Vesper woke up in a sterile white hospital room, the dim light casting long shadows as Ivy dozed fitfully by her bedside.
"Mom." Her voice cracked, her throat burning like sandpaper. How long had she been out? The words scraped out, raw and broken.
Ivy startled awake, summoning doctors in a flurry before they jabbed her with painkillers. Tears welled in Ivy's red-rimmed eyes. "You were perfectly fine." Her voice trembled. "How did you fall down the stairs?"
Vesper tried lifting her hand, but searing, bone-deep pain shot through her wrist, a torment even the morphine drip could not touch.
She let out a choked gasp.
"Don't move." Ivy caught her arm gently. "Your wrist is fractured. It needs time to heal."
Ice flooded Vesper's veins. She remembered every second of that fall with crystal clarity. Her hands had been fine when she tumbled down.
She squeezed her eyes shut, replaying the scene. The steel marbles that had not been there before. The suspiciously slick handrail. This was a setup. Someone had orchestrated her suffering.
Outside her door, Ethan had camped out all night, whether from guilt or to play the devoted future son-in-law, though everyone knew he was really more of a glorified house guest. The teenage boy forced down her meds and then instantly rewarded her with candy. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw like some tragic romantic hero after sleepless nights at her bedside.
The bastard.
'Who would doubt such tenderness?' If she had not been reborn knowing his true nature, even Vesper might have been fooled.
Under Ethan's watch, her recovery progressed at an almost supernatural pace. Within days, she could shuffle across the floor. Tonight, seizing a rare moment alone, she tested her legs, anything to escape the suffocating room.
Then the whispers came.
Through the door, Lucas's nervous murmur cut through the silence. "Brother Ethan, if Vesper finds out we planted those marbles and oiled the railing ."
Ethan's reply was chillingly calm. "She will not. I leave no evidence."
A mocking laugh echoed from the corner. "Scared now, are we?" Magnus's voice dripped with contempt. "Where was that fear when you told Ethan to stomp her wrist into splinters? She had it coming. She messed with Luna first."
"And me." Lucas's voice cracked as a fist slammed against the wall. "These hands were my ticket to the national piano stage. Now they're ruined because of her. What if I can never play again?"
"Lower your voices." Ethan's cool tone cut through the tension. "I've had her phone locked down this whole time. She hasn't had a chance to dig into anything. By the time she's discharged, the trail will be cold."
Inside the hospital room, Vesper's hands shook violently as she staggered back. The bed creaked as she collapsed onto it, the truth hitting harder than any physical pain.
Because Luna took a tumble, Ethan made sure she plummeted down the stairs, shattering her leg.
Because she made Lucas handle broken glass and nick his finger, Ethan had not hesitated to crush her wrist.
All those days of tender care were nothing but a scheme to keep her from uncovering their plot.
She had always known his cruelty, yet the pain still tore through her, choking her breath. She had clung to the belief that he loved her once, back in their youth.
But the words she overheard shattered every last illusion. Ethan had never loved her, not for a single moment. Her younger self, fool enough to think banishing Luna would change his heart, was the biggest joke of her life.
Aksara