Chapter 4

"Didn't even want you..."

I stared at the densely packed words on the screen, feeling a chill spread through my entire body. Even my hands began trembling uncontrollably.

Thunder rumbled outside the window, as if dragging me back into that desperate, rainy night.

The smell of blood and gasoline mixed with rainwater flooding into the car.

The driver was barely alive, his consciousness fading.

And I was trapped in the back seat, enduring the excruciating pain radiating from my abdomen.

"My baby... someone please save my baby..."

I pulled out my phone to call Ethan, but felt the crashed car begin to slide slowly.

Before I could react, the next second the entire car plummeted rapidly.

"Ethan, save me!"

My scream was drowned out the instant the car hit the water.

When I woke again, Ethan was sitting beside me, his eyes bloodshot.

"Emma, I'm sorry. I failed to protect you."

My throat was too damaged from swallowing water to make a sound, but he understood my eyes.

Ethan's eyes were filled with heartache as he shook his head.

I felt the stillness of my abdomen and closed my eyes in despair. A tear slipped into my hair, followed by broken sobs.

Ethan was so panicked by my tears that he didn't know what to do. He gripped my hand and apologized continuously.

"Emma, we'll have another child."

"I swear, from now on, you'll be my only woman."

But I never got pregnant again, and he still never cut ties with Stella.

After that accident, Ethan's ruthless retaliation against his competitors made it easy for me to believe it had been their revenge.

But now I understood—I was just Stella's substitute sacrifice.

Ethan and I had known each other since we were young, and later left our hometown together to build our careers.

Back then, we had no education, no connections—just raw courage.

But success never correlates with personal bravery alone.

When our business ventures failed one after another and rainwater flooded into our basement apartment, Ethan's face showed a despair I'd never seen before.

"Emma, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought you out here."

"You've suffered so much with me, and I still couldn't give you a good life."

While moving computers, phones, and other important items to the highest shelf and trying to bail water out of the room, I teased him:

"When Heaven is about to place great responsibility on someone, it first tests their resolve with hardship."

"We haven't suffered that much yet. Have you already lost your fighting spirit?"

"And here I believed you when you said you'd get me a luxury apartment."

Hearing my words and realizing I wasn't blaming him, Ethan laughed and picked me up, spinning me around in the dirty water that reached our ankles.

"I knew it—Emma loves me most."

"I swear I'll never let you down."

But later, when we had everything, we'd lost that most genuine feeling.

Ethan never coming home. Ethan constantly surrounded by scandals. Ethan looking at me with cold eyes.

Every change reminded me that my husband was no longer the person who'd promised me his unchanging devotion.

Three years ago, Ethan met Stella at a business dinner.

She'd just entered the entertainment industry, played a few minor roles, and her career was going nowhere.

But after their night together at a hotel, Stella's resources suddenly improved dramatically, with scripts piling up for her to choose from.

Online rumors started that she had a powerful backer, but no one ever photographed the man.

Some in the industry suspected Stella was creating the rumors herself, that she'd landed those roles purely by luck. So they bribed people to eliminate this competitor.

But they didn't expect that I would be the one in that car that day—and I was already over seven months pregnant.