Chapter 1

The fire was meant to kill me. But what truly turned my heart to ash was my husband’s choice.

"Alexander! Help me!" I screamed, clutching our newborn son to my chest as the blazing ceiling of the Salvatore mansion threatened to collapse.

Through the thick, choking smoke, I saw him. Alexander Salvatore—the billionaire who promised to love me forever. Relief flooded my burning lungs. He had come for us.

I reached out my trembling, blistered hand. "Alexander, the baby—"

He didn't even look at me.

"Victoria! Hold on, I've got you!" Alexander's panicked voice cut through the roar of the flames, but he wasn't calling my name.

I froze in pure terror as my husband ran right past me. His strong arms, the ones that used to hold me every night, wrapped fiercely around my twin sister.

"Alexander, please!" I sobbed, crawling toward his boots. "Save our son!"

To save her, he ruthlessly kicked my hand away.

The sheer force sent me tumbling backward onto the scorching floor. Debris rained down on my back as I curled into a ball, shielding my crying baby with my own body in a pool of my blood.

He didn't turn back. Not even once.

As my vision faded to black, my baby's heart-wrenching cries suddenly stopped.

Stopped altogether.

When I woke up surrounded by beeping machines, my entire world had changed.

Looking at my reflection in the cool polished tiles of the hospital floor I choked with tears as my once beautiful skin was now marred with dark burn scars making my fingers tremble.

Yet none of it compared to the agony that awaited me beyond the hospital door.

Outside, voices argued heatedly. “Mr. Alexander, how could you do

this? Handing over your own new-born son for a medical experiment?!”

The doctor’s voice wavered with disbelief and anger. “And worse, you let a novice, unqualified student operate on that small child hoping she could save him when the most qualified doctors were struggling?!

Miss Victoria had no experience!”

Victoria…Experiment? The very words struck me like lightning as my body swayed. No, I must have heard wrongly.

My mind must be playing tricks on me. I completely froze, forced to hear the coldblooded conversation with chills running down my spine.

"My son? I highly doubt that bastard was my son!" My eyes widened as I heard Alexander.

“Earlier too, it was Miss Victoria who gave your two year old daughter Mila a wrong diagnosis resulting in that child's terrible demise!"

"Yes, it was all my mistake..."

Victoria's honeyed voice interrupted the doctor, crying in distress before she continued sniffing.

"Mila was a special case doctor, with a hole in her heart how much longer would she have survived! I needed to test the latest operating procedure of heart surgery on a patient but when no one was ready Alexander stepped in with his daughter to boost my confidence!

S-She was my niece, my twin sister Vespera's daughter, doctor how can you make it s-sound like I deliberately killed her….it was a mistake-"

“She could have been your niece but not necessarily my daughter. God knows what kind of men Vespera has rolled around to get pregnant!" Alexander's cold voice boomed before he continued.

"Mila was just too fragile, you just tested some drugshots under clinical trial on her body, she died because she was born faulty, nobody is blaming you for her death, either ways I would have discarded her sooner or later!"

Alexander’s voice boomed tinged with little grief, making me stumble back, my eyes wide in horror as angry hot tears dwindled.

Mila?

He thought that our precious daughter was an illegitimate child?

My dead daughter’s name was like a dagger being twisted to my heart.

My breaths came out in short gasps as I trembled hard gritting my teeth as blood trickled down the corner of my mouth like a mother beast out of control.

Two years ago, my little girl was kidnapped from right infront of my eyes, and I as her mother could do nothing to save her.

I had watched Alexander desperate and broken for our daughter’s whereabouts as he did not spare any effort, sending military helicopters to scour the land for three sleepless days and nights.

But when they finally found her, my sweet Mila was already dead, discarded on the outskirts of the city like trash. That time Alexander told the entire world calling me a witch unworthy of being a mother, that it was not my fault and that he will kindly ‘forgive me’.

Only now I finally understood why the kidnappers were never caught. And why my daughter never got justice.

My Mila had not been taken away..

Alexander did not care for her at all and gave her up to Victoria.

All these years I could never forgive myself and endured all the humiliation and hatred without a word but only now I realised the murderous scheme of my husband and sister.

“B-but this time...maybe it's my fault, Alexander...” Victoria’s voice, drenched in false remorse, choked.

"This time I thought I would succeed in the critical operation of your son and sent all the doctors away. B-But halfway through I panicked, and forgot the procedure, accidently cutting off your son’s windpipe, making him die!”

My world stopped, ears ringing with utter desolation, a fury that had no end reflecting in my bloodshot eyes.

My little baby was saved and they killed him deliberately? My face morphed in terror as hot tears dwindled down my eyes in heartbreak.

"What damned son are you talking about? Calm down Victoria, the very birth of those bastards was a mistake, this way atleast they were put to some good use before they died."

Silence followed the cold, heartless words that shattered my world. ‘putting to good use’? I staggered back, feeling dizzy as bile rose my throat. Holding back a painful scream, I clutched my mouth tightly, swallowing the sobs threatening to break free.

“I let Vespera deliver them because your body was fragile and you could not conceive previously but just a week ago you already gave birth to a son for me Victoria so what was the use of that boy?”

Alexander said coldly.

“B-but Alexander what about sister Vespera?” Victoria cried appearing pitiful.

“What about her! It was my fault that I treated a fucking substitute as real… the entire meaning of her existence is to make you happy Victoria so she must endure!“

BETRAYL

A strangled gasp escaped my lips, gut-wrenching sobs threatening to spill.

Endure my children’s death caused by his misunderstanding?

Never!

Even if I have to sell my soul to the devil I will avenge my children!

Alexander and Victoria, I will never forgive you!

Never!

Crying bitterly I took a bloody oath in my heart.