The soybeans slid down into my stomach. Within a minute, my face swelled, the allergic reaction visible in real-time.
I felt nothing.
No—I chose to feel nothing.
I raised my hand and slapped myself across the face.
"I'm sorry. I failed to take proper care of Miss Fox. I'll remove the flowers immediately."
I didn't defend myself.
What was the point? In his eyes, I was already damned beyond redemption.
From the moment I returned to the Blackwell estate, Rebecca had made a game of humiliating me. Mason never saw it. Or maybe he just didn't care.
When Rebecca accidentally spilled soup on the floor, Mason made me kneel and lick it clean.
When she dropped her ring into the pool, he forced me into the frozen water in the dead of winter. Two hours. I nearly died.
Even those flowers—Rebecca had ordered them placed there herself. Just to see what Mason would do to me.
And now he stared at me, disgust carving deep lines into his face.
"Don't think bowing your head makes this go away, Chloe." His voice was quiet. Dangerous. "Rebecca is seven months pregnant. Your little stunt nearly made her miscarry."
He stepped closer.
"You're going to kneel in the memorial hall. You'll stay there until she's discharged from the hospital. I don't care if it takes days."
I nodded. My body was already broken—what was a little more?
I turned toward the door, dragging myself forward.
His hand shot out, yanking me back.
"You did this." His grip was bruising. "And now you're putting on this pathetic act? Who exactly is this performance for?"
I met Mason's bloodshot eyes and caught my reflection in them—a fleeting, ghostly glimpse.
For a moment, I saw us at eighteen again.
Back then, I never imagined we'd end up here.
I had loved him once. And hated him too.
On the day I first became a mother, he dragged me into hell.
He made me watch as my own mother pushed my father off a building.
Then he forced her to confess her crimes to my face—before she threw herself after him.
After that, he locked me away in the psychiatric hospital. Broke me down, over and over.
The child in my womb was the only hope I had left.
But when I was seven months pregnant, Mason had me strapped to an operating table.
"When my mother died, the baby inside her was seven months along too. Your family owed her one last life. Now we're even."
I begged. I screamed. I wanted to die with my child.
Mason had them bind my hands and feet.