The day I had my traumatic delivery, Damon Thorne was globe-trotting with his mistress. When he finally came back, he just handed me divorce papers. “Sign them, Ashley. I specifically waited until you recovered before bringing up the divorce. That’s pretty considerate of me, right? By the way, I don’t want the kid, cuz Serena will give me plenty of kids later.” I didn’t say a word. Just took the pen and signed. Besides, I had my own wedding to get to, with the man I actually loved. Three months later, right after my wedding, the hospital administration called me back for an emergency. Apparently, the female patient suffered a rupture of the corpus luteum following sexual intercourse with multiple partners. I pushed open the door and took one look. And wouldn’t you know it? Lying on the operating table was none other than my ex-husband’s mistress. I looked down, carefully checking the patient’s name. Serena. I’d really thought Damon found some perfect, pure love. Turns out his taste runs a little… wilder than I’d imagined. I remembered the day I gave birth. I’d hemorrhaged badly due to complications during labor. The doctors kept frantically calling for my family. But Damon’s phone remained unreachable. Photos of him and Serena, cozying up in and out of hotels, were plastered all over social media. I nearly died that day. When I finally woke up, Damon appeared. His face held a hint of impatience. “Ashley, why do you always have to make such a mess of yourself? You’re an Oxford-educated doctor, for crying out loud. Did you have to have this baby for me? I don’t even like it. Your idea of using a child to secure your place is just pathetic.” He hadn’t even finished speaking when his phone rang. He answered it without a hint of hesitation. “Serena…” The voice on the other end cut him off. “Damon, is my birthday surprise ready? You said you were just going to check on that old hag at the hospital. It’s been half an hour, why aren’t you back yet? I heard she even hemorrhaged? Damon, hurry back. Don’t let her problems get to you.” Damon chuckled. “Only Serena cares about me. I’m coming right back. The birthday gift has been ready for ages. I promise you’ll be screaming my name so loud you won’t be able to walk straight for days!” Damon walked out as he spoke, not sparing me another glance. Of course, it never occurred to him to even look at our child. Thankfully, I wasn’t too heartbroken. After confirming the baby was perfectly fine, I could finally talk to Mr. Hayes, Damon’s grandfather, about the promise we made. I called him myself. “Mr. Hayes, the baby is safe. May I leave now?” My marriage to Damon was forced by his grandfather. I originally refused, but that very night, my parents were in a car accident. While not life-threatening, I couldn’t refuse anymore. Mr. Hayes had promised that if I gave them a worthy heir, he wouldn’t stand in the way of a divorce. The truth was, I’d had a boyfriend for ten years at that point. He knew the truth and had been waiting for me all this time. After my call, Mr. Hayes sighed. “I’ve seen the news these past few days. A forced relationship never thrives, so I’ll let you go. But you’re still weak, so I’ve arranged for a professional nursing team. Please recover fully before you leave.”
Serena’s screams pulled me back to reality. I quickly assessed her condition. Severe lacerations down there, with a nasty infection already setting in. There were even signs of tissue necrosis. This was way trickier than I’d anticipated. She was convulsing from the pain but still swearing. “Idiots! All of you are useless! You can’t even handle a little scratch like this? I’ll have this hospital shut down by tomorrow, I swear!” “And those damn men! None of them are any good! They get their fun and bolt, leaving me here to suffer! Once I get out of here, I’m going to rip them apart!” I put on my sterile gloves, my face expressionless. “Ms. Serena, you need immediate surgical debridement.” As soon as she heard “surgery,” she ignored her pain and continued to curse. “Surgery? Who gave you permission to use a knife? I’m warning you, if you dare leave even one scar on me, you’ll regret it! I’m supposed to wear a designer gown! I’m marrying into a rich family!” She glared at me, her eyes vicious. “Are you doing this on purpose? Trying to ruin me, are you? I’ll have you know, my fiancé is practically a billionaire! He could have all of you fired with a single phone call!” I cut her off. “It’s too early to worry about that. If we don’t operate immediately, the infection will spread. Forget getting married, you could lose your ability to have kids permanently. Hell, you could even die.” I was simply stating the facts objectively. For patients like her, sympathy was useless. The nurse beside me handed over the consent form, and Serena snatched it, tearing it into tiny pieces. She shrieked hysterically, “Sign what?! No! I’m not signing anything! You quacks are trying to ruin me! I’ll sue you all! I’ll make sure you lose your licenses and your careers!” Suddenly, as if remembering something, her eyes turned venomous, glaring at me. “Who the hell are you? You think you’re good enough to operate on me? Get your chief of surgery in here, now! Or my fiancé will tear this whole damn hospital down!” If my job wasn’t to save lives, I wouldn’t bother with her. I wasn’t in the mood to waste time talking. “Honey, I’m probably the only doctor in this whole hospital qualified to be your lead surgeon. Now, where’s your family? Someone needs to sign this.” At the mention of family, Serena clearly panicked. “Family? I don’t need family. I can make my own decisions.” “Just do the surgery! If you delay my recovery, can you bear the consequences?” I reminded her again. “By protocol, surgery requires a family member’s signature. Where is your fiancé?” Serena’s face twisted. “You’d all better keep your mouths shut. If a single word about this gets out, I’ll make sure you regret it for the rest of your miserable lives!” I raised an eyebrow, but didn’t press further. I’d seen this kind of thing too many times in the hospital. I simply placed the consent form in front of her. “Think fast, make a decision soon. Time’s ticking. After I’m done saving your life, I still need to go back and finish my wedding…” My words were cut off by a man’s voice suddenly coming from behind me. “Married? Who are you marrying? You’re getting married just three months after our divorce?!”
Damon, flanked by four black-suited bodyguards, blocked the operating room doorway. His designer suit accentuated his lean, powerful build, and he radiated an intimidating presence. “Ashley, did you hear me talking to you?” “What? Only three months divorced and you don’t recognize your ex-husband?” His gaze swept past me, and before I could answer, his face immediately changed when he saw Serena on the operating table. Serena lay there with an oxygen tube, her face deathly pale. Damon’s eyes instantly filled with heartache, and the icy chill in his voice was directed right at me. “Ashley, what did you do to her?! She was perfectly fine when she left this morning! What are you people pulling behind my back?!” Serena weakly lifted a hand, reaching for Damon. “Damon! She’s trying to kill me!” Her voice was raw and broken. “She was stirring a scalpel in my stomach! She even said, ‘One more cut, and you’ll never have kids again!’ I begged her to stop, but she just kept going, I thought I was going to die from the pain…” Before she could finish, she suddenly coughed violently, her chest heaving. The monitor began to emit a sharp alarm. She gasped for air, then shrieked with all her strength, “It’s your ex-wife, Damon! Damon, she’s just jealous! Jealous that I can give you children, jealous that I’m going to be Mrs. Thorne!” I raised my hand, tossing the blood-stained gauze into the medical waste bin. Then I picked up the surgical record and slowly waved it in front of Damon. “Mr. Thorne, a ruptured abscess in her lower region led to sepsis. If your fiancée had arrived forty minutes later, she’d be in the morgue right now.” Before Damon could take it, Serena snatched it away. “Damon, she’s lying! She’s deliberately framing me! Because she knows you divorced her for me, she’s using her position to get revenge!” Serena yanked out the IV needle on the back of her hand. “Damon, look! She deliberately missed the vein, and she left bruises all over my body, even on my neck!” “She even threatened me! She said she’d send my medical records to all the media, so everyone would know that you married a woman inferior to her!” I turned my head to look at Serena. She did indeed have bruises all over her body. But these were already there when she arrived at the hospital. Clearly, they were marks of passion. Damon hugged her, then stomped on the surgical record lying on the floor. “Ashley, you tried to blackmail me into marrying you using Grandpa’s medication and failed. Now you want to destroy Serena?” He scoffed. “St. Jude’s Hospital? And you think you’re fit to work here? It seems I was too lenient with you when we divorced, letting you get away with touching my woman. Ashley, clearly you haven’t learned what happens when you cross Damon.” As he finished speaking, two bodyguards quickly stepped forward and twisted my arms behind my back. I was forced down in front of Damon and Serena. I looked up at him, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “Damon, aren’t you curious why she’s so desperate not to have surgery?” The bodyguards tightened the restraints on my hands, the straps cutting into my skin, sending sharp pain through my body. I was still recovering from a traumatic childbirth and was even still breastfeeding; I was far from healed. The bending motion made my abdominal pain flare up. Cold sweat beaded on my forehead as I forced out each word, “She has seventeen handsome men contacts saved in her phone. Last week, she was with three different guys in hotels. Go ahead, call your private doctor, and ask him how serious a ‘promiscuous’ lifestyle can be!”
“You’re lying! You’re trying to frame me!” Serena finished, tears streaming down her face, as she burrowed into Damon’s embrace, looking utterly wronged. She sobbed, “Damon, she’s gone too far, using her position as a doctor here to spread false accusations about me! You know I’ve always been with you. How could I have anything to do with other men, let alone get infected with some virus! Damon, are you just going to let her bully me like this? You have to get revenge for me…” Damon’s face grew darker and darker as she accused me. “Drag her to the underground freezer! No one is to let her out without my order!” The bodyguards dragged me towards the fire escape. I struggled, but their grip only tightened. The pain made the stairs seem to wobble before my eyes. “Damon! You’ll live to regret not believing me!” Behind me, Serena’s sobs grew louder. “Damon, make her disappear quickly. I don’t want to see her again. If she finds out we’re getting married soon, she’ll definitely try to ruin our wedding.” Damon soothed her. “Shh, baby, trust me. I won’t let anything happen to our wedding. You’ll be the most beautiful bride in the world.” “…” The freezer door slowly swung shut. Inside, at negative fifteen degrees Celsius, the cold pierced my body like a thousand icy needles. I curled up next to the freezer unit, pounding on the door. “Damon, let me out! This is illegal! You’re breaking the law! Let me out, now!” My flimsy surgical gown offered no protection against the biting cold, and my vision began to blur. I don’t know how long passed, but suddenly, Damon’s voice echoed in my ears. “Have you learned your lesson? Will you dare to do it again? Ashley, don’t think for a second that just because you gave birth to a child for me, you can mess with my woman. Today, you’re going to learn what happens when you cross me.” Damon stood outside the freezer room, holding Serena in his arms, princess-style. She was bundled in Damon’s suit jacket, her face still ghostly pale, but a flicker of calculation danced in her eyes. Serena snuggled closer into Damon’s arms. “Damon, it’s so cold here. Do you think she’ll freeze to death?” I’d seen her report. I knew her condition was critical. She should worry about herself, and how much longer she had to live, instead of me. “But she’s so mean, she made me suffer so much. A little freezing is what she deserves.” Serena looked up at Damon, her tone laced with feigned fear. “I’m really scared she’ll get out and retaliate against me. In the operating room earlier, the way she looked at me was terrifying, like she wanted to devour me alive.” Damon held her, glancing at me, his voice hard. “With me here, she can’t touch you.” Serena’s eyes welled up again. “But I’m afraid she’ll hold a grudge and spread rumors about my private life being ‘improper.’ Everything she said earlier was obviously made up. She’s just jealous of me, deliberately slandering me…” “It wouldn’t be good if it affected you and Thorne Industries.” “Damon, please don’t believe her nonsense. You’re the only one for me. She just wants to stir up trouble between us so she can get back with you.” My teeth chattered slightly from the cold, my whole body ached, and my brain was starting to shut down. “Serena… why don’t you unlock your phone for Damon… let him check your hotel records from last week…” “Shut up!” Serena shrieked, her voice suddenly much louder. “Damon, look! She’s still spouting lies! I didn’t do anything! She’s framing me!” She deliberately leaned further into Damon’s embrace, accidentally snagging her wrist on a bruise, and instantly cried out. “Ah… it hurts… Damon, I don’t want to hear her voice anymore!” Damon’s eyes grew colder, and he commanded, “Set the temperature to the absolute lowest. Let’s see if she still feels like running her mouth.” The bodyguard at the door immediately complied. The cold intensified abruptly, and white frost condensed on the metal cabinet walls. A metallic taste filled my mouth, and my fingernails scraped a raw, grating sound against the icy metal wall of the freezer. Just as my vision started to black out… Damon’s final warning echoed in my ears. “Ashley, when you learn to behave, I’ll let you out. Otherwise, you’ll never leave.” My consciousness began to fade, my whole body frozen and immobile. I used my last ounce of strength to speak. “Damon… let me out…” But he just turned and walked away with Serena in his arms. Just as they were about to leave, the corridor door was violently thrown open. Nurse Davis burst in, a stack of lab reports clutched in her hand, her voice frantic: “Serena’s HIV test came back positive! All instruments in the operating room must be destroyed immediately!” She slammed the papers down. “You’ve all been exposed to her blood! Get yourselves to PEP treatment now, before it’s too late!” Damon’s hand instantly froze in mid-air, the color draining completely from his face. “What did you say?! How is that possible?!”
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