them from the dirt.

I placed my babies into a temporary container, held them tightly to my chest, and walked out of the Vance estate without looking back, leaving it behind forever.

That night, using the secret offshore accounts I had maintained since my days as CEO of the Sterling Group, I legally erased my identity.

I signed the divorce papers, left them on the kitchen island of our penthouse, and boarded an untraceable private jet.

The next afternoon, Julian was sitting in his spacious corner office, gently massaging Chloe's swollen feet as she lounged on his leather sofa.

He was waiting for me and the twins to show up and beg for his forgiveness.

However, the heavy office doors suddenly burst open.

His executive assistant rushed in, pale and sweating profusely.

"Mr. Vance! Sir, it's a disaster. Mrs. Vance has completely vanished! Her tracker is offline, and her accounts have been closed!"

Julian's hands froze, a dark expression washing over his face. "What the hell? If she ran off, what about the kids? Who's taking care of them?"

The assistant swallowed hard, his whole body trembling.

"Sir... Liam and Lily... they're dead."