Chapter 2

When I woke again, the sterile scent of disinfectant filled my nose.

The memories came rushing back, and the crushing weight of grief settled in my chest.

"Chloe!"

I screamed her name.

Nurses rushed in, asking me how I felt, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t feel any pain in my broken leg, which was now suspended in a cast.

"Where’s my Chloe? Where is she?"

The nurses went silent. The head nurse looked at me with sympathy, her face heavy with sorrow.

"Mr. Blake, I’m so sorry for your loss."

In that moment, it felt like someone had ripped my heart from my chest. The pain was so overwhelming that I couldn’t breathe.

Everything around me fell silent. All I could hear was Chloe’s voice.

She was calling, "Daddy, help me."

But I hadn’t been able to save her. And the one person who could have—her mother—had chosen to abandon us.

It took a long time for me to calm down. Finally, I asked to see Chloe one last time.

The nurses resisted at first, but eventually they relented and helped me into a wheelchair.

On the way, I heard a voice coming from the room next door. Sarah's voice.

The anger inside me flared into a raging storm. I remembered how she could have saved Chloe, but instead, she saved David.

I pushed open the door, ignoring the nurses trying to stop me.

The sight before me was like a knife to the heart.

Sarah was holding a little girl—David's daughter, Emily. She was comforting her, smiling at David with a tenderness I hadn’t seen in years.

They looked like a perfect family.

When Sarah saw me, the warmth in her eyes instantly disappeared. Her voice was sharp and annoyed.

"Why are you barging in like this? Can’t you see that David and Emily are still recovering?"

I glanced at them. They had nothing but a few scrapes. Yet Sarah was treating them as if they were the most precious people in the world.

Meanwhile, her own husband was sitting in a wheelchair with a broken leg, and her daughter—our daughter—was dead. And she didn’t spare a word of concern.

I rolled my wheelchair closer.

"Sarah, your daughter is dead."

"Do you know why she died?"

"It’s because, when you passed by our house, you didn’t hesitate. You didn’t care. You chose to save David instead."

Sarah’s eyes flickered. She opened her mouth as if to say something but then shook her head.

"John, can you stop with this jealousy nonsense?"

"You’re just trying to make me feel guilty, to blame David for what happened."

I stared at her, feeling like I was looking at a stranger.

I couldn’t believe that this woman—the woman I had loved for seven years—could say something so heartless.

"Do you really think I would make up Chloe’s death just to spite you?"

Sarah narrowed her eyes, her expression mocking.

"Wouldn't you?"

"All you ever do is use Chloe to guilt-trip me or to attack David and Emily. What else do you do?"

Two years ago, David and his daughter had arrived in the city with nothing. They showed up at our house in the middle of the night. I pitied them and offered them a villa we weren’t using. I even found David an easy job.

But in Sarah’s eyes, I had somehow become the villain, targeting them.

I laughed bitterly.

"Sarah, do you even believe the things you’re saying?"

Her face darkened.

"At least I don’t resort to underhanded tricks like you."

"Underhanded? Me?" I asked, incredulous. "You're the one with something to hide, not me."

Disappointment settled deep in my chest. In that moment, I realized I had nothing left to expect from her.

"Chloe’s biggest regret in life," I said quietly, "was having a mother like you."

Without waiting for her response, I turned and left the room.