Chapter 2

The brutal reality left me dizzy, my heart throbbing with agony. It felt as if he had become an entirely different person. Had he changed, or had he been faking it all along?

I couldn't remember when the IV ran out, nor how I managed to walk back.

By the time my senses returned, I was standing outside the front door of our rental apartment.

Maybe he had his reasons?

I desperately tried to make excuses for him, but the burning pain on my cheek and the vicious hatred in his eyes couldn't be erased.

Perhaps the universe wanted me to see through him completely, because the front door was left slightly ajar. Murmurs drifted out from inside.

It was his mother's voice.

"Son, you just got promoted at work. You've got a bright future ahead of you. You're not going to marry her anyway. Getting rid of that baby saves you a world of trouble."

"I know, Mom. When I went to the hospital earlier, I made sure to humiliate her. If she has any brains, she'll pack her bags and get lost. If she hadn't clung to me like a desperate leech in college, I wouldn't have looked at her twice."

"Letting her stay with you for three years was already doing her a massive favor."

That was Tyler's voice.

A wave of icy chills shot from the soles of my feet straight to my skull, turning my blood to ice.

It was a calculated plot between mother and son to murder my unborn baby!

I had thought Tyler was a sweet, caring partner. In reality, he was a savage wolf draped in sheep's clothing!

The fire in my chest nearly incinerated my sanity.

My fists clenched, then slowly relaxed. Taking a deep breath, I pulled out my phone, turned on the voice recorder, slipped it into my bag, and pushed the door open, acting as if nothing was wrong.

Seeing me enter, both of their faces immediately twisted with guarded hostility.

"When did you get back?"

Tyler swept his eyes over me as if looking at a piece of garbage.

"Just now. Long enough to hear every word."

A flash of shock crossed their faces. They clearly hadn't expected me to be so composed.

I locked eyes with Tyler.

"Why? Why would you do that? Even a beast protects its own young. Tyler, how could you be so sickeningly cruel?"

He shifted his gaze uncomfortably, avoiding my eyes.

His mother, however, gave a mocking sneer and spat poison.

"Why? You dare ask why? Because you're nowhere near good enough for my Tyler! You think you're worthy of bearing our family's child? Look in the mirror. Tyler told me he hasn't seen a single member of your family all these years. Your parents are probably six feet under."

"A worthless orphan like you would be sleeping on the streets if Tyler hadn't taken pity on you! Now Tyler's been promoted, and his future is limitless. You don't match our family status at all. If you know what's good for you, stop daydreaming and get lost!"

Family status.

Ha.

Right.

No wonder Tyler kept dodging the topic whenever I brought up getting married. He had only ever treated me as a placeholder. The second his life seemed to look up, I became dead weight.

The baby had been an accident. I naively thought it would naturally lead us to the altar.

Looking back now, a child carrying his bloodline was better off not existing.

Only...

What he didn't know was that the firm he worked for was merely a small subsidiary under my father's conglomerate. His promotion and raise had only happened because I felt bad seeing him struggle, so I had begged my father to make an exception for him.

My father had despised him from the start. He never mentioned wealth; he simply said Tyler wasn't a good man and couldn't be trusted.

Yet I had stubbornly thrown myself into it, preaching about true love and telling my father to stay out of it so money wouldn't taint our romance.

Thinking back, I truly must have had rocks in my head.