Chapter 7

Nolan didn’t punish Lila immediately.

First, he ordered a full investigation into everything she had done over the years. That was how he finally

discovered who she truly was.

Her infertility records, for example, had been fabricated.

At that very moment, she was pregnant with Bryce’s child.

Every claim that she had been left unable to have children and every demand that I give her a baby in return.

had been a lie.

It was nothing more than a carefully planned humiliation.

She had only one goal: to drive me insane, make me lash out, and push me toward my own destruction.

Nolan threw all the evidence at Bryce’s feet.

Bryce picked up the documents, and the color immediately drained from his face.

“That’s impossible. Lila clearly…”

“Clearly what?” Nolan’s voice turned to ice. “Clearly lied to you for six years? Or clearly used you to drive Audrey’s mother to her death?”

Bryce’s lips moved, but no sound came out.

Everything had been exposed.

Lila finally panicked.

She tried to run, but two stone-faced guards dressed in black stepped in front of her.

There were exactly two of them-the same number she had insisted be assigned to keep me from escaping.

She turned and met Nolan’s empty, merciless gaze. For the first time, she felt genuine fear.

Bryce stared at the report in his hands, looking as though every drop of blood had been drained from his

body.

He remembered the final words Audrey’s mother had spoken three years ago as she stood at the edge of the

rooftop.

“You’ll regret this.”

Her words had become a prophecy.

At last, he knew what regret felt like.

Then Lila, cornered and desperate, grabbed him in a panic.

“Bryce, please, save me! Save our baby! Don’t let Uncle Nolan come near me! I’m pregnant!”

Bryce moved in front of her almost instinctively.

Habits were terrifying things.

After six years, he had been trained like Pavlov’s dog.

Whenever she cried, he gave in-even now, after learning the truth.

“Bryce, don’t get in my way. You can’t stop me, and you have your own sins to answer for.”

Nolan watched it all without emotion, as though nothing in the world mattered anymore except me and

avenging what had been done to me.

“But Uncle Nolan, Lila is pregnant!”

Bryce shook his head in anguish.

Nolan didn’t look at him. He simply tossed down one more piece of evidence: a recording.

Lila’s voice came through clearly.

“I terminated my first pregnancy on purpose and framed you for it. You should know that better than anyone,

Audrey.”

“The moment the baby is born, you’ll lose your mind and strangle it with your own hands. Then Uncle Nolan

and Bryce will finally despise you, and you’ll spend the rest of your life in misery.”

“How do you like the ending I wrote for you?”

Her voice echoed through the room.

Lila’s face went white.

That was the gift I had prepared for her.

Bryce stood completely frozen.

“Lila ended our first pregnancy herself?”

If that was true, what had he done?

Six years ago, Lila had come out of the hospital covered in blood, sobbing that Audrey had forced her to terminate the pregnancy.

He believed her.

He did everything he could to punish me and even drove my mother to her death.

But the truth was that I had never forced her to end that pregnancy.

Lila had framed me.

Bryce had been foolish enough to believe her, and because of that lie, he had driven my mother to her death

with his own hands.

When the recording ended, Nolan lifted his eyes and smiled.

“Bryce, are you still going to stand in my way?”

“I’m giving you one chance. You decide what happens to her.”

Lila’s fingers trembled, but she still put on the innocent expression of someone who had been falsely

accused.

“No! Bryce, that recording is fake. What mother would sacrifice her own child? How could I possibly use my

own baby’s life to frame someone else?”

“Please believe me.”

No one listened to her.

After what felt like a century, Bryce finally made his decision. His eyes red, he walked toward her.

Lila instinctively put on her fragile expression.

“Bryce, you have to believe me. I-”

Bryce caught her wrist in a crushing grip.

The pain twisted her face.

“Bryce, what are you doing? Let go of me! I’m carrying your baby!”

“You used one child to destroy Audrey’s mother, and now you want to use another to destroy Audrey.”

Bryce laughed through his tears and made his choice.

“This baby doesn’t deserve to come into this world.”

Lila panicked completely. She kicked, bit, and screamed curses at him, but nothing could change his mind.

He forced her into a procedure room to terminate the pregnancy.

Complications arose during the procedure.

By the time Lila was wheeled out, she had undergone an emergency hysterectomy.

She would never be able to carry another child.

That was her punishment.

But she wasn’t the only one who deserved one.

Bryce made his way to the rooftop one step at a time.

The wind howled around him.

The wind had been just as fierce the day my mother stood in that same place and he forced her to jump.

Bryce closed his eyes.