Chapter 3
821words
I turned to find Melanie Sinclair's smirking face inches from mine.
"Didn't your mother warn you about trusting men too easily? Seems you forgot that lesson entirely."
My nails dug into my palms as she circled me like a predator.
Through my tears, I saw my mother again—clutching my hand on her deathbed, her body trembling with rage and sorrow.
"Never forgive. Never trust men so easily."
Those were her final words before she slipped away when I was thirteen.
Melanie had stood right beside me then.
Her name wasn't always Sinclair—it was Sullivan. She was the widow of my father's old war buddy.
My mother, seeing their desperate situation, had taken them in.
I'd been thrilled to have a girl my age living with us.
We walked to school together, studied together.
Until that summer when Mom returned early from a business trip and her screams shattered our peaceful home.
I rushed home to find everything in ruins.
Dad's cheek was bright red from a slap.
Melanie's mother knelt on the floor, clutching her daughter, sobbing.
Mom stood there, white with fury, having run out of things to throw.
"Melanie is my daughter," Dad had said. "Blame me if you must, but leave them out of it."
After discovering a decade of lies and betrayal, Mom collapsed. In the hospital, she did nothing but cry.
I cried too, shattered by my father's betrayal. I hurled the most vicious words I could find at him.
After a year of hell, Mom broke.
When she heard Melanie's mother was pregnant again, she grabbed Dad and jumped from our third-floor balcony.
Dad escaped with a broken leg. Mom died with her eyes wide open, refusing peace even in death.
The memories blur at the edges now, after all these years.
But one thing remains crystal clear: Melanie and her mother destroyed everything my family had been.
Homeless, motherless, I refused to acknowledge my father ever again.
I've walked alone ever since.
Then came Marcus Morgan. I thought we were kindred spirits—both scarred by family betrayal, connected by shared pain.
I threw my mother's warnings to the wind.
All of it—every moment—had been a carefully crafted lie.
"I should call you 'sis,' shouldn't I? After all, your kidney is what saved my life."
Melanie's mocking voice cut through my thoughts.
My nails broke skin as she continued.
"But when I think about how you trapped Marcus into marriage, it makes me sick."
"How could he possibly want you? Why would he ever choose to marry you?"
"If you only knew how he chased after me."
Her words felt like a twisted echo of my own memories.
Because everything she described, I had experienced too.
"God, you're pathetic. He throws you a few crumbs of attention and you think he loves you."
"That 800,000? My mother gave it to me. When I got scared about the surgery, Marcus took your kidney money and stayed with me abroad for two whole years."
Her smile turned smug, eyes gleaming with triumph.
"When I got married overseas, he drank himself into the hospital. Only then did he crawl back to China to find you."
"You were always his backup plan. He never intended to acknowledge you publicly."
"I'm divorced now. Back off while you still have some dignity left."
My fist clenched bone-white. My chest constricted so tightly that each breath felt like swallowing glass.
Her smile widened into something predatory.
"Still don't believe me? Let's make a wager."
"Let's bet on that baby you're carrying."
Ice flooded my veins.
"What are you talking about?"
I hadn't told anyone about the pregnancy. How could she know?
Her smile faltered for just a moment.
"I heard about your little hospital visit today. Your presence here wasn't an accident—I had the nurses tip you off. Figured you wouldn't want to miss hubby's big day. Just didn't expect you'd overhear the whole ugly truth."
"Since the cat's out of the bag, let's settle this now. Your unborn child is the stake."
"If he lets you keep the baby, I'll walk away for good."
"If he makes you abort it, you divorce him."
Melanie's eyes glittered with absolute certainty.
When I didn't immediately respond, she leaned in, her challenge intensifying.
"What's wrong? Scared?"
Rage surged through me in violent waves, my knuckles cracking as I clenched my fists.
"Natalie Sinclair, the real mistress is the one who isn't loved. Your mother couldn't beat mine. Are you going to follow mommy's footsteps? Cling to Marcus until you're so broken you jump off a building? Die with your eyes open like she did?"
Tears burned down my cheeks as her words ripped open old wounds.
She twisted the knife deeper with every syllable.
She had orchestrated everything, certain that with Marcus under her spell, I would inevitably lose.
I swallowed my tears and met her gaze.
"Fine. Game on."
