Sipping Love, Savoring Joy

Grace covered her mouth and laughed.

“Exactly, sis. Your child can atone for your sins. That’s you earning some virtue.”

“Honestly, thank goodness it died early. With a mother as vile as you, even if it hadn’t been made into Rosary Beads, you would’ve dragged it to an ugly end sooner or later.”

“Now I’m giving it a chance—to bring me peace and help me conceive. That’s its blessing. Who knows, maybe the Grim Reaper will be pleased and bump it up in the line for reincarnation—let it come back as a dog…”

Her words detonated inside me, blowing my heart and soul to pieces.

I kicked her over, grabbed the red-hot fire tongs, and pressed them to her belly.

“If I scorch your uterus right now, you won’t need help conceiving, will you?”

“Oh wait—maybe I should just stab through your skull. Then you’ll never have nightmares again.”

“If you want to live, hand over the Rosary Beads!”

“Anna Moore, will you ever stop?!”

Ethan clamped down on my wrist hard enough to crush bone.

“Grace is doing this for your own good. If you hadn’t sinned so much, maybe the kid wouldn’t have died so horribly. Stand down!”

I stared at him, incredulous.

In this life, I’ve only wronged two people—

my mother, and my child.

Countless nights, the guilt strangled me until I could barely breathe.

But of all people, Ethan Carter is the last one entitled to blame me.

If he had listened to me and not underestimated the enemy, he wouldn’t have been captured.

And I wouldn’t have lost my baby—or the right to be a mother—saving him.

That day, Ethan cradled my blood-soaked body and dropped to his knees before the doctors, begging them to save me.

That night, he knelt outside the operating room and prayed to God hundreds of times:

“I’m willing to trade whatever years I have left for Anna Moore.”

“From now on, this life is only for Anna.”

I bowed my head and let out a low, shaking laugh, shoulders trembling, then tossed the tongs aside.

Ethan finally exhaled.

“Anna, you—”

The next second, one of his ears hit the floor.

I twirled the knife and wiped the blood spatter off my face.

“So filthy.”

I smiled at him.

“Ethan, are you getting old? Why don’t you understand plain English anymore?”

“I told you to make her miscarry—you played deaf. I told you to give me the Rosary Beads—you played deaf again.”

“If your ears are useless, you don’t need them.”

“Ethan!”

“Anna, you’re insane. You want the Beads? Fine—go get them yourself!”

Grace shrieked and hurled the Rosary Beads into the pond.

Smart—too weak to fight me, so she aimed to break me.

But the day Ethan turned me into a madwoman, my heart turned to steel.

I fisted Grace’s hair, dragged her to the edge, and kicked her into the water.

“Anna! It’s the dead of winter! You’ll freeze her to death!” Ethan charged at me, furious.

“Will I? Doesn’t matter. I forgot to tell you—I stocked this pond with piranhas a few years back. I’m sure they’ll get to her before the cold does.”

Ethan’s face changed as he moved to pull Grace out.

Before he could reach her, I cracked a brick across her wrist with perfect aim, forcing her to recoil in pain.

Ethan ground his teeth at me.

“Anna Moore, are you forcing me to fight you?”

“By all means. I doubt we’ll finish our duel before your sweetheart gets chewed into mush. Unless she brings me those Beads, she’s not leaving the water.”