At the wedding, I reached out my hand, but my fiancé, Ryan Carter, slid the ring onto the finger of Jessica Miller, my father’s mistress’s daughter. My mother’s heart seized up with fury, yet Ryan simply met my gaze, a chilling calm in his eyes. “Carter Corp. is going public next month. Since your mother already signed the divorce agreement, leaving with absolutely nothing, I doubt you can offer me any help. My wife can only be the heiress of the Miller family.” My wedding became Jessica Miller’s wedding. My mother died of a heart attack amidst the biting whispers and cruel laughter. Five years later, Ryan Carter returned home with Jessica and their three-year-old son. He found me making soup in his kitchen and immediately tried to kick me out. “Samantha Kingston, have you no shame? Are you still dreaming of me marrying you? In your dreams!” With that, he grabbed my collar, his grip like iron, and started dragging me towards the door. Just then, his aunt, Carol, emerged from the study. “You insolent brat! Let go of your stepmother!” Ryan didn’t quite hear her, but Aunt Carol’s sheer presence made him visibly flinch, shrinking his neck back. Aunt Carol didn’t even give him a proper look, her gaze sweeping over Jessica. “What do you think this place is? A dog pound? Get her out of here now!”
Aunt Carol despised home-wreckers more than anyone. Realizing Aunt Carol had called her a dog, Jessica’s eyes immediately welled up. “I know you resent me, but my feelings for Ryan are genuine. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gone through hell and risked my life to have Leo.” She yanked the boy from the corner, forcing him to his knees. “Leo, come here!” Seeing Aunt Carol remain silent, Jessica crawled on her knees towards me, tears streaming down her face. “Five years ago, Ryan and I truly wronged you. But we’re a family now; that’s an unchangeable fact.” “I’m begging you, please, talk to Aunt Carol for me. As long as Leo can return to the Carter family, I’ll gladly leave with nothing and give Ryan back to you. I promise I’ll never bother you again!” Jessica reached for my clothes, but I recoiled, dodging her. She seized the opportunity, collapsing dramatically to the floor. Before I could react, Ryan violently shoved me. My back slammed into the corner of the dining table, the pain making my fingertips tremble. Ryan acted as if he hadn’t seen it, tenderly pulling Jessica into his arms, as if she were the one truly hurt. “Jessica, I forbid you from talking nonsense! Leo’s mother and my wife can only be you.” “Samantha Kingston! I can’t believe after five years, you’re still so merciless! I wouldn’t marry you five years ago, and I certainly won’t now! The only woman I’ve ever loved, and the only woman I’ll ever have children with, is Jessica! Get out of here and go back to wherever you came from! You’re not welcome in our home.” I didn’t utter a single word through the entire ordeal, only felt my tailbone throbbing. My father had said those very same words when he’d kicked my mother and me out. Even Ryan’s eyes held the exact same look my father had given us five years ago. As if I were the villain, the one who’d driven Jessica to desperation. But five years ago, it was Jessica’s mother who’d forced my mother and me out, leaving us with nothing. In the end, it was the victim who was blamed; it was my fault. I swallowed hard, trying to steady myself, then leaned on my tailbone and offered a faint smile. “Five years, Ryan. No one stays the same.” Just like that stormy night, when I was stabbed through the tailbone by thugs trying to save him. Five years had passed, and it had healed. Though it still ached sometimes, it never hurt like it did back then. Ryan looked at me, surprised, but Aunt Carol slapped him across the face. “You good-for-nothing! Who gave you permission to hurt her?!”
After Ryan’s birth mother died in the line of duty, she entrusted him to Aunt Carol. Busy with her work, Aunt Carol then handed him over to her brother, Arthur Kingston, who lived abroad, to raise. To outsiders, Ryan was Arthur’s foster son. So, after marrying Arthur five years ago, I became Ryan’s foster mother. In the five years since our marriage, no one in the Kingston family dared to raise their voice at me, let alone lay a hand on me. Ryan, oblivious to the truth, thought his words had simply caused Aunt Carol to misunderstand. He started explaining frantically. “No, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, I was just saying— ” Before Ryan could finish, Jessica snatched my hand and lifted the wedding ring, a ring Arthur had spent three months creating by hand, into the light. “You’re married?!” Ryan stared at me in disbelief, grabbing my hand. His face cycled from white to green, then flushed red. “Samantha Kingston, don’t you think you owe me an explanation?!” My wrist throbbed from his grip. I yanked it back forcefully and started rubbing it. “Let go! I have nothing to explain to you.” Ryan’s eyes darkened, his lips parted, but no words came out. Five years ago, it was he who had publicly declared at the wedding that he was marrying Jessica, not me. Shouldn’t he be happy I was married? Why was he complaining? A flicker of unnoticed triumph crossed Jessica’s eyes as she feigned surprise. “Since you’re already married to someone else, why are you still trying to win over Aunt Carol?” “Are you trying to play games, hoping to marry Ryan too, so you can walk all over our family of three and the entire Carter family? Five years ago, my family wronged you, but the entire Carter family belongs to Dad. Doing this shows you have no respect for him!” Jessica was a master at taking a minor incident and twisting it into something excessively manipulative. And the culprit, always, was me. It was like that when I was living at home, and it continued after I met Ryan. The old me would have fought desperately to clear my name. Now, I just saw it as a joke. But Ryan took it seriously, his eyebrows twitching with rage. “Samantha Kingston, you disgusting woman, you’re a curse on any family you join! You deserve to be abandoned by your father, just like your mother!” Before I could even react, there was a sharp *smack*, and Aunt Carol’s full force sent one of Ryan’s teeth flying. Bright red blood splattered across the back of my hand, a sickening spray. I grimaced in disgust. Ryan turned his head, clutching his face, staring at Aunt Carol in disbelief. “Aunt Carol… ” “I’ll kill you, you witch! If it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t have hit Daddy!” Leo, who had been silently hiding behind Jessica, suddenly lunged like a wild animal, slamming into my stomach. No one had time to react. I was caught off guard and knocked to the ground. A sharp cramp seized my abdomen, and a sudden, terrifying warmth flooded between my legs. I stared at Aunt Carol in terror, tears bursting forth. “Save my baby… ” Even Aunt Carol, who had witnessed countless life-and-death situations, was horrified by the sight of my unstoppable bleeding. She quickly dialed 911 for an ambulance. Jessica, having recovered her composure, stopped Aunt Carol, feigning an air of experienced wisdom as she argued. “Don’t let Samantha’s tricks fool you. I think she just got a little bump from Leo, and her period started early.” “She’s so desperate to marry Ryan, how could she possibly get pregnant with some other guy’s kid? It’s all a ploy. If you fall for it, you’ll walk right into her trap!” Ryan, still dazed from the shock, gradually started echoing her words. “She’s right! Samantha is just like her mother, full of schemes. Otherwise, why would her father eventually lose patience and abandon her?” He then stared at me with disdain, pinching his nose. “Samantha Kingston, how disgusting can you be? You knew your period was coming, why didn’t you prepare? Do you know every single tile you’re lying on was personally overseen by my father for my mother? Now it’s stained with your blood. Aunt Carol not killing you is a miracle! Now get out!” I clutched my stomach, curled into a ball. Cold sweat soaked my clothes, and I trembled uncontrollably from the pain. Aunt Carol quickly scooped me up, practically in tears with worry. Her clenched fists, seeing the culprit was just a child, helplessly relaxed. She could only keep urging me not to sleep. “Don’t you dare sleep! Just hold on a little longer, the ambulance will be here any second.”
I clung desperately to Aunt Carol’s sleeve, as if that alone could hold onto the life inside me. But in my ear, I heard Ryan let out a humorless laugh, looking at me with mockery. “Samantha Kingston, five years unseen, and you’ve certainly grown bolder. Claiming to be my father’s wife! Have you forgotten, my father is known throughout this city as an infamously private CEO? Not just a woman, not even a female ant can get close to him!” “Six years ago, a college student spread rumors that she was his girlfriend. The night my father heard about it, that student mysteriously disappeared! Samantha, are you insane, or do you just have a death wish? How dare you spread such lies in my family’s home?” I was in too much pain to respond. But Ryan and Jessica took my silence as guilt, their words growing even more venomous. “Ryan, don’t be angry. I think she still loves you too much, otherwise, she wouldn’t take such risks using Dad as an excuse.” “But, Sam, I have to remind you. Since you’ve told everyone you’re Dad’s wife, how could Ryan possibly marry you? Wouldn’t that be a generational mess? Or are all your elaborate attempts to marry Ryan just for the Carter family fortune?” “Oh my God! If that’s true, then five years ago, when you risked your life to save Ryan from those thugs… was that all a self-staged act too? How could your schemes run so deep?!” Jessica shielded her son, the culprit, behind Ryan, her timid demeanor instantly igniting Ryan’s fury. He kicked a dining chair aside, then roughly yanked me up from the floor. “Samantha Kingston! You truly are a woman of such calculating schemes! I deserved to be blind for wasting so many years on you! Get out of here right now! The mere sight of you makes my eyes hurt!” I wasn’t careful, and my shirt ripped open. My exposed lower back pressed against the cold floor. The scar on my tailbone felt like a lightning strike, merging with the memory of that stormy night five years ago. Through the pouring rain, I’d screamed at the thug who was beating Ryan. “Let him go! I’ll go with you!” I knew they wouldn’t truly dare to offend the Kingston family. My appearance was just a carefully calculated move on their part. Ryan had struggled, telling me not to intervene. But I’d stared into the downpour, moving closer to him. “Ryan, only if you get out of here can I live.” An unspoken understanding passed between us in that moment. He was just one person. Despite my desperate pleas, he still ran off to get help. As expected, he brought back the feared Arthur Kingston. That was also the first time I met Arthur. I’d knelt before him, begging him to give me a chance to be with Ryan. I don’t remember what he said in response. I only remember that before I lost consciousness, Ryan held me tightly, overjoyed, and said. “Dad agreed! We can finally be together openly. I swear, I’ll never betray you in this life.” At the time, I was weak, my smile forced. Only then did Ryan realize, belatedly, that my entire tailbone had been shattered by the thug. However long I lay in the ICU, Ryan knelt outside the operating room. Back then, Ryan’s act of being madly in love with me had been truly convincing. So convincing, that I’d given him my entire heart and life. But the outcome, well, it was exactly as you’d expect. I didn’t know if he saw the scar on my tailbone, but Ryan was staring blankly at my blood-stained lower back. Aunt Carol scooped me up, kicked him, and roared, “Get out of my way!” Only then did he regain some awareness, murmuring my name. I was rushed into the ambulance by Aunt Carol. Through my blurry vision, I saw Ryan following, his face ashen, saying things I couldn’t understand. “Samantha Kingston, do you have no decency, bullying a three-year-old?!” “Fine, you don’t like Jessica. But I have one condition: you have to treat Leo like your own child!” “Samantha, just show me a little humility, and I’ll make sure you’re set up for life, you and your mother will never have to worry about food or shelter!”
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