Love Like Stars Sinking to the Ocean Floor

Helena barely glanced at the phone before believing it.

The bodyguards' words sent her into a fresh rage. She raised her stiletto and kicked me square in the head.

My skull cracked against the floor. Blood sprayed.

"You dare lie to me?!" she snarled. "Fake wounds? Fake medical notices? How low can you sink?!"

"Think I'd fall for it again**? Dream on!"

Her heels pistoned into my abdomen—over, over—until the air reeked of copper and my screams turned hoarse.

"P-please... stop..."

My pleas dissolved into whimpers as my body shut down, leaving me a twitching husk in a pool of my own blood.

She shook gore from her jacket and turned to Lucian, all saccharine apology.

"Sorry you had to see that, darling. Let me clean up this trash, then we'll honeymoon in the Maldives—my treat for doubting you."

Lucian sniffled, the picture of self-sacrifice. "But... if we leave, Mr. Jack might... might take my child. Maybe I should just disappear..."

A masterstroke.

Helena's face darkened. "Oh no," she purred, stroking his hair. "I'll ensure he never touches you again."

To the guards: "Throw him and those bastards in the estate's basement. They crawl out after Lucian's heir is official."

Dragged through the hospital like a carcass, I left a scarlet snail trail on marble.

Half-conscious, I rasped: "Helena... I only wanted... divorce. Not his child..."

"You killed our babies once... If you move them from ICU to that basement... they'll die again..."

"I'll sign anything... take nothing... just let them live... spare my father—"

Bloody tears plinked onto tile.

Helena rolled her eyes. "If you behave in that basement, I might—"

CRACK.

A sound like the sky splitting—

—and my father's body hit the pavement in front of me.

His eyes, once so kind, now bulged like burst grapes.

"DAD!!!"

I scrabbled forward on raw bone, screaming—

—only for guards to yank me back.

"Take him away," Helena muttered, avoiding the corpse. "He was dying anyway. This was... mercy."

"HELENA, YOU DEMON!!" I howled. "YOU KILLED YOUR OWN CHILDREN! MURDERED YOUR SAVIOR! MAY YOU ROT IN HELL—"