Charles brought his pregnant assistant into my Manhattan bridal boutique to try on custom wedding gowns. In the VIP lounge, his friends lounged on the leather sofas, placing bets on how many dresses it would take for me to lose my mind. But even when Amelia stepped out in the final, breathtaking showstopper, my hands remained steady. I kept the measuring tape aligned, quietly recording her numbers. "Charles, man, your wife is literally fitting your mistress," Max laughed, throwing his head back against the sofa. Charles tapped his cigarette, letting the ash drift onto my wool rug. "She can't even get pregnant. I pay for every single thing in this place anyway. Consider this her training wheels for playing stepmom. She needs to learn how to serve my son properly." I rolled up my tape and handed over the invoice. "Congratulations. The fit is perfect. The deposit is two million." Charles didn't even blink. He slid a post-nuptial asset division agreement across the glass desk. "Sign it. Amelia’s hormones are all over the place. She wants the title of wife before she feels safe enough to carry to term. Walk away with nothing for now—it’s just a show for her. Once the baby is born, I'll bring you back." I picked up the pen, signed my name without a single word of protest, and then took his two-million-dollar check and tore it into tiny pieces. 1 Charles’s posture went rigid. He stared at the white scraps fluttering to the floor, his casual smirk hardening into something ugly. Max scoffed from his armchair, crossing his legs. "Still playing the martyr, Gemma? That's a cheap trick. Charles is giving you a way out, and you’re acting like you have leverage. Look at yourself. You have nothing without him." Charles stepped forward, his designer loafers grinding the torn paper into the floor. He grabbed my chin, his fingers digging deep into my skin. "I gave you a life, Gemma. Every single brick of this boutique was paid for with my money. Don't play the saint with me." I looked into his raging eyes, my face entirely blank. He hated this the most—my silence, my refusal to scream. With a sudden, violent turn, Charles pointed at the racks of couture gowns lining the showroom. "Smash it. All of it." Four bodyguards immediately moved into the room. Heavy steel rods shattered the massive crystal display in the center of the showroom. Shards of glass rained down like ice. Gowns that had taken me three years to sew by hand were ripped from their hangers and thrown to the ground. The guards stomped on the delicate white silk, tearing the lace with their hands. The sound of ripping fabric filled the room, followed by the quiet patter of thousands of hand-sewn pearls rolling across the floor. Charles stood directly in front of me, watching my face. "Amelia says these older styles smell like dust. Since you want to be stubborn, let’s use these rags to make some noise for the baby in her belly." A bodyguard raised his metal rod, aiming for a small glass display case in the corner. Inside sat a pair of inexpensive silver bands. They were worthless to anyone else—just thirty-dollar rings Charles had bought me at a street market when we were broke college students, our first promise of forever. Suddenly, Charles moved. He lunged forward, throwing his body in front of the cabinet. A stray shard of glass sliced through his designer suit, leaving a thin, bleeding line across the back of his hand. The bodyguard froze. Charles turned, staring at the untouched rings, his chest heaving. He pointed a trembling, bloody finger at the guard. "Watch where you’re aiming! Don't bring your mess near me!" I stood in the middle of the ruined boutique, watching his bizarre display of sentimentality. Once, I would have softened. I would have believed he still loved me. Now, I only found it pathetic. Charles marched back to me, gripping my jaw again so hard his nails sunk into my flesh. He pulled out his phone, aiming the camera at my face. "Look at the screen. Record a message for Amelia. Tell her you’re stepping down voluntarily, that you welcome the baby, and that you wish us a happy life." He forced my head down, forcing me to stare into the lens. His shoe was grinding directly into a large diamond that had fallen from the bodice of my favorite gown—the one he had bid on desperately at an auction years ago, swearing only I deserved to wear it. Now, he was stepping on it while forcing me to yield to his mistress. I didn't fight him. I looked at my pale reflection in the screen and spoke clearly. "I, Gemma, am voluntarily stepping aside. I welcome Amelia's child, and I wish you both a lifetime of happiness." Charles stopped the recording, a flicker of irritation crossing his eyes. He let go of my jaw and casually forwarded the video to our social circle's group chat. Max and the others cheered. "That’s how you handle her, Charles. Amelia is going to love this." Charles wiped a drop of blood from his hand, pulling a cigarette from his silver case. "I’m going out for a smoke. Watch her. Make sure she cleans up every single piece of this garbage before she leaves." As they walked out, I turned toward my private office at the end of the hall. I needed to get my passport and the design portfolio that contained my entry for the international competition. I pushed the half-open door and stopped. Scattered across the leather sofa were several medical reports. The top one bore Amelia’s name and the words Intrauterine Pregnancy. Next to the papers lay a black tablet Charles had left behind a few days ago. The screen was unlocked, playing a video on a loop. The background was our master bedroom in the Westchester estate. Amelia was wearing my silk pajamas, curled up in Charles’s arms. She pointed coyly at my design sketches on the nightstand. "Charles, this bed is too firm. And those sketches on the table are an eyesore. The whole house smells like her. It makes me sick." Charles leaned down, kissing her hair, his hand resting on her stomach. "Then we’ll burn everything that has her scent on it. Including those stupid drawings. Once she signs the papers, we’ll use them to start a fire to keep you warm. We’ll only keep her around to help clean up during your recovery." The coldness in his voice was absolute. I didn't cry. I walked over, picked up Amelia’s prenatal report, and pulled a stack of yellowed letters from the desk drawer—letters Charles had written to me by hand during our university days. I walked to the shredder in the corner and pressed the power button. The machine roared to life. I fed the prenatal papers and the love letters into the slot together. The sharp blades devoured the paper, reducing our history to neat, meaningless strips of gray dust. I reached into the hidden compartment of my closet and pulled out a black suitcase. I zipped my passport and ID into the inner pocket, then carefully packed my secret design portfolio—the one that would give me a fresh start. Finally, I folded the unfinished gown I had spent six months draping, a piece named Phoenix, and placed it inside. I zipped the suitcase shut, sealing away five years of wasted youth and foolishness. When I walked back into the main showroom, the place looked like a war zone. I navigated around the broken glass, heading straight for the exit. Outside, the autumn wind was cold. I pulled out my phone to call a ride, but four of Charles's bodyguards immediately blocked my path, forming a wall of black suits. Max stepped out from behind them. "Where do you think you’re going with that suitcase, Gemma? Charles didn't say you could leave." Charles walked back toward the door, his cigarette half-burned. His eyes drifted from my face down to the suitcase, and his expression instantly darkened. He took a slow drag, blowing the smoke directly into my face. "Open the suitcase," he said, his voice quiet but commanding. I gripped the handle tighter. "These are my personal belongings, Charles. We’ve already signed the division of assets." Charles let out a harsh laugh. "Getting a little too into character for a clean break, aren't we? What are you trying to steal from my shop? The needles?" He gave a slight nod. Two guards stepped forward, shoving me aside. They grabbed the suitcase and laid it flat on the glass-strewn steps. Using a metal rod, they pried open the locks. The zipper burst. The portfolio slid out, its pages scattering in the wind. And then, the pure white silk of the Phoenix gown spilled onto the pavement, its subtle jacquard patterns catching the gray afternoon light. Just then, a luxury SUV pulled up to the curb. Amelia stepped out, supported carefully by two assistants. She walked over, resting her hand on Charles’s arm. "Charles, I couldn't find my tablet. Did I leave it here?" Her eyes fell on the Phoenix gown lying on the ground. They lit up instantly. She let go of Charles and walked over, nudging the hem with the toe of her designer shoe. "Charles, this one is so much prettier than the ones we measured earlier. And the waist is loose—it would look beautiful over my bump." Without hesitation, Charles bent down and picked up the gown that represented my rebirth. He patted the dust off it and draped it over Amelia’s shoulders. But Amelia was broader than me; the gown, tailored precisely to my measurements, wouldn't close. Charles tugged at the fabric, the seams groaning under the strain. He frowned in disgust. "A cheap, narrow design. It can't even accommodate a baby." He grabbed the hem with both hands and ripped it down the middle. The sound of tearing silk pierced the quiet air. The silk train I had stitched by hand, stitch by stitch, was torn in half. But as the fabric parted, his hands seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second, carefully avoiding the inner collar where my initials, G.L., were embroidered. Amelia pouted. "Charles, you ruined it. I wanted to take it home and use it as a throw blanket." Charles threw the ruined silk onto the wet pavement. "You don't need to wear rags like this." Staring at the torn pieces of Phoenix, my mind went completely blank. That was my ticket to Paris. He had once promised he would be there to watch me win. Now, he was grinding it into the dirt. I lunged forward like a madwoman, trying to gather the scattered design sheets from the wet ground. "Let go of me!" My fingers had just touched the edge of the paper when Charles grabbed my shoulder, throwing me back with brute force. "What is wrong with you!" I lost my balance and fell backward, my back hitting the sharp metal corner of a shattered glass table. A sharp, tearing pain bloomed in my lower abdomen, radiating through my entire body. I collapsed onto the shards of glass, gasping for air. Warm blood began to pool beneath me, staining my light-colored dress and spreading across the white stone tile. The mockery on Charles’s face froze. He stared at the crimson pool widening beneath me. My purse had fallen, spilling its contents. Tucked inside my passport, a medical report slid out, landing right by Charles’s shoe. It was the report I had received only this morning. I had planned to give it to him tonight as an anniversary surprise. I wasn't barren. I was carrying his child. Charles’s gaze drifted from the blood to the paper. He bent down to pick it up. As he read the words, a flash of pure panic crossed his eyes, his fingers trembling against the paper. Amelia saw the report from where she stood. Her face twisted into a mask of jealousy. She immediately clutched her stomach, letting out a sharp cry. "Oh... Charles, my stomach hurts so much! She screamed at me... she frightened the baby!" Hearing Amelia’s cry, Charles’s panic hardened into cold, defensive cruelty. He tore my medical report in half and threw the pieces at my face. "You’d go this far to keep me, Gemma? A fake pregnancy report?" The sharp edge of the paper cut my cheek, leaving a thin red line. He pointed at the blood on the floor. "Even if you were pregnant, a toxic woman like you doesn't deserve to carry a child. Consider this a blessing for Amelia’s baby." He turned, lifting Amelia into his arms, and strode toward the waiting SUV. Before stepping inside, he looked back at me, lying in the blood. "You need a lesson you’ll never forget," he told the guards. "Pull the security shutters down. Lock them." "And don't call an ambulance. Let her sit here and think about what she's done." A guard grabbed my phone from where it had fallen and threw it into the street trash can. The heavy steel shutters groaned as the motor engaged, slowly descending. The last thing I saw through the narrowing gap of light was Charles carrying Amelia into the car. With a heavy thud, the shutter hit the ground and locked. The boutique fell into near-total darkness, saved only by the faint light slipping through the cracks. Lying in the ruins of my own creations, the cold began to seep into my bones. The pain made it hard to breathe. I bit my lip, picked up a sharp piece of glass from the floor, and sliced it across my arm. The sharp sting of pain cleared my fading consciousness. I dragged my heavy body across the floor, leaving a long smear of red behind me. My fingers finally reached the counter where the old landline phone sat. With trembling, bloody fingers, I pressed 911. The dispatcher’s voice crackled through the receiver. My vision was turning red, my grip slipping. Just as the phone slipped from my hand, a terrified scream echoed from the street outside. It was Max. "Charles! Turn the car around! Stop!" "Her report wasn't fake! The hospital just called—she’s O-negative! If she’s locked in there, she'll bleed to death!" The roar of the car engine cut out. Then came a desperate, animalistic roar, followed by the sound of someone frantically throwing themselves against the steel shutters.
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "460687", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel