Betrayed On Our Anniversary, I Quit

Chapter 7

Anne's head was slammed brutally against the ice-cold stone steps. The rough, gritty surface scraped a raw, stinging mark into her smooth scalp.

God, that hurt. White-hot, searing pain blazed through her skull.

Anne screamed. But the next brutal crash came before she could draw breath, shattering her plea into tiny, broken pieces before it could even leave her throat.

"Wayne, I'm not lying, you—"

Bang!

"Go to the hospital and check my medical records—"

BANG!

"Let me go! Please, let me go! Ah!"

BANG!

Finally, a flicker of hesitation crossed Wayne's face. He lifted his hand to step in, but Sasha curled her fingers around his wrist and pulled him back.

"The priest said she has to kneel and pray a thousand times for our baby to be safe. Wayne, are you already going soft on her?"

Wayne's hand hung frozen in midair for a heartbeat. In the end, he lowered it slowly back to his side.

"Keep going," he rumbled, his voice heavy and cold. "She messed up, and she deserves to be punished."

The bodyguard didn't let up. By that point, she'd already been forced to slam her head down hundreds of times. Her forehead was scraped raw, blood seeping down past her brows, and she couldn't hold herself up a second longer.

Even so, she scraped together every last ounce of strength she had left, lifted her shaking head to glare at Sasha, and curled her bloodstained lips into a cold, mocking sneer.

"Sasha, cut the crap. You hate people like us, illegitimate children, more than anything, but here you are pregnant with one yourself! Even if you do manage to carry it to term, your kid will end up just like you, everyone will talk s**t about them behind their back their whole life!"

The words hit Sasha right where it hurt. Her face drained of all color in an instant, turning deathly pale.

"Wayne, you're just going to let her say that about me?" she whined.

Wayne's jaw hardened, his gaze turning ice-cold. "Put more force into it. Make sure she finishes all one thousand."

The bodyguard obeyed without question. He slammed his palm down on the back of Anne's head, shoving her face forward into another brutal impact against the stone.

The next second, she went limp and blacked out.

The bodyguard spotted something then, and his eyes went wide with shock. "Mr. Salvador! S-she's bleeding all through her pants!"

*****

The acrid stench of disinfectant dragged Anne back to consciousness.

Wayne sat on the edge of her hospital bed, one of her hands wrapped in his. When he saw her open her eyes, he let out a quiet, relieved breath.

"You're awake, Anne. Sasha was terrified something really bad had happened to you. Luckily, it’s just a period leak. She knows you didn’t finish your penance, but she feels bad that you’re under the weather. You can make it up later."

Just a period leak?

Anne's whole body started shaking uncontrollably. The cramping ache deep in her lower body and the aching, empty flatness of her belly spelled out the brutal truth clear as day.

Her baby was gone.

Her mind drifted back to when she and Wayne had been deeply in love. Back then, he'd wanted a baby more than anything.

He'd even gone to the church every single day to pray for their child, just to make sure everything went well.

But fate had other plans. They'd finally gotten pregnant that first time, only for a high-stakes client to force her to drink a full liter of hard liquor for an important order. And that had ended in a devastating miscarriage.

The searing, grinding agony of that D&C was still etched into her memory, raw and vivid even after all this time.

Back then, Wayne's eyes had been bloodshot red. That broad, giant, nearly six and a half feet tall, curled into a ball outside the operating room and cried through the entire night.

But now, that same man had murdered their second child with his own two hands. This one was supposed to be her last chance at being a mother, ever!

"Ah!" She clawed at her own hair and screamed until her throat was raw, completely broken.

A flicker of panic crossed Wayne's face, and he grabbed her shoulders. "Anne, what's wrong?"

"Get out! Get the hell away from me, Wayne! I hate you!" She roared the words, slapping his face over and over as hard as she could, raking her nails across his cheek and tearing the skin open.

This wild, surging rush of emotion felt like it would make her brain tumor burst open. The agony was so bad she nearly blacked out multiple times.

Her doctor had warned her a thousand times not to let herself get this worked up, but right now, she couldn't rein it in even if she tried.

Wayne held up a hand to stop the bodyguards who were rushing forward from behind him, his voice heavy with what sounded like helplessness.

He pulled out a stack of documents and flipped through it to the very last page.

Anne's gaze was blank and hollow, but she still caught the flash of words that zipped past: Divorce Agreement.

Of course. He'd had this planned all along.

"Anne, just sign it," Wayne said, his voice soft as silk, like he was cooing at a fussy child. "I know your period's got you all emotional and all over the place right now. I'll buy you a brand-new villa as compensation. I know you're upset I'm helping Sasha, but she's still your half-sister. Now that the Guevarra family's back on its feet, this will work out for you too in the long run. You were never a real high society debutante anyway, don't be so stubborn. I'm only doing this for your own good."

Anne pretended she hadn't spotted those words. She calmly picked up the pen and scrawled her name across the line.

Wayne stared, stunned. She was far too calm... so calm that a strange, cold uneasiness settled in his chest.

But then his phone buzzed. One glance at the message from Sasha, and the smile snapped right back onto his face. He tossed a few quick words of warning her way and hurried out the door.

Anne didn't linger on the hospital bed. That night, she pulled up the location tracking on her phone and tracked Wayne straight to his exact whereabouts.

When she stopped outside the private room door, she could hear every word of the conversation between Wayne and his childhood friend loud and clear.

"Wayne, you actually tricked Anne into signing divorce papers just so you could marry Sasha? Is that for real?"

Wayne blew a slow, lazy smoke ring, his voice low and soft, "It's only temporary. I have to keep Sasha happy. She's been throwing fits nonstop, refuses to have an illegitimate child. I have to give her a proper title. Once the baby's born, I'll remarry Anne."

His friend's face went completely slack with disbelief. "That girl bullied you nonstop back in high school, for crying out loud! What the hell are you thinking, man?"

Instead of answering right away, Wayne just shook his head and let out a bitter, hollow laugh.

"It can't be helped. Back when we were in school, Sasha was so dazzling, the kind of girl that lights up an entire room. From the second I laid eyes on her, I craved to conquer her. But I was just a bastard back then. She wouldn’t even spare me a second glance. Then I noticed she was always picking on Anne, and it was only when I stood by Anne’s side and fought her that Sasha bothered to look at me at all.

"Later I heard her family’s business crashed and burned. I found her waiting tables at a restaurant. She’d burned her hand, and customers were tearing into her while she tried not to cry. I pulled her out of that place, gave her money, and kept her around just to humiliate her. I thought I’d finally gotten my revenge, right? But when I saw her crying while she waited on me hand and foot, too scared to make a single sound… I didn’t feel any satisfaction from getting even. All I felt was an ache in my chest for her. Anne loves me, I know that. But as long as I’m with her, I’ll always be labeled as that bastard. Only when I stand next to Sasha do I actually feel like I’ve left my ugly past behind for good."

Wayne’s childhood friend sucked in a sharp breath. "So, aren’t you scared that when Anne finds out the truth, she’ll dump your ass and run off with someone else?"

"Anne?" Wayne’s expression drifted for a split second, but then he smirked, totally confident. "She’s obsessed with me. She loves me more than anything. Even if she does find out, a little sweet-talking will fix everything.

"And besides, I intentionally made her take that drink for me back then, which is how we lost our first baby. She blames herself so badly for it that she’ll never leave me. Not ever."