In the stillness of the night, a piercing wail echoed through the emergency room of Warwick Asylum.
Rose Laurent clutched the bedsheet beneath her, her body trembling violently as searing pain tore through her. Blood gushed from between her legs, pooling onto the cold, sterile floor. Gasping for breath, she forced her lips apart.
"Let me see… my baby…"
A nurse hesitated, glancing at the doctor before whispering, "She's losing too much blood… Should we call Mr. Moreau?"
Before an answer could be given, the doors to the emergency room swung open. A woman draped in a luxurious mink coat strode in, her gaze sweeping across the room before she made her way to the operating table. Without hesitation, she snatched the newborn from the nurse's arms.
Rose's eyes widened in horror. She struggled to lift her arms, to reclaim her child, but her body was too weak, her strength drained.
"Well, well," Vanessa Laurent cooed, cradling the infant in her arms, her lips curling into a saccharine smile. "A boy, no less. You do surprise me, cousin." Her tone was laced with mockery. Then, with a sigh of false pity, she added, "What a shame… Such an adorable baby, and yet, he won't live to see another day."
With deliberate cruelty, she extended her manicured fingers and dragged her sharp nails across the baby's soft cheek, leaving behind a thin, crimson scratch. She laughed, her voice saccharine yet venomous. "Don't cry, little one. If you must blame someone, blame your mother. She was foolish enough to steal my man."
The infant let out a heart-wrenching cry, his tiny body writhing in pain.
"Vanessa, let go… of my child!" Rose's voice was hoarse but desperate. "He is Damien Moreau's son! You cannot harm him—"
Vanessa scoffed, her lips twisting into a sneer. "Is he? And yet, who would ever know for sure? After all, weren't you caught red-handed with Yan Chu? You and that pretty-faced scoundrel, in bed together—photographed and splashed across every headline, disgracing Damien and the Moreau family alike."
Rose's bloodshot eyes burned with fury. "You set me up! Vanessa, don't think I don't know—"
Slap!
Vanessa's hand struck her with brutal force, sending a fresh trickle of blood from Rose's split lip.
"Shut up, you wretched wh*r*!" Vanessa spat, her eyes flashing with triumphant cruelty. "So what if it was me? Damien despises you—hates you! And now, I stand beside him!"
Rose laughed then—a broken, chilling sound. Her lips curled in a twisted smile, her gaze alight with a flickering madness. "Vanessa… what do you think will happen… when Damien finds out you were the one who killed his mother?"
Another slap landed across her face, Vanessa's nails raking across her skin, leaving deep, burning scratches. With an air of smug satisfaction, Vanessa sneered, "And yet, Damien never wants to see you again. In his eyes, you are the treacherous adulteress, the murderer who killed his mother and even tried to harm his grandmother."
Her tone shifted to something almost playful, laced with cruelty. "But don't worry, cousin. I would never let you walk the underworld alone. I'll send your precious child to accompany you."
With those words, she loosened her grip.
The infant slipped from her arms.
Thud!
A fragile body met the unyielding floor.
A harrowing scream tore from Rose's throat. The world blurred around her as she lunged forward, but her body, frail and bloodstained, collapsed from the surgical table. She hit the ground with a sickening thud, her breath ragged, her limbs weak.
Through the haze of pain, her vision swam to the tiny, lifeless form in the growing pool of crimson.
"Baby…" she choked, dragging herself across the cold floor, inch by agonizing inch.
A sudden sting at her neck.
Vanessa leaned down, a malicious smirk playing on her lips as she plunged the needle into Rose's skin. Pressing the heel of her designer shoe against Rose's cheek, she murmured, "You should have died long ago, cousin. Consider this an act of mercy—letting you and your b*st*rd die together."
The lethal poison coursed through her veins. Her body convulsed, her vision darkening, her pulse fading.
In the final moments before death claimed her, she saw a shadow—a tall, imposing figure standing at a distance.
Damien Moreau.
His obsidian gaze was cold, detached, void of any emotion as he watched her with indifference.
And then, he turned away.
He did not look back.
Of course… it was only a hallucination, she thought bitterly. Why would he ever come? He loathes me. He never wants to see me again.
Damien Moreau, I loved you for eighteen years, yet this is how my story ends…
She had believed she had already known the depths of pain.
But in this moment, as her heart shattered one final time—this was true agony.
Love, turned to hatred.
Hope, dissolved into despair.