My mother taught me from a young age that a woman’s body, once sullied, should be thrown away like trash. So when my wife, on the day of our tenth anniversary, abandoned me and a hall full of guests because of a hotel invitation “mistakenly” sent by a young man, I didn’t stop her. I simply smiled, tore the thirty-thousand-word letter of promises she had written for me into confetti, and made two announcements. First, we were moving the party to the hotel. Second, the young man’s parents and friends were now the evening’s guests of honor. … When our large, righteous crowd arrived outside the door of the presidential suite, the sounds from within were unmistakable. The raw sounds of their passion, punctuated by the young man Leo’s breathless, high-pitched cries of “Mommy,” echoed down the hotel corridor. The sound silenced everyone, and a cold sweat broke out on their backs. Leo’s actual mother, standing beside me, looked as if she’d been struck by lightning. At the sound of her son’s cries, her eyes rolled back, and she fainted dead away. Believing that such joy shouldn’t be kept to myself, I gave my assistant a subtle nod. In an instant, the heated scene inside the room was being broadcast live, streamed across every major news outlet and social media platform. The wedding of a titan of industry already had immense public interest. Add a live-streamed infidelity drama, and the viewership exploded. I immediately signed a dozen impromptu advertising deals, making a fortune in minutes. If I couldn't keep the tainted woman, I might as well profit from her passionate performance. It was only fair, wasn’t it? “Mommy, am I making you happy? Am I so much more fun than that old man?” the boy’s panting voice asked. His question was answered by my wife, Isabella’s, even more enthusiastic response. While the temperature inside the room continued to climb, the atmosphere outside plunged to absolute zero. I watched the live stream revenue tick upwards, feeling no rush to knock. It was Leo’s mother, revived and frantic, who was clawing at the door like a caged animal. Thirty minutes later, through the haze of their frenzy, they finally heard her desperate pounding. The moment the door opened, the world exploded in a sea of flashbulbs. Isabella, seeing the army of cameras, froze for only a second. Her first instinct was not to cover her own body, which was a canvas of red marks, but to whip the bedsheet off the mattress and wrap it around the naked, trembling form of Leo. Once the boy was secured, she stormed towards me. There was no shame in her eyes, no guilt in her voice—only a raw, impotent fury. “Adrian Vance, are you insane? Are you trying to ruin him?” she shrieked. “He’s only twenty! How is he supposed to live his life after this? I’m warning you, get rid of these people right now and post a video clarifying this was all a misunderstanding. If you don’t, I will make you regret it.” I had to laugh. I had made the mistake of treating a dog like a person, and now it thought it had the right to bark orders at me. I kicked her aside and walked directly to the boy. I gestured for my bodyguards to rip the sheet off him. Before they could move, Leo scrambled onto the windowsill, screaming through his tears. “Adrian, brother, it was an accident! I meant to send that text to my friends, I sent it to Isabella by mistake! She was just being kind, helping me get through a tough time! Why are you trying to destroy me for it?” His shivering, sheet-clad figure was a picture of pathetic misery. Murmurs started to ripple through the crowd. “Isn’t Adrian Vance being a little too harsh? The kid’s just a boy.” “Yeah, what if he actually jumps?” Isabella was in a panic, not daring to get closer to the window. “Leo, don’t! You did nothing wrong! Adrian is the one at fault! Don’t do anything foolish!” she pleaded. I watched their heartfelt drama, raising an eyebrow. I walked over to the boy, placed a finger to my lips to silence his pathetic whining, and then, before anyone could react, I gave him a gentle push. His terrified scream echoed as he plummeted from the hundred-meter-high ledge. The crowd gasped, their eyes wide with disbelief. Isabella flew at me, her hands clamping around my throat like a vice. The veins in my neck bulged, and my breath thinned to a razor’s edge. My bodyguards surged forward, but I waved them off. Isabella’s eyes were bloodshot, boring into mine as if willing me to die and join Leo in hell. A dry, rasping laugh escaped my throat. Suddenly, this all felt so pointless. The last time I had seen such ferocity in her eyes was years ago, when one of my father’s old enemies had cornered me. She had thrown herself in front of me without a second thought, grabbing the hand that held the knife. With that same savage expression, she had guided the blade into her own body, again and again, until the food in her stomach mixed with the blood that poured out of her. A waterfall of crimson had flowed down her chest. The attacker, horrified, had turned and fled. Before the ambulance took her away, she had pressed her cold, sweaty forehead against mine, her gaze unwavering. “Adrian,” she’d sworn, “as long as I’m here, no one will ever hurt you.” But now, to protect her boy, she stood on the opposite side, ready to kill me herself. “He’s okay! He’s okay, he’s alive!” shouts from below broke through my thoughts. Everyone looked down and saw a wide maintenance platform just a few stories below the window. Leo had never intended to jump. Isabella released me, her face flooded with the joyous relief of someone who had just survived a catastrophe. She scrambled to the edge, then rushed down the stairs to get to him, pulling his trembling body into a fierce embrace. “Don’t be afraid, Leo. I won’t let anyone hurt you again.” The same words. It had only been a few short years, and now she was saying them to someone else. Fine. A cheap promise is the last thing worth holding onto. I walked over to them. Isabella instinctively shielded Leo behind her, another painfully familiar tableau. I drew the tactical knife from my bodyguard’s belt and advanced with a smirk. Isabella’s own security team moved to protect her, but she waved them away with a sharp command. Using every ounce of strength I possessed, mimicking the pressure I had just felt on my own neck, I drove the blade deep into her chest, right where her heart should be. I twisted it. Once again, I watched blood gush from her body, but this time, I felt none of the old pain. She gripped my hand, pushing the knife in deeper, her expression defiant. “Are you satisfied, Adrian? I’ll take the blame for my mistakes,” she gasped. “But I will never forgive what you did to Leo today.” I paused in the act of wiping my bloody hand on a handkerchief and tossed it onto the boy’s pathetic, naked form. “Is that so?” I sneered. “I look forward to it.” I turned to Leo, patting his cheek. “The next time you provoke me, I’ll make sure you get to experience what a fall from a hundred meters really feels like.” I just never imagined that Isabella’s revenge would involve our child. When I burst into the hospital, the first thing I saw was Leo holding my son high in the air. The baby’s heart-wrenching screams tore through me, twisting my insides into knots. Isabella just stood there, watching, her face a blank mask. “Isabella, are you insane? That’s your child too!” I stared at her, unable to comprehend. Her expression remained cold. “I told you Leo was my line. Why did you have to cross it? Get on your knees and apologize to him. Then post a video confessing that the hotel scandal was a lie you invented. Do that, and I’ll give you back the child.” My body shook with uncontrollable rage. Leo, holding my son, chuckled. “Isabella, didn’t you read that an infant’s brain is as soft as tofu? I wonder what would happen if I just… gave him a little shake?” He started to violently shake the baby. My son’s cries intensified, piercing the air. My heart shattered. “Don’t touch him! I’ll kneel! I’m begging you, please, don’t hurt the baby!” I choked out, my voice breaking. “He’s so fragile. He can’t take it.” I slammed my knees onto the hard floor, begging for a shred of their humanity. Leo started a live stream, broadcasting my humiliation to the world. Millions of viewers poured in instantly. For three hours, I knelt and kowtowed, confessing that I was a madman who had slandered my wife and the student she sponsored. A tidal wave of abuse and insults washed over me from the live chat. When it was over, I stared at Leo, my eyes burning. “Are you satisfied now? Give me back my son!” Leo finally smiled, turning off the phone. Then, with lightning speed, he lifted my son high one last time and smashed him onto the ground. The crying stopped. The world went silent. I collapsed, my strength gone. Isabella seemed surprised for a moment, but her composure quickly returned. I roared and lunged forward, but her bodyguards held me back. Leo calmly wiped his hands with a wet wipe and tossed it in the trash. He looked at my son’s twitching body on the floor and snarled, “With a scum for a father, you deserved to die!” He then picked up my child, forcing his eyes—so much like mine—to look at me. “Don’t blame me, little guy. Blame your daddy. He’s the one who killed you.” Isabella came to my side, her arm wrapping around my shoulders. “The child was always sickly. It would have ended this way sooner or later. This is what you owed Leo.” I couldn't believe those words came from her mouth. We had struggled for years to have him. After an injury early in our marriage, doctors said it would be nearly impossible for me to have children. But Isabella loved children, so I had endured years of treatments, diets, and bitter medicines. Finally, we had our son. The labor had lasted two days and one night. I had been there for all of it. The pain she went through… after he was born, I had a vasectomy. I never wanted her to suffer like that again. He was our one and only. But now, she didn’t even glance at the body. She just covered him with a cloth, as if he were a toy to be discarded. I shoved her away and snatched my son from her. She grabbed me, one arm locking around my waist, the other pinning my torso. I bit down on her hand, hard. In the struggle, my son coughed, a tiny, faint sound. “He’s not dead! My son is not dead!” I fought free and sprinted for the doctor’s office, clutching him to my chest. My fingers were just about to touch the doorknob when Isabella struck me from behind. A blow to the head. As I fell, my son slipped from my grasp. The last thing I saw before darkness took me was his tiny body hitting the floor, blood trickling from his nose and mouth. When I woke up, I was back in our home. I demanded to know where my son was. My men hesitated. “Miss Isabella… she took the young master to Mr. Leo’s university.” “She said Mr. Leo’s anatomy class was in need of an infant specimen for practice.” A roar filled my ears. I gritted my teeth. “Say that again.” “She’s… she’s letting Mr. Leo dissect the young master.” I hurled the bowl of medicine against the wall. It shattered, the dark liquid splashing everywhere. “Get the car. We’re going to the university.” Ten minutes later, I stood in the doorway of the anatomy lab. My son was on a steel table, surrounded by a dozen students, including Leo. His small body had already been dismembered. The little bundle who just yesterday could laugh and cry and call me “Dada” was now a heap of bloody flesh. His eyes, his intestines, lay scattered across the surgical tray. Leo saw me and beamed, pulling off his gloves. He held up a photo. “Brother, I have good news! Isabella is pregnant! Look, here’s the ultrasound of my baby. Isn’t he cute?” He took Isabella’s hand and placed it on her flat stomach. “Isabella, honey, I think he just kicked.” Isabella immediately told him to kneel down and press his ear to her belly to listen. Watching them, I started to laugh, a wild, unhinged sound. I drew my pistol and fired a shot that grazed Leo’s side, just a fraction of an inch from his abdomen. “Ah!” He doubled over, scrambling behind Isabella. She finally turned and saw me. “Adrian, have you lost your mind!” she screamed. I didn’t speak. I just kept walking towards them. I racked the slide. Another shot, this one on the other side of his stomach. As I advanced on Isabella, Leo threw himself at my feet, clinging to my legs. “Adrian, as long as I’m alive, I will never let you hurt her.” I was about to kick him away when he suddenly recoiled dramatically, clutching his stomach and crying out in pain. “Brother, are you blaming me for your son’s death?” he wailed. “It was your fault he was so weak in the first place! I was just ending his suffering! If you can’t stand the thought of Isabella having my baby, if you want her to be barren, just tell her to get an abortion! You don’t have to torture me like this! I can’t take it!” He curled into a ball, trembling as if in terror. His pathetic acting was so bad it was comical. Isabella shielded him protectively. “Adrian, you are the one most responsible for our son’s death,” she said, her voice dripping with contempt. “It was because of you, his useless father, that he suffered so much. You should be the one to die to atone for your sins.” She knew how guilty I felt about our son’s fragile health, and she used it as a weapon, twisting the knife. From behind her, Leo added, “The day your son died was the day Isabella got pregnant with mine. It’s a sign. Even he knew you weren’t worthy of being his father, so he came back to her womb to be with a better one.” I laughed, grabbing his chin and forcing his head up. My eyes were venomous. “Or maybe,” I whispered, “he came back to her womb to claim a life for me.” I pressed the muzzle of the gun against Leo’s groin and pulled the trigger. His shriek of agony echoed through the lab. Ignoring Isabella’s screams, I yanked him up by his hair, pointing the gun at the bloody ruin between his legs. “There, little brother. I’ve eliminated the problem for you. Aren’t you going to thank me? This is what it looks like when I can’t stand you. I don’t bother with your pathetic little traps and schemes.” The next second, a gunshot cracked, and a bullet seared past my ear. Blood trickled down my neck. I followed the trajectory back to its source, my gaze locking on Isabella. My world narrowed to a single point of madness. “Isabella. You shot at me?” Her eyes were blazing. “I warned you, Adrian. He’s just a boy. Leave him alone. You forced me to do this.” Leo was howling on the floor. “Isabella, he destroyed our chances of having a family! Kill him! Avenge our child!” Before she could answer, I smirked down at him. “Forget revenge. If you don’t get to an operating room right now, you’ll never have a child with anyone.” His wailing stopped instantly, replaced by a fresh torrent of silent, fat tears. Isabella’s face softened with pity. She helped him up and rushed him towards the exit, pausing only to throw one last threat over her shoulder. “I told you, Adrian. You will pay for this.”
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