He Left Me Pregnant and Grieving—Now He’s the One Begging
Chapter 1
On the day I was supposed to marry the heir of the Ferrante mafia empire… My fiancé died in a helicopter crash on his way to surprise me.
Just like that, I became a widow. I mourned while carrying his child. I fell apart. I stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. I wanted to die, too. But I stayed alive, for my unborn child.
At his funeral, his older twin brother came home from overseas. Jeremiah Ferrante. Missing for years. And when I saw him…I froze.
He looked exactly like Harvick. Same voice. Same eyes. Same heartbreak written across his face.
Then I heard them.
“You really faked your death and left Danica like that? She's pregnant with your child!”
“Elodie’s dying, Ma. She's now my wife. Legally for four months. That’s all she has left. Four months. She begged me for one thing before she died... To be my wife, just once. Once she’s gone… everything will go back to normal. Danica will give birth. I’ll come back. We’ll be a family again.”
That was when something in me snapped.
He lied. He left me.
For another woman. For a goodbye fantasy.
And now he’s pretending to be his dead twin, watching me cry over his own grave? And once he’s done playing savior, I’m supposed to just take him back?
No. He doesn’t get to come back from the dead…
Because in six days, I’ll be the one in a coffin.
One he’ll never stop dreaming about.
--
On the day I was supposed to marry the heir of the Ferrante mafia empire… My fiancé, Harvick Ferrante, died in a helicopter crash.
He was on his way to surprise me. He said he had something special planned—a rooftop ceremony, just the two of us and the rest of his family, under the morning sun. He said he couldn’t wait to see me in white.
The chopper went down over the cliffs near Velbrunnia Bay. They said the explosion could be seen from miles away. They said the wreckage was unrecognizable.
All they gave me was a charred silver cufflink and a half-melted phone. That was it.
I was crowned a widow before I could ever be a wife.
And the child in my belly—our child—became a posthumous heir to a man who never made it to the altar.
After that, everything in me snapped. I went cold. I stopped eating. Sleeping. Breathing felt optional.
People told me to hang on for the baby. But how do you keep living when the person you loved most died before he even got to meet his daughter?
Two weeks later, during Harvick's funeral, his “twin brother” came back from Velbrunnia.
Jeremiah Ferrante. The family’s ghost. Disappeared for years, rumored to be dead. And now he’s back, holding his wife’s hand, Elodie, and offering silent condolences.
He looked just like Harvick—same sharp jaw, same eyes. It hurt to even look at him.
I thought grief was playing tricks on my mind.
Until I overheard them talking outside my mother-in-law’s door.
Her voice sliced through the hallway, low but sharp:
“You really faked your death and left Danica like that? She's pregnant with your child! For God's sake. You staged a funeral just to run back to Elodie who left you five years ago?”
I froze. The blood drained from my face.
“Elodie’s dying, okay? She's now my wife. Legally for four months. That’s all she has left. Four months. The cancer’s eating everything. She begged me for one thing before she goes—to be my wife, just once. I owed her this. Once she’s gone… everything will go back to normal. Danica will give birth. I’ll come back. We’ll be a family again.”
I couldn’t feel my legs. My breath came out in sharp bursts like I’d been stabbed in the lungs.
He was alive.
The man I cried over. The man I buried. The man I dreamed about while holding my stomach at night. He faked it all—for another woman.
My hands shook as I texted the only person in this world who still care about me—my brother, Peter. He worked deep inside the Bureau, the kind of department that doesn’t ask questions. Just gets it done.
Me: Bro, I need to disappear. I want to stage a death. I want to give Harvick exactly what he gave me.
Me: But not yet. Give me one week. I want him to watch me fall apart first. I want him to feel safe.
My body trembled so hard, I nearly dropped the phone.
And still, they kept talking inside.
“She’s broken, Harvick,” his mother hissed. “If it weren’t for that baby, Danica would’ve offed herself already. You shattered her.”
“Danica will understand. She loves me so much that hating me was impossible…” Then a pause. “I’ll make it up to her. I’ve got a whole life to do that.”
A whole life? No. No, he won’t.
I dragged myself back to the bedroom, collapsed beside the bed like a puppet with its strings cut.
That’s when my phone rang.
Peter.
I picked up, but I couldn’t speak. “Danica?” His voice was tight. “What’s going on? I thought… didn’t Harvick die?”
I wanted to scream. But I just whispered, broken and low, “He’s alive. He faked it. For her. For Elodie. They're married. He married her. And now he’s pretending to be his own twin brother. Watching me cry for him every night.”
There was a long pause on the other end. Then Peter’s voice turned cold. Bureau cold.
“Alright. One week. I’ll set it up quietly. Burn everything clean. No mistakes.”
He didn’t ask anything else. He didn’t have to.
He knew. He always knew.
I stayed frozen for a long time, staring at the ceiling as Harvick’s voice replayed in my head, a loop of venom I couldn’t stop drinking.
Then came the knock.
Gentle. Familiar.
I opened the door—and there he stood...
The man I mourned. The man I buried. The man who’d lit my soul on fire and watched it burn. Holding a glass of milk like nothing had happened.
Like he hadn’t gutted me and called it mercy.
He smiled, casual.
“Hey… why are you sitting on the floor like that?”
“You crying again? You miss my brother that much?”
It’s been half a month since Harvick came back from the dead… wearing the mask of his twin brother, Jeremiah Ferrante.
And for half a month, he’s been nothing but kind.
Careful. Watching me like I’m glass he doesn’t want to crack. As if he’s mourning with me. As if he’s not the reason I’m bleeding inside. I locked my phone quickly, shoving away the message thread with Peter.
Then I forced a smile so sharp it almost cut my lips.
“I’m fine,” I whispered. “My stomach just twisted. Lost my balance for a second.”
Harvick’s shoulders dropped like he’d been holding his breath. I watched him, quietly. Because in six more days, he’ll be crying over my grave.
Let’s see if he smiles then.
He stepped forward, set the warm milk on the nightstand, and reached for me.
"You’ve always been stubborn," he muttered, helping me off the floor. "Even the kid in your belly’s starting early. Wait till he's born—see how Uncle Jeremiah lays down the law."
Uncle.
What a joke.
He nudged the glass toward me gently.
"Come on. Milk’s warm. Drink it and rest. You need to stop overthinking everything. Harvick wouldn’t want to see you like this… not from wherever he’s watching.”
And that was it.
The name.
That name.
He said it too easily. Too naturally.
Like it didn’t taste like lies on his mouth.
Something inside me snapped.
I looked up—dead into his eyes. The same eyes I used to kiss under low lights. Same stormy gray. Same twitch in the corner when he was trying to hide guilt.
I clenched my fists and said it, slow and raw—each word like dragging glass through my throat.
“Are you really not Harvick?”
Chapter 2
Harvick froze for half a beat. Then let out a soft, fake laugh… the kind that used to charm me back in college.
He reached out and patted my head gently—like I was a child who just had a nightmare.
“You’re overthinking again,” he said, voice calm, practiced. “How could I be Harvick? You’ve just been too tense lately. Drink the milk and get some sleep, alright?”
He took a step back, like he was giving me space—but his words landed like bullets.
“That little one in your belly... he’s the last blood of Harvick Ferrante in this world. I’ll make sure he arrives safely. That’s a promise.”
I didn’t respond.
I kept my eyes low.
I couldn’t stand to see that face anymore—that lie wearing skin I used to love.
“You should go,” I said quietly. “I’m tired. I just want to lie down.”
That’s when I heard her.
“Babe?”
The door across the hall cracked open, and there she was.
Elodie. Wearing my robe. The ivory silk one Harvick gave me on our anniversary last year—the one monogrammed with a little embroidered D at the hem.
She wasn’t even trying to hide it.
“I’m having a really bad headache,” she murmured. “Can you come to bed? I need one of your massages… the kind that makes me forget I’m dying.”
Silence sliced the air.
Harvick turned halfway, caught between both women—his living wife and his grieving one.
He glanced back at me for a beat, his eyes unreadable.
Then he nodded, “Get some rest,” he told me gently, before heading to Elodie and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
She leaned into him like she belonged there. Like I was the guest in my room. Together, they disappeared down the hallway. And I just stood there, staring at the door long after it closed.
Not because I was shocked.
But because I wasn’t.
—
I met Harvick Ferrante seven years ago in Milan—at a private art auction hosted by one of the city’s oldest mafia dynasties. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I wasn’t even supposed to look at a man like him.
But I did.
And the moment his eyes locked with mine—cold, calculating, curious—I knew I was already undone.
He didn’t ask my name.
He asked who I belonged to.
And when I said no one, he smirked like I’d just offered him the world on a silver plate.
He pursued me like I was a vendetta he couldn’t drop.
Sharp. Dangerous. Obsessively mine.
And I let him in. HolyMary help me—I let all of him in.
Two years later, he proposed on the rooftop of the Museo Ferrante, just past midnight. The whole city stretched below us—quiet, lit, watching.
No crowd. No cameras. Just him.
He pulled out a ring wrapped in velvet and history—an heirloom, blood-soaked and priceless.
“Danica,” he said, voice low, “if this world burns, I want to burn with you.”
And I said yes.
He once told me—hand on my stomach, lips at my temple, eyes full of heat—
“This child came at the perfect time. He’s our proof. Our gift. Our beginning. I’ve never been this happy, cara mia.”
And now?
Now that same man faked his own death and left me at the altar like a pawn he outplayed.
For a woman with four months to live.
A woman who never once stood in the world we built.
I don’t even know when I lost him.
All I know is, the man who once whispered that I was his fire, his home, his reason—
Now fake his death and feeds me warm milk like it’ll silence the war inside me.
---
The next morning…A knock came at the door.
“Danica,” his voice called out—light but firm. “Time for your check-up. You ready?”
I was still lacing up my shoes, barely holding it together, when I heard footsteps pause outside my door.
Then—
“Jeremiah…” Her voice.
Elodie.
Weak. Fragile. Measured, like a rehearsed line from a dying actress. I stood frozen as her footsteps echoed faintly down the hall.
“I—I don’t feel good…” she whispered, wobbling against the wall. “I think… something’s wrong…”
And then, right on cue, her knees buckled.
“Whoa, whoa—Elodie!”
Jeremiah—Harvick—turned instantly, catching her before she hit the floor. “Come on, you didn’t take your meds again, did you? Why are you even walking around?”
His arms wrapped around her carefully, cradling her like she was made of glass and moonlight.
From my cracked door, I watched him gently lower her onto the couch, tucking a blanket over her legs like it was instinct. His hand brushed her hair back from her face. His voice dropped to a murmur I wasn’t supposed to hear.
“You can’t scare me like that, babe.”
And just like that I was invisible again.
I stepped into the hallway quietly. He looked up, startled for half a second—then caught himself.
“Sorry, Danica,” he said, standing upright, his tone snapping back to efficient. “Elodie’s not doing well this morning. I don’t want to leave her alone like this.”
He reached into his coat and pulled out a phone. “You’ll still go to your appointment. I’m sending Claudio and Renzo to accompany you. The driver’s already out front, and your doctor’s waiting.”
It was all clean. Seamless. Controlled. Behind him, Elodie didn’t even try to hide the faint smile curving on her lips.
She looked at me like a woman who’d won the final round. My hand drifted to my stomach on instinct. My chest was already burning, but the tears came anyway—silent, bitter, fast.
---
I sat alone on a cold bench in the corner of the Ferrante private hospital, head down, fingers trembling as I studied the black-and-white ultrasound report.
There it was— an apple-sized flicker of life.
The doctor smiled earlier, pointing to the image like it was a miracle.
“That’s your baby.”
I wiped my tears roughly, as if smudging them away could erase what he did to me. I couldn’t do it here. Not at this hospital.
Not under their watch.
This was the Ferrantes’ territory. Cameras everywhere. Whatever happened here, Harvick would know.
I grabbed my phone and made a quiet call to the driver and the two men.
“I’m feeling a little heavy,” I lied. “I want to walk alone for a bit. You go on ahead. I’ll call when I’m ready to go home.”
They hesitated but didn’t question.
They were all trained that way—loyal to the name Ferrante, not the woman carrying the heir.
Once I saw the black car disappear past the gate, I stepped out from the shadows behind the column and hailed a taxi.
Destination? Another private hospital. One without mafia ties. One where I could disappear if I had to.
Chapter 3
Just before I was wheeled into pre-op, my phone vibrated. A new message. A video. No caption. No words. Just a single file sent by Elodie.
I should’ve deleted it, but I didn’t.
I tapped it open with shaking hands, and the screen lit up with them—Harvick and Elodie.
She was in his lap, his mouth buried in her neck, murmuring something against her skin, and her nails dragged down his chest like she’d done it a thousand times. Like she knew exactly how to make him lose control.
Then he kissed her.
Slow, possessive, familiar. The kind of kiss that once made my entire world go quiet.
But what broke me wasn’t the way he touched her—it was what I saw next. As he leaned back, his shirt slid off, and there it was.
The small, red spade-shaped birthmark just below his collarbone.
Harvick.
I smiled bitterly, like someone who just found their own tombstone. That was it...the final proof. And yet, somehow, my heart still clung to one last hope.
One last chance.
So I did something pathetic. Something human.
I called him.
If he picked up…
If he heard my voice and chose me…
If he came to me right now—I swore I’d forget everything. I’d forgive the lies, the grave, the mistress, the pain. I’d erase it all for our child. For the love I still carried like a curse.
The line rang.
Then clicked.
His voice came through—low, strained, tired.
“Danica… I’ve got some things to handle here. Let the driver take you home. We’ll talk when I’m back.”
And then I heard it.
A weird sound—high, loud, shameless. A woman’s voice, wet and unfiltered.
Elodie.
She didn’t even try to hide it. She didn’t care.
Another weird sound followed, louder, and then her voice called out his name—“Harvick…”—like she was singing it from her bones.
Click.
Silence.
Just the dead beep… beep… of the disconnected line. I didn’t cry. Not this time.
I just stared at the nurse, eyes hollow, voice flat.
“It’s fine,” I whispered. “Let’s proceed with the termination procedure…”
And as they wheeled me away, I swore...
The next time he hears my voice… Will be the last time he breathes easy again.
---
By the time I got home, it was already dark.
I stepped into the marble-floored estate, and there he was.
Harvick. Waiting.
Still pretending to be Jeremiah, the noble older brother, the mourning man, the fake.
“The driver said you went shopping after your check-up,” he said with a smile. “Came home empty-handed though. Didn’t find anything you liked?”
His tone was light. As if everything was normal. As if I hadn’t just erased the one part of him he didn’t even know existed. Halfway through his sentence, he paused—his eyes catching mine.
He noticed.
The red in my eyes. The puffiness. The dried salt on my skin.
“Danica… what happened? Why are your eyes like that?”
“Did… you miss Harvick again at the hospital?”
He moved closer, pretending like he cared.
“It’s alright. That baby in your belly—that’s Harvick’s legacy. That’s something real. Something to hold on to.”
I stared into his eyes. Still the same. Still beautiful.
Same smoky gray with that slight flicker of mischief that used to melt me.
The same eyes I once trusted with my soul.
And now—
The same ones I saw staring up in that video while Elodie rode him like I never existed.
I looked away, quiet and walked away—straight to my room.
---
I collapsed onto the mattress and, for the first time since Harvick's death, I slept. No nightmares. No ghosts.
In my dream, I saw him again. Harvick, age eighteen.
Nervous. Sweaty palms. Blushing as he confessed his feelings like a kid who had nothing to offer except honesty.
“Danica… I like you. Would you be my girl?”
“I swear, I’ll treat you right.”
And back then, I believed him.
Maybe because the sky was painted gold. Maybe because his eyes had that kind of light I never saw again after the lie.
I said yes. And that moment? It ruined me forever.
---
Morning light poured into the room like it wanted to mock me. I was still sitting in bed, numb, staring at nothing, when the door creaked open.
And there she was.
Elodie.
The other woman. The one he destroyed me for.
Except she didn’t look like someone with four months to live.
She wasn’t pale. She wasn’t weak.
She walked in with a full face of makeup, lashes curled, cheeks glowing. And she was wearing my silk robe. The ivory one trimmed with lace.
The same one Harvick used to say made me look like heaven wrapped in sin.
Worse?
I caught it immediately... my perfume. The one I wore the night he proposed.
Elodie stopped at the foot of my bed and crossed her arms, that familiar smug smile curving across her face like poison ready to pour.
“You know why I sent you that video, right?” she asked sweetly. She tilted her head, eyes gleaming with cruelty. "You really thought he was Harvick’s brother? You actually believed I was your sweet little sister-in-law?”
She took a step closer, voice dripping venom.
“Darling… wake up. I’ve been sleeping next to your husband this entire time.”
She laughed. Loud. Unapologetic. Insulting.
Then she spun, letting the robe flutter as she walked toward the window.
“Poor Danica,” she sighed dramatically. “You thought I was dying? God, no. I just needed time. Space. And a little pity so no one would question why he was always with me.”
She turned back around, grinning wider.
“I had Harvick wrapped around my little finger the second I came back. It wasn’t even hard. Do you really think a man like him would choose a soft little thing like you over me?”
Her voice dropped lower. Cruel now. Ruthless.
“Oh… and before I forget—I’m the legal wife.”
“Signed. Stamped. Certified. You were just the pretty placeholder.”
She laughed again, a slow, triumphant cackle that rattled the bones in my chest.
“Harvick Ferrante will always be mine, Danica. He loved you, sure—but he belongs to me.”
Chapter 4
Elodie expected tears, but I didn’t even look at her.
I walked straight to bed, lay down, and turned my back to her.
She started screaming—“Say something! Cry! Scream like you used to!”—but I didn’t move.
I just slipped on my headset, closed my eyes, and let her yell into silence. Eventually, the door slammed shut behind her.
And the quiet felt like victory.
---
That night, the invitation came.
Hand-delivered in a velvet-black envelope sealed with an insignia only a few circles would recognize.
The crest of the Del Rossi Vault—underground auction house, mafia-owned, legacy-driven.
The kind of event where fortunes were exchanged for blood rights, artifacts, or reputation.
Harvick got one too.
Of course he did.
I knew he’d show. And I knew he’d drag Elodie in beside him, painted like a porcelain doll, dressed to steal the spotlight.
Good. Let her think it’s her night.
Let them both walk in thinking they’ve won.
I wasn’t going to buy.
I came to sell.
---
The auction hall was carved into the belly of the old Velbrunnia opera ruins. Dark. Grand. Ruthless.
And when I stepped onto the marbled floor, the chatter stopped for a full five seconds.
My dress was black. Simple in cut, but made to strangle the breath out of the room. It hugged my curves like it knew the war I was carrying underneath.
My hair was slicked back. My makeup sharp. My perfume matched the night I lost everything.
On my arm was a man no one recognized.
Not Peter. Not anyone from my past.
Just a private broker with obsidian eyes and hands that could probably kill three men before breakfast.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
I nodded once, and he stepped forward and opened the black leather case for the crowd.
Inside sat every piece Harvick had ever given me.
The Ferrante family heirloom bracelet—passed down for four generations.
The $300,000,000 emerald choker from our second anniversary—the one he kissed me through when we danced barefoot in Tuscany.
And lastly…
My engagement ring.
The room murmured.
Even the auctioneer faltered.
I heard whispers float up from the front row.
“Is that…?”
“That’s the Ferrante heirloom…”
“She’s auctioning the ring?”
I didn’t look at anyone.
Not yet.
Bidding started, and the room turned wild.
Men shouted numbers like war drums, women raised cards not for diamonds but for power.
Some wanted the pieces for history. Others, just to spit in Harvick’s face.
I stood still. I let them fight.
And halfway through the chaos… they arrived.
Harvick and Elodie.
He wore his classic black tux, the one I tailored myself when he wanted to look untouchable.
And she… she wore white.
Of course she did.
She looked around like she expected applause. Expected flashbulbs. Expected envy.
But the second her eyes landed on the stage—and on me—her whole face twisted.
Because I wasn’t in the audience.
I wasn’t grieving in a corner. I was standing center-stage, auctioning off the life she tried to erase.
And the room? The room was eating from my hand.
Harvick froze when he saw me.
He stopped mid-step. Eyes locked. Mouth parted like he forgot how to breathe. Elodie turned to him, whispered something sharp in his ear, but he didn’t even blink.
Didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
“All proceeds tonight will go to the Velbrunnia Orphan Recovery Program.” I calmly said.
The room went quiet. No one clapped.
He just stared at me like a ghost he never wanted to see again. And then—he moved. Pushed past a few guests, walked up to the edge of the stage just as my broker stepped away.
“Danica,” he called, voice low but urgent. “What the heck are you doing?”
I didn’t answer.
The bidding for the engagement ring was just finishing—$1.2 million to a buyer from the eastern syndicate—and when the gavel hit, Harvick’s voice rose again.
“You’re selling your engagement ring?” he snapped, stepping closer. “The heirloom bracelet? The emerald choker my brother gave you in Tuscany?”
He shook his head, like he couldn’t process what he was seeing.
“I clearly remember you once told me those were the most precious things you owned. That they meant everything to you. And now you’re just—selling them? Like they’re garbage?”
The room went quiet. Even the auctioneer stopped breathing. I finally turned to look at him.
Our eyes met.
For one small, razor-sharp second, I let him see it. I stared at him for a long moment.
And then I smiled—just a little.
A smile that held no warmth.
Only ruin.
I pulled my wrist free and said quietly:
“Not anymore.”
He blinked. I took a slow step back, voice even colder now.
“I’m no longer grieving.”
Another step.
“I’m done.” And with that, I turned my back to the man who once promised me forever—
And left him standing in a room full of wolves, holding nothing but the ashes of what he destroyed.
---
The air outside the auction floor was quieter, but not peaceful. I slipped into the corridor behind the main ballroom, heading toward the powder room, needing just a second to breathe.
My heels echoed against marble… And then I heard her.
Click. Click. Click.
Elodie’s heels. Sharp. Fast. A fuse on its last second. I didn’t need to turn around to know she was coming.
I kept walking until I hit the intersection of the hall. And that’s when she grabbed my arm.
Hard.
She yanked me back and slammed me against the wall like a woman who’d been waiting too long to explode.
Her eyes were wild and her lipstick was cracked from gritting her teeth.
“You really thought you could humiliate me and just walk away?” she hissed, voice shaking.
I didn’t answer.
Didn’t blink.
She took that silence like gasoline and threw a match on it.
“You sold my spotlight. That was my night! I was supposed to be the face they remembered. Not you, not your little poor orphan girl charity act, not your dead engagement ring!”
And just like that, she shoved me hard toward a side door I hadn’t even noticed. It slammed open, and before I could stop her, she pushed me inside.
I stumbled, heels skidding, and hit the freezing tile floor.The old cold-storage room.
By the time I scrambled to my feet and turned around, I heard it… The click of the lock snapping shut.
“Elodie,” I said again, louder this time, slamming my palm against the door. “Open it!”
“Oh, baby girl… I’m not done watching you suffer.”
Then she laughed. A soft, cold sound that didn’t belong to a human woman.
“Let’s see how powerful you feel when the air runs out.”
And then nothing.
I reached for my phone.
Zero bars.
Chapter 5
They found me twenty minutes later.
Two auction house guards, both young and twitchy, probably more used to breaking up rich men’s fistfights than rescuing frozen women from storage rooms.
I heard the door creak open like it was underwater. I couldn’t lift my head anymore, couldn’t move my lips. My body was stiff, my skin cold and damp, and my fingers wouldn’t uncurl.
“Miss—miss, we need medics down here now!”
Voices blurred. Arms lifted me. Heat touched my skin, and I whimpered without meaning to.
Everything after that came in pieces.
Flashing lights. Tubes. Machines. Warm blankets. And then the beeping slowed, and the shouting faded, and someone said the word trauma like it was just another item on a chart.
Not a single word from Harvick.
Not a call.
Not even a text. I waited, just once, to hear his voice.
But nothing.
Later I leared that Elodie told him I checked into a hotel to be alone and “cool off.”
And he believed her. Of course he did.
Because whatever she fed him, he swallowed without question. Always had. Always would.
---
By the time I came home, my bones ached.
I looked like a ghost and I moved like one too.
The house was too clean. Too still.
And there he was—waiting.
Harvick.
Or Jeremiah.
Or whoever he was pretending to be today.
He stood in the middle of the living room, back straight, face unreadable, jaw set like he’d been practicing this confrontation in his head all day.
I barely made it three steps in when he stepped forward and shoved a piece of paper into my face.
A medical form.
My fingers didn’t even need to unfold it.
I knew exactly what it was.
Termination paperwork.
I left it in my drawer. Tucked away. Hidden.
Elodie must’ve gone through my things while I was gone and handed it to him like a trophy.
“You wanna tell me what this is?” he snapped.
His voice wasn’t calm. It wasn’t cold. It was furious.
I said nothing. I just stared at him while he held that paper like it personally bled.
“You killed my brother’s child?” he barked. “You just—what? Got rid of it like it was trash? Like it meant nothing?!”
I blinked slowly.
“You don’t even look sorry,” he snarled. “You look proud. Are you proud, Danica? Is this your big revenge? You really think this makes you strong?”
Then his hand came down hard.
Crack.
He slapped me across the face. My head moved sideways and I tasted blood at the corner of my lip.
I didn’t fall.
But I staggered.
And before I could find balance again—
Another hand hit me.
His mother.
She stepped forward with fury in her eyes, her pearls rattling against her chest like they could feel the wrath in her.
“You murderer,” she spat. “You evil little snake. That baby was our blood. You just threw it away like some street rat’s mistake.”
She slapped me again, sharp and loud. “How could you? How could you take an innocent child just because you wanted to hurt Harvick?”
“Elodie told us everything,” she hissed. “You’re ungrateful. You were always just a pretty little project. And now look at you. Empty body, empty soul.”
Tears were falling now.
But not from pain.
They just fell because my body didn’t know what else to do. I stood still while they cursed me.
While they threw fire at my skin and called it justice.
Then I straightened slowly.
I wiped the corner of my mouth, smearing the blood away with the back of my hand. And I looked him dead in the eyes.
“Why are you mad if I terminated the pregnancy?”
My voice was soft. Too soft. “You’re not Harvick. You’re only his brother, remember?”
His face paled. His mouth parted. But I didn’t stop.
I stepped forward.
“Don’t act like him.”
Elodie made a sound behind him—an unhinged laugh, sharp and manic. She stepped forward with that fake sweetness dripping from her fangs.
“You hear that, baby? She finally gets it. You’re not Harvick. You’re mine. She’s just bitter because she lost her little fantasy.”
She leaned against the wall like she was relaxing into her victory. “Besides, we both know she never wanted that baby. She just needed an excuse to play the grieving little widow.”
That was when I smiled.
Not with warmth.
With venom.
“Or maybe…” I said slowly, locking eyes with Harvick, “you are Harvick. And you’ve just been pretending to be Jeremiah.”
The whole room went still. Even Elodie stopped smiling. “But either way…” I took one last step, standing in the center of the mess they built, “…I don’t care anymore.”
My voice didn’t rise.
It didn’t need to.
“I am no longer tied to this family.”
I looked at the mother-in-law who once hugged me like her own.
I looked at the man who once held my hair while I cried from morning sickness.
I looked at the woman who crawled into his bed and wore my perfume to spit on my memory.
And I smiled.
“Whatever love I had left in me died in that cold room.”
Harvick’s face cracked.
The way his brows knit, the way his mouth trembled slightly—it was panic. The kind of panic you don’t show in war. The kind that slips out when you realize you went too far and there’s no undoing it.
“Elodie—” he started, his voice unsteady.
But I was already walking away.
Chapter 6
That night, I heard a knock—soft, hesitant.
The door creaked open, and I didn’t turn.
He walked in like the floor might break under him.
He carried a tray: soup, bread, and the same tea I drank when I was pregnant.
He set it down carefully, then spoke in that calm, calculated tone. Still playing the brother card.
“I shouldn't have hit you. I’m sorry. You just… shocked me. That baby... it was my brother's last memory... I didn’t know how else to react.”
I didn’t speak.
I didn’t blink.
I stared ahead, eyes locked on the wall, mind already a thousand miles away from this house.
“You have to understand,” he went on, voice gentler now, “I’m trying to protect Harvick’s memory. He loved you. I see how broken you are, and… I just want you to feel safe. To feel seen. Even if I’m just his brother.”
I turned my head just enough to look at him.
Cold. Detached.
“Don’t pretend you care now. It’s too late.”
He flinched. Just a twitch in his jaw. I didn’t move. Didn’t touch the food.
I watched him watch me, like he was waiting for the old Danica to show up and cry into his chest and forgive him with some half-broken smile.
But that girl was gone.
Dead in a freezer room Elodie locked.
He sat down beside me. The bed dipped, and he placed a blanket around my shoulders like that would undo the bruise on my face or the scream I never let out.
“You used to love it when my brother tucked you in,” he murmured.
I said nothing. Because every word he spoke now sounded like poison covered in silk.
---
That night, I woke to screams. Loud. Gut-wrenching. Over-the-top.
I already knew what it was before I even stepped into the hallway.
Elodie.
Staging her next act like a Broadway psycho.
I walked out and saw her on the floor outside my bedroom—makeup smeared, her white slip torn at the strap, red scratches raking down her neck and arms like a horror movie.
Blood. Not deep enough to be dangerous. But just enough to look like she’d been attacked.
She wailed louder when she saw me.
“Why are you doing this to me?!”
Harvick came running. His eyes landed on her collapsed form, and the panic took over in seconds.
“Elodie—what the heck—? What happened?!”
She clung to his legs like some dying saint and sobbed harder.
“She… she attacked me! I... I was only trying to check on her. I know she hates me because Jeremiah looks like Harvick and she can’t handle it. I was trying to help her move on. I just... I wanted to give her a hug and she snapped!”
She looked up at him, crocodile tears shining like diamonds. “I’m dying, Harvick. I have months left. And she wants to break me before I’m even buried. If she wants you so badly, fine. Let her have you. Just let me die in peace.”
She screamed like she was being stabbed.
I didn’t say a word.Harvick looked from her to me, and then his face twisted into pure rage.
He stood, his steps fast, and suddenly he was in front of me.
Chest heaving. Eyes wild.
“What did you do to her?!”
I didn’t flinch.
“She has four months left to live, Danica! Four months! She’s been nothing but kind to you. She’s been trying to make peace and you what... you beat her?”
I laughed. A bitter, hollow sound.
The kind of laugh that said I’m done being quiet.
“You’re both pathetic.”
And I slapped him.
Hard. Not just for tonight. For every lie. For every gaslight. For every moment he let Elodie live in my skin, wear my perfume, and erase my name like I was nothing but a prequel.
He stared at me like I just shattered his illusion.
“You used to be kind,” he whispered. "You used to be human.”
I stepped closer, voice cutting through the silence.
“And you used to be mine. But now you’re just hers.”
He opened his mouth. His face softened. Like he was about to admit something. Like he wanted to say what he’d been holding back since the day he let me cry over his faked death.
But Elodie made a sound behind him—a weak cough and a dramatic collapse.
She hit the ground like a timed performance and let out a cry.
“Harvick... please… I can’t breathe…”
That snapped him back.
“Elodie? Stay with me baby, stay with me—”
He lifted her in his arms, shouting for the driver, for help, for a medic.
I stood still.
Watching. Letting him run toward the woman he traded me for.
---
His mother appeared in the hallway seconds later, her hair tied in her usual tight bun, eyes flaming with hate. She didn’t ask what happened.
She just marched straight to me, eyes full of judgment.
“You are evil,” she spat. “I should’ve known. You always wore the mask well, Danica. But I see it now. You’re cruel. Heartless. A murderer.”
I tilted my head, silent.
“I should’ve never accepted you into this family. You don’t belong in the Ferrante name.”
I stepped forward and whispered, “Then take the name back. I never needed it to begin with.”
---
Then the two men of Harvick grabbed me—one by each arm. I kicked, cursed, twisted. Didn’t matter.
They dragged me down the hallway, my feet scraping against the floor.
No one stopped them. No one even looked.
At the hospital, they shoved the doors open and pushed me into the room.
Hard. Like I was trash being dumped and Elodie was there. Hooked to an IV. Pale as paper.
Eyes closed like some tragic angel.
Then came Harvick's voice. “Kneel.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Kneel. On the salt.”
I looked down and saw it—a large square patch of ground covered in coarse, jagged sea salt.
I almost laughed.
Almost.
“You’ve lost your mind,” I whispered.
“You assaulted my wife,” he snapped, “you made her collapse, and you’re going to reflect on that. You’re going to stay on your knees and think about what you’ve become.”
He stepped closer. His voice dropped.
“And when she wakes up, you will apologize.”
Chapter 7
I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. But I didn’t fight either. I walked to the center of that salted floor in silence… and knelt.
The pain was instant. Sharp. Burning. Every grain like a blade pressed into my skin. But I didn’t flinch. Not once. I kept my eyes low. My back straight. My mouth shut.
Time crawled. Every second dragged across my spine like a knife. I started bleeding by the end of the first hour. By the second, my vision blurred. By the third, I was no longer human—I was just a shell they were trying to break open and rearrange. And still, I said nothing.
Then she stirred. Like she timed it perfectly. Elodie fluttered her lashes, sighed weakly, and turned her head like she was waking from a month-long coma.
“Jeremiah…?” Her voice was breathy. Fragile. A porcelain lie.
He rushed to her side, brushing her hair back like she wasn’t the one who’d destroyed me. She looked around, and then like some holy martyr her eyes landed on me.
Me, on my knees. Bleeding. Silent. Refusing to fall.
“Jeremiah,” she whispered, “why is she like that?”
“She needed to reflect,” he muttered. “You could’ve died.”
She blinked slowly. Then the tears started to flow. Fake. Timed. Manipulative.
“Please… don’t make her kneel for me. She’s grieving too. She lost her fiancé on their wedding day. I know she hates me… but I always cared for her.” Her fingers reached for his wrist with trembling elegance. “Please, babe. Don’t torture her. When I die… I want the two of you to be happy together. Don’t let my pain turn you into something dark.” She sobbed harder. Like this was her Oscar speech. "Promise me, okay? Promise me you’ll forgive her.”
I looked up slowly. Blood had soaked through the silk of my gown. My knees were raw. My mouth was dry. And yet all I could do… was laugh. Low. Bitter. Broken.
“You’re not dying,” I whispered. “You’re acting.”
Harvick glared at me. “Danica, enough—”
“No,” I snapped. “You want me to break? Then you better hit harder than this. Because all your salt and silence and staged tragedies won’t change the truth. You left me. Lied to me. Buried me in grief while you played house with a woman who wore my perfume and smiled at my funeral.”
Harvick’s jaw tightened.
Elodie whimpered. “Why are you saying these things…?”
“Because it’s true,” I said. “And deep down, you both know it.”
I stood up, every inch of my body screaming in pain. Blood dripped down my legs, and salt clung to my skin like a curse. But I still stood. And I looked Harvick dead in the eyes.
“You’re not punishing me,” I whispered. “You’re punishing yourself. Because you see me still standing—and you hate that.”
He didn’t speak. He just stared. Like the lie was starting to burn.
---
By the time I got home from the hospital, my knees were still bleeding through the gauze, and the salt had already crusted into my wounds like it wanted to stay.
Harvick acted like nothing happened. He followed me inside, slow and soft, like we were still playing pretend. He brought me a cup of tea with his usual mask on—careful, warm, gentle.
“You should drink something,” he said. “It’s got ginger. For your stomach. You used to love it when…”
I looked at him. Blank. Hollow. Like a porcelain doll that had finally cracked.
“I need air.” That’s all I said.
He reached for me like he wanted to stop me. Like he still thought he had some kind of right over my breath. But then Elodie’s voice screamed from the upstairs intercom.
“Jeremiah—!” she wailed. “I—I can’t breathe—please! My chest! Something’s wrong!”
Harvick turned fast, panic etched in his face like a whip, and I didn’t miss how quick he forgot about me again.
“Stay inside,” he barked over his shoulder as he ran up. “Don’t go anywhere.”
But I was already walking out the door.
---
The taxi was waiting at the curb. Not a flashy car. Not suspicious. Just a clean black sedan with a driver in sunglasses and a silent nod.
I slid into the backseat like I wasn’t bleeding under my dress. Like I hadn’t just knelt for three hours on jagged salt while the man I once loved let another woman sob lies beside him.
“Ms. Monroe?” the driver asked calmly.
I nodded.
“Good,” he said. “We’ve been ready. Peter’s cleared the road. I’m taking the long route. When we hit Marker 17… it begins.”
I didn’t speak. I just sat there with my eyes on the mountain road ahead.
---
We were halfway up the mountain when the driver spoke again.
“We’ll swap cars once the news breaks. Your double’s already in place. We used a corpse Peter kept tagged for two weeks—female, similar height. The explosion will destroy the rest. But your clothes, DNA, your watch, your ID… they’ll all survive just enough.”
I nodded once, slow.
“Thank you.”
He glanced at me through the rearview.
“Peter said you’d probably thank me like that. Quiet. Calm. Like someone who already died long ago.”
He wasn’t wrong. Because I did die. On my wedding day. When the helicopter never landed. When I clutched my stomach and sobbed over a man who buried me in silence while holding another woman’s hand.
I turned to the window and whispered, mostly to myself,
“Make sure they see it. Make sure they believe it.”
The driver didn’t respond. But he pressed harder on the gas.
---
Three minutes later, the crash echoed through the trees. A blast of fire lit the side of the mountain like lightning from darkness.
The car rolled twice, then exploded again—fuel tank ruptured, heat spilling into the sky.
People saw it. People screamed. A shepherd down the hill called it in.
They found a body inside—burned beyond recognition.
A twisted, melted watch lay next to it, engraved with initials: Danica. And a charred ID half-melted to the leather wallet still read:
DANICA MONROE
---
HARVICK'S POV
My phone rang just as I was pouring Elodie her tea.
I didn’t even look at the name, I just answered, annoyed.
“Boss! Boss, it’s Danica. Ms. Danica… she...she died, sir. Car crash just ten minutes ago!”
