Chapter 2

As I pushed open the front door, I instinctively hid the pregnancy test results and the heavy bottle of kerosene in my bag.

I'd found out I was pregnant before I went to the airport.

That's why I followed Damien Thorne's location tracker to the airport.

I wanted to give him the earliest possible surprise, but instead, I gave myself a terrifying shock.

So, I figured I might as well buy some kerosene and prepare a little something for his funeral ahead of time.

Damien looked uncomfortable when he saw me return.

He'd just picked up his first love from the airport, and the strong scent of her perfume still clung to him.

It was sickening.

"Honey, I forgot to tell you, I have a surgery later tonight. I'm afraid I won't be able to spend time with you." Damien explained.

I knew. It was Isabelle's first day back, and he was undoubtedly going to be with her.

The surgery was just his excuse.

My expression showed a hint of disappointment, the tightness from my numerous surgeries making my face look unnaturally stiff.

"In that case, you should go."

He looked at my face and frowned.

I could read the fleeting disgust in his eyes.

But he'd forgotten that I used to be the undisputed campus queen.

He was the one who sweet-talked me and personally performed the surgeries, molding me into Isabelle's image.

Eighty percent similar, twenty percent unnatural.

He grabbed his jacket and left without a backward glance.

I rummaged through the cabinet and found that many of his ‘intimacy products' from when we were deeply in love were missing.

Things like condoms and delay sprays.

I pretended not to notice anything, putting the disarranged items back where they belonged.

I knew he wouldn't be home tonight.

When did I first realize Damien's heart wasn't with me anymore?

It was probably during that surgery six months ago.

Isabelle, across time zones, was getting drunk in some bar overseas.

When he found out, he immediately abandoned me on the operating table.

I should have been unconscious, but I was awake, listening to the hysteria in his phone call.

"Please, Isabelle, don't drink yourself senseless."

"You lost that man, but you still have me, don't you?"

He pleaded with Isabelle not to drown her sorrows, dragging it out until I, on the operating table, lost too much blood and passed out. He personally sent me to the ICU.

After I fell into a coma, I felt like I died once. My dual personality, dormant for so long, seemed to be reawakening.

It was a crazy persona, her fury roaring within my body.

"Damien Thorne, you actually lied to me!"

"I'll make sure you die a terrible death!"

But I was so used to being blindly devoted. Before I completely died, one thought still timidly rebutted from deep within me.

"What if Isabelle was in real danger back then, which is why he abandoned me?"

But what could Isabelle possibly be dealing with?

After she got married abroad, her husband died young, and she inherited millions in dollars.

She was just lonely now, craving attention, and she wanted to steal what was mine.

But this particular 'thing' wasn't all that great. If she wanted it, I didn't mind giving it away.

It was a perfect coincidence.

That night, I saw a cryptic photo posted on Damien's Insta.

Two blurry figures snuggling together, gazing at the moon. Who took the picture, I wondered?

Beneath the post, Damien's buddies, Alex, Mark, and Ben, sent several blessings.

"Congrats, Damien, on getting your dream girl back!"

"Finally, no more looking at that cheap knock-off face!"

"A cosmetic surgeon who loves beauty, with identical aesthetics—a match made in heaven!"

I quietly added a comment below. "Yeah, support. Lock them up, and let them both die."

I emptied the kerosene in the storage room and then set fire to Damien Thorne's first secret storage room.

It felt incredibly satisfying.

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