Chapter 2

The moment those words left my mouth, the entire banquet hall froze like someone had hit pause. The silence was so complete you could hear a pin drop.

This was a union between the Western Brown family and the Andre family. Every guest here was somebody.

The bride had just detonated a scandal with her own lips. The media in the room descended like sharks smelling blood, cameras surging toward me from every direction.

After a brief silence, the room erupted into furious whispers.

Brandon's brow twisted. He shoved the reporters back, seized my hand in an iron grip, and dropped his voice:

"Freya, what exactly did you just mean by that?"

"Wasn't it Caitlin who had the STD and got knocked up by some other guy?"

I looked at this man I'd loved for five years and felt a sharp, gutting pain move through me.

Three months ago, Freya had used one AI-generated fake photo to make Brandon completely convinced that I was sleeping around behind his back — that I had an STD, that the baby I was carrying belonged to some unknown man.

I had begged him to believe me. The photo was fake. It was Freya who had the STD.

But he shoved me to the ground, loomed over me, and screamed:

"Freya is pure and kind. Why would she ever frame you?"

"You've always resented her for taking your place as the Brown family's daughter. You just can't stand her!"

I hit the floor. The pain in my lower abdomen was so severe I broke into a cold sweat all over my body.

I curled into myself and begged him to take me to the hospital. To save our baby.

He stared at the pool of blood spreading beneath me, his voice soft and brutal at the same time:

"Caitlin, as long as that bastard in your belly is gone and you get your STD treated, I'll still marry you."

I crawled through the blood to reach the table, grabbed my phone, and called 911.

By the time I got to the hospital, the baby was already gone.

He had killed our child with his own hands.

I dragged my broken body home, only to find Brandon and Freya tangled together in my bed.

When I fell apart and confronted them, Brandon sneered:

"You've been with so many men. You were carrying some stranger's kid."

"I'm just fooling around with one person. If anything, you're getting the better end of the deal."