In the elite social circles of New York, everyone knew the women in the Sterling family were incredibly fertile. My oldest sister had twins. My second sister had triplets. Even my distant cousin had three boys in the span of three years. I, Maya Sterling, was the absolute only exception. I was married to Ethan Vance, the CEO of the Vance Corporation, for seven grueling years. And for seven years, my stomach remained perfectly, agonizingly flat. Eventually, Ethan’s mother reached her breaking point. After subjecting me to hundreds of humiliating lectures and toxic remedies, she finally forced Ethan to divorce me. My father, absolutely furious that I had “embarrassed the Sterling legacy,” kicked me out of my childhood home. The very next day, he aggressively arranged for me to be married off to a man who had supposedly made a massive, overnight fortune in real estate development. A man everyone called “new money” trash. 1 When I was shoved into the back of the sleek, black Rolls-Royce, my makeup was completely ruined from crying. The man I was being sent to, Marcus Cole, was rumored to be uneducated and crude, having built his empire by buying up foreclosure properties and flipping industrial lots. The old-money elites of Manhattan openly despised him. But when I met him for the first time, he didn’t match the rumors at all. His sprawling mansion showed absolutely zero signs of a wedding. No decorations, no flowers, not even a “Welcome Home” card. The sheets on the master bed were a stark, minimalist charcoal gray. He stood in the doorway of the master bedroom, wearing a crisp black dress shirt, unbuttoned at the collar. He looked at me for exactly two seconds, then tossed a matte black Amex card onto the nightstand. “This is an authorized user card on my primary account. I’ll make sure it’s funded every month. Keep track of your expenses.” “I have a son and a daughter. They both attend the Dalton Academy.” “Treat them as if they were your own.” He paused, a flicker of hesitation in his eyes, as if he didn’t want to say the next part. But he said it anyway. “Since you can’t have kids of your own.” “Consider them an investment in your future. Someone to take care of you when you’re older.” With that, he turned and walked out, not looking back once. I gripped the heavy metal credit card so tightly my knuckles turned white, fresh tears welling up in my eyes. Since you can’t have kids. I had been tortured with that phrase for seven entire years. I never imagined that after finally crawling out of the toxic inferno of the Vance family, I would immediately be branded with those exact same words by a total stranger. That night, he didn’t come home until 2:00 AM. He didn’t waste time. He took a quick shower and got into bed. It was a silent, mechanical transaction in the dark. I bit down on my pillow, enduring the suffocating silence until the sun came up. When I woke up the next morning, his side of the bed was empty. My body ached, covered in bruises. I broke down crying again. I had barely pulled on my silk robe when the nanny walked in, leading two young children by the hand. She smiled nervously, introducing them as Mr. Cole’s son and daughter. The two kids stared at me with wide, terrified eyes, desperately trying to hide behind the nanny’s legs. I looked back at them, my expression completely flat. After all, during my seven years with the Vance family, whenever guests brought their children over, my ex-mother-in-law would intentionally summon me to the living room. “Useless garbage,” she would sneer. “Touch the kids, maybe some luck will rub off on you. How long have you been married? You can’t even squeeze out a single baby.” “A barnyard chicken is more useful than you.” Every single time she opened her mouth, her words drove into my chest like rusted knives. And the shrill, echoing laughter from the other wealthy wives in the room made me feel like I was being stripped naked and publicly executed. The absolute worst part was after the guests left. My mother-in-law would order her staff to drag me into her private sitting room. She would physically force me to drink grotesque, agonizing “fertility remedies” she bought from shady holistic doctors online. Boiled toad extract, ash-infused water… horrific things. I would instantly vomit them back up. Several times, the staff physically tore the corners of my mouth trying to pry my jaw open. When I would finally stumble back into our bedroom, weak and shaking, Ethan would just look at me with absolute disgust. “Did you start another fight with my mom? Why can’t you just cooperate?” “She’s only doing this for your own good. She just wants you to get pregnant.” For years, I would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, crying silently in the dark, asking myself: Why is a woman’s only value tied to having a child? Eventually, I grew to violently despise the very concept of children. The nanny, noticing my dead-eyed stare, awkwardly introduced the kids and quickly ushered them out of the room. I didn’t try to stop her. I spent my days hiding in the master bedroom, either reading books or endlessly scrolling on my phone. The man—Marcus—completely ignored me. He left the house before the sun came up, and only returned long after I had fallen asleep. Every night was just a silent, routine transaction, and then he would immediately turn over and sleep. We had been married for six months, and I still didn’t even know his first name. The only thing that had changed was that during his nightly routines, it slowly stopped hurting. Sometimes, purely out of instinct, my body would even respond to him. But during my sixth month in the house, my period was two weeks late. If this had happened in the past, I would have been screaming with joy. Now, I just stared at the calendar with absolute, numbing indifference. During my seven years with Ethan, my cycle had been delayed several times. Every single time, I thought I was finally pregnant. I would excitedly tell Ethan. He would immediately summon the concierge doctor to the house. The doctor would run the tests, push his glasses up his nose, and deliver the verdict. “Mrs. Vance, you are not pregnant. This is simply an irregular cycle caused by severe stress and a cold uterine environment.” After the doctor left, Ethan would aggressively scold me. “Stop humiliating me like this. Don’t ever pull a stunt like this again.” My mother-in-law was infinitely worse. The next morning at breakfast, she intentionally “tripped” and spilled scalding hot coffee directly onto my lap. “Pathetic trash. You know damn well you’re barren, and you still waste the doctor’s time.” “Do you have any idea that the entire Upper East Side is laughing at our family because of you?” Thinking about those moments made my chest physically ache. So this time, I didn’t say a word. I didn’t call a doctor. I ate my breakfast as usual, and sat by the window reading a novel. But around noon, the nanny sprinted into my bedroom in an absolute panic. “Ma’am! The driver just called! The young master got into a fistfight at school and busted another kid’s lip open!” I barely lifted my eyes from my book. “Then call your boss at his office.” The nanny’s face turned completely white. “I can’t! Mr. Cole left this morning for a business trip in Europe. He’s gone for a week. He explicitly told me not to expect him home.” I frowned slightly. Did I ever expect him home? But I put my phone in my purse, grabbed my coat, and followed the nanny out the door. When we arrived at Dalton Academy, my chest tightened immediately. This was the most elite, obscenely expensive private school in Manhattan. I grew up here. So did Ethan Vance. We were high school sweethearts here. Right by the courtyard fountain, we had rescued a stray kitten together. Whenever I got detention, Ethan would intentionally get in trouble just to sit next to me. When we were teenagers, he swore to me that when we grew up, he was going to give me the most spectacular wedding the city had ever seen. He kept that promise. But after the wedding, simply because my body wouldn’t produce a child. The boy who once looked at me like I was the center of his universe began treating me like rotting garbage. Tears threatened to spill over my lashes. It was only the nanny frantically rushing me forward that forced me to swallow them back down. As we walked down the familiar, polished marble hallway, before we even reached the administrative offices. I saw him. Standing in the main rotunda. Ethan Vance. It had been six months since the divorce. He looked exactly the same. Impeccably dressed, perfectly tailored. His brow wasn’t heavy with the burden of losing me; instead, he radiated a smug, arrogant energy. Nothing like me. I had spent the last six months crying almost every single day. I looked so exhausted and haggard I couldn’t even bear to look in a mirror. Just as I froze in my tracks. A woman dripping in head-to-toe Chanel, wearing signature red-bottom Louboutins, clicked her way into the rotunda, flanked by a personal assistant. I recognized her immediately. She was the granddaughter of the school’s Headmaster. When Ethan and I were teenagers, she was just a little girl who used to follow us around. But the second she saw him, she practically sprinted and threw herself into Ethan’s arms. “Ethan! I missed you so much!” Ethan’s usually stern, corporate face instantly melted into a warm, indulgent smile. He expertly caught her, gently ruffling her hair. “Careful, you’re a grown woman now, stop running around in those heels.” The scene playing out in front of me felt like broken glass being ground into my eyes. The guidance counselor leading me down the hall leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. “That’s the Headmaster’s daughter. She’s marrying Mr. Vance next month.” “They’re very much in love, so they can be a bit… affectionate in public.” I gripped my phone so tightly my knuckles popped. Getting married? Already? It made sense, honestly. Ethan had probably been desperate to get rid of me for years. When I signed the divorce papers, he had tried to look upset, his eyes getting a little red. But I knew him better than anyone in the world. I saw the absolute, overwhelming relief hiding just behind his pupils. I violently forced myself to look away. I was divorced. I had absolutely zero connection to Ethan Vance anymore. Whoever he married was none of my business. But despite the logic, my chest still throbbed with a sharp, agonizing pain. Thankfully, the counselor quickly ushered me into the disciplinary office. The second I walked in, I saw my stepson, Leo. I had barely spoken three words to him in the six months I’d lived in that house. His face was bruised purple, and dried blood was crusted at the corner of his mouth. Standing right next to him, looking incredibly arrogant and completely uninjured, was another boy. I recognized that kid instantly. He was the son of Ethan’s older sister—the sister who loved coming to our house specifically to start drama and instigate fights between me and my mother-in-law. Every time this kid visited. My mother-in-law would drag me into the family study and physically strike me with a riding crop. It was the final, brutal escalation that finally pushed me to sign the divorce papers. Before I could even speak, the principal, a man holding a heavy wooden ruler, stormed into the room. He pointed the ruler aggressively at Leo. “Come here. Explain exactly why you started a physical altercation on my campus.” Leo’s eyes were bloodshot and brimming with furious tears. “He started it! He was insulting me!” “He said my mom is a barren freak who can’t have kids. He said my dad is white-trash who picks up other men’s garbage. He said my mom is just a used toy that his uncle threw away!” “I couldn’t take it, so I…” The principal violently cut him off. “Enough! That is obviously a fabricated lie.” “Putting your hands on another student is a violation of our zero-tolerance policy. If I don’t discipline you today, you’re going to grow up to be a violent thug.” “Hold out your hand.” Leo violently bit his lower lip, shaking his head. “No! He started it! He insulted my family!” Before he could finish, the principal raised the heavy wooden ruler and brought it down viciously across the back of Leo’s hand. Smack. I had absolutely zero maternal attachment to this kid, Leo. I was literally just here because the nanny couldn’t reach his father. But in that exact moment, the sheer, disgusting injustice of the situation made my blood boil. I stepped forward and roared at the top of my lungs. “EXCUSE ME?!” “You didn’t even bother asking for context before physically striking a child?! Do you think just because his father is out of town, he doesn’t have a mother to defend him?!” Everyone in the room snapped their heads toward me. Leo was the first to react. The second he saw me, he lunged forward, throwing his arms around my waist. “Mom! Hunter hit me!” He buried his bruised face in my coat, clinging to me like a lifeline. My legs actually trembled. This was the very first time a child had ever hugged me. And it was the very first time I realized that a child’s hands were so incredibly small, and so warm. I didn’t push him away. I glared at the principal with absolute, freezing contempt. “You instantly concluded that my son was lying, and you struck him without a single question. What kind of pathetic excuse for an educator are you?” The principal’s face flushed with fury. “You arrogant, uneducated woman! You know nothing about school policy!” Before the principal finished his sentence, the other boy, Hunter, sneered at me. “Mr. Davis, she’s not a real woman. She’s just the barren trash my family kicked to the curb.” “She was married to my Uncle Ethan for seven years and couldn’t even squeeze out a single baby. She’s just a worthless bitch.” I clenched my fists so tightly my nails dug into my palms. Look at this. This was the legacy of the Vance family. Even a ten-year-old child felt completely entitled to use the most vile, degrading language to humiliate me. I didn’t even acknowledge Hunter. I crouched down and looked Leo directly in the eyes. “Can you take him in a fight?” Leo blinked, stunned, then nodded firmly. “Then go over there and beat the absolute shit out of him.” “If he starts winning, I’ll have the nanny jump in and help you.” Leo’s eyes instantly widened with sheer, euphoric shock. I patted him hard on the shoulder. “Go.” Leo launched himself like a rabid pitbull, tackling Hunter directly into the filing cabinets. I had watched Leo practicing Taekwondo in the backyard of the mansion. He was only six, but he could already snap inch-thick wooden boards with a roundhouse kick. When I saw him standing in the office with a bruised face earlier, I was actually confused as to how a spoiled, soft kid like Hunter managed to land a hit on him. But taking a hit didn’t matter. As long as he paid it back with interest. Sure enough, within ten seconds, Hunter was pinned to the floor, screaming and sobbing in absolute agony as Leo rained punches down on him. The principal panicked, his face turning purple with rage as he lunged forward. “You little psycho! You dare assault the Vance heir on my campus?! I’ll kill you!” He raised the heavy wooden ruler, aiming directly for the back of Leo’s head. I looked at the nanny and screamed: “What the hell are you waiting for?! Tackle that man and slap him in the face!” The nanny stared at me in sheer terror. “But Ma’am…” I cut her off instantly. “If you don’t physically stop him right now, pack your bags and get the fuck out of my house tonight.” Pushed into a corner, the nanny hiked up her sleeves, let out a battle cry, and charged the principal. She grabbed a fistful of his hair, violently yanking him backward onto the carpet. “Don’t you dare touch my young master!” She pinned the principal to the floor, raised her hand, and delivered three brutal, resounding slaps directly across his face. Smack! Smack! Smack! The disciplinary office devolved into absolute, violent chaos. Hunter was pinned to the floor by Leo, screaming bloody murder. The principal was pinned to the floor by my nanny, sobbing and begging for help. I stood over them, a cold, mocking smirk pulling at the corners of my lips. A barren chicken who can’t lay eggs? Fine. Let me show you exactly what this ‘chicken’ is capable of when she loses her mind. Right in the middle of the chaos, a freezing, authoritative voice echoed from the doorway. “Stop. What the hell is going on in here.” Hearing Ethan’s voice, my grip on my phone tightened violently. But I didn’t turn around. I just kept my eyes locked on the carnage and coldly commanded my nanny and Leo: “Keep hitting them. If anyone goes to the hospital, I’ll pay the medical bills.” Ethan finally recognized me. He stormed into the room, his face a mask of absolute disbelief, and violently grabbed my wrist. “Maya?! What are you doing here?!” His grip was agonizingly tight. I spun around, raised my free hand, and slapped him directly across the jaw. Then I yanked my wrist free, took two steps back, and screamed in his face: “Ethan Vance! Keep your fucking hands off me! What makes you think you have the right to grab me?!”
🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “570821”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel
Leave a Reply