His Surprise Was My Family's Funeral

After my husband was kidnapped, I went bankrupt raising the ransom.

For my safety, my parents secretly took the ransom money to rescue him, but they died in a car accident on the way.

I was filled with guilt.

While I was handling my parents’ funeral arrangements, my younger sister received a call from the kidnappers.

To ease my worries, she went alone with the money.

When I nervously arrived at the exchange location, I found my sister barely alive, her clothes torn, locked inside an old warehouse. When she saw me, her eyes flickered with pain and resentment.

“Elena, your husband wasn’t really kidnapped. He’s been playing our whole family for fools.”

As if to confirm her words, several men’s mocking laughter echoed from the back of the warehouse.

“Damien, your skills in controlling your wife are impressive. The eldest Miss Hart actually sold the whole company for you. Amazing!"

“But Damien, aren’t you afraid that Miss Hart will find out the truth and divorce you?”

Damien chuckled lightly, full of pride in his tone.

“Elena won’t. She’d go bankrupt for me. This little joke is nothing to her!”

So in Damien’s eyes, ruining me financially and destroying my family was just a little joke.

Holding my lifeless sister in my arms, my hatred trembled to my very bones.

Damien, I will never forgive you again!

——

“Why didn’t you come to pick me up?”

When Damien found me in the rental room, I had already been sitting in silence for a whole day and night.

Seeing that I wasn’t speaking, the anger on his face deepened and his voice rose sharply.

“Do you know that today, I was planning to propose to you? I spent the whole night setting up the proposal scene!”

How could I not know?

When I left, covered in blood and carrying my sister on my back, I saw him from a distance, joking and laughing with those men as they decorated the proposal venue.

Seeing the smiles on all their faces, I wanted to rush out and kill them a thousand times.

But I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t win against them.

“Say something, Elena. You could sell your company and your house for me. Why couldn’t you come to redeem me? Were you scared?”

My lips trembled as I opened my mouth, but in the end, no words came out.

I had lost my voice. From the moment the doctor announced my sister’s death, I lost the ability to speak.

Damien seemed utterly infuriated by my silence. He strode over in a few quick steps and grabbed my arm.

“Elena, are you throwing a tantrum at me? Did I mess up by preparing a surprise for you? I’m telling you, if you don’t appreciate it, plenty of others will.”

With that, he flung my hand away, walked to the door and took someone else’s hand.

Only then did I notice that Vanessa had been waiting at the door all along.

When she saw me look over, she curled her lips into a smile.

“Elena, Damien can be a bit impulsive sometimes, but he doesn’t mean any harm. Always putting on airs isn’t good for your relationship. Today, I’ll take Damien with me. You both need to cool off.”

Damien intertwined his fingers with hers and gave a tug.

“Why waste so many words on her? She’s the one who didn’t cherish it. She has no one to blame but herself!”

He was always like this, doing shocking, outrageous things just to see me panic and care, so that after the fright, I would feel what he called a “surprise.”

Like the first time, I was negotiating a four thousand dollars deal when he called to say he'd been in a car accident.

I was overwhelmed with worry and ran nine red lights in a row.

But when I arrived, he was standing at an intersection, heart-shaped candles lit, flowers laid out on the ground, proposing to me.

I couldn’t even describe what I was feeling. All I knew was that I was terrified. I clutched him tightly, begging him never to joke about something like that again.