Hospital ward.

Genevieve Whitmore had been worn down by illness until she was little more than skin and bone. She struggled to prop herself up and stared at him. "What did you say? Not one of my four children is mine?"

Her husband, Victor Whitmore, let out a cold laugh. "That’s right. Those four girls you gave birth to? I had them switched out years ago. Lord knows which ditch they died in."

"No... that’s impossible! Impossible! You’re lying. You have to be lying!"

Genevieve fought to sit upright, eyes wide, staring at the man she had shared a bed and a life with for decades, like she no longer knew his face.

All these years, she had thought Victor was a decent enough man.

There had never been any grand love story between them, no sweeping romance worth talking about, but they had spent so many years together. Life had been plain, but it had gone on.

Who would have thought...

She would see hatred in his eyes.

Victor Whitmore truly hated her.

From the bottom of his heart, he hated Genevieve Whitmore.

But for the sake of the Whitmore family, for the sake of those children, he had swallowed it for decades. Now, at last, he did not have to hold it in anymore.

"I’m lying to you?" He sneered. "Sure, I’ve lied to you for years. But today, this is the one true thing I’ve said, and you still won’t believe it."

"Since you’re about to die, I’ll say it again so you hear it clear. The eldest and the youngest were mine with Amelia Blackwell. The second and third were your elder brother’s and your third younger brother’s."

"Well? Happy now? You spent your whole life working yourself to the bone, and in the end you were just raising children for us Whitmores. And that little family fortune of yours? It’s about to belong to the Whitmore name too."

"That so-called Wanyue Group? From now on, it’ll be the Whitmore Group. Hahaha..."

"You..." She broke into a fit of coughing. "Why... why? Why would you do this?"

All these years, Genevieve Whitmore had never once believed she had done anything to wrong Victor Whitmore or the Whitmore family.

So why?

What gave them the right to treat her like this?

"Why?" Victor’s face twisted. "And you’ve got the nerve to ask why?"

"If your family hadn’t used that so-called debt of gratitude to force my hand back then, would I ever have agreed to marry you? And would Amelia Blackwell have ended up marrying somebody else? You should’ve died a long time ago!"

Victor Whitmore grabbed Genevieve by the collar and, without the slightest mercy, yanked her straight off the bed.

Genevieve Whitmore’s head slammed hard into the sharp corner of the table beside her.

Blood burst out at once, running from the back of her head all the way down her neck, staining even the safety pendant hanging there a deep, shocking red.

It was like she could no longer feel the pain. Her hand, so thin it was little more than skin over bone, used the very last bit of strength in her body to clutch Victor Whitmore’s arm tight.

She knew she was dying. She did not want answers about anything else anymore. She only wanted to know one thing—where her children were.

"Tell me... where are my children?"

"Children?" Victor Whitmore looked as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world, then threw his head back and laughed. "Didn’t I already tell you? They’ve long since died who knows where. Not even their bones could be found."

"You want to see them? Then go down there and have your reunion with them yourself. Hahahaha..."

"Victor Whitmore... you beast... you..." "Pff—"

Genevieve Whitmore suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.

Her eyes were stretched wide, blood vessels covering them in red, and she stared straight at the twisted, smug face in front of her.

Hate. She hated him to the core.

She hated that she had been blind enough to mistake this monster for a man.

She hated that she had not even recognized the child she herself had given birth to, and had spent decades raising someone else’s offspring for nothing.

She hated it too much. She could not accept it. Not one bit.

If... if there really was another life...

Then she, Genevieve Whitmore, would make every last one of them pay with their lives.

The hatred and fury filling her chest burned through her like fire, burning away the final breath keeping her alive.

Genevieve Whitmore’s gaze slowly lost focus. In the end, all life left her completely. But those eyes of hers were still fixed open wide.

Even in death, she could not close them.

...