My Fiancé Slept With My Stepsister

Chapter 3

The engagement party I'd been anticipating for six months lay in ruins. Our ten-year love, the bond that had sustained us, was shattered too.

I lay there blankly until the wounds at the corners of my mouth went numb. Then, using my left hand, I propped myself up and sat.

I dialed a number I hadn't used in years.

"I regret everything. I know you have ways. Make them pay!"

I spent seven full days in the hospital ward.

Jeffery arranged the top medical aesthetics team, but he never showed up.

The bedside was stacked with financial magazines, all reporting the cooperation between the Jones and Shepard families—a merger of titans.

The latest issue's headline screamed, "Is Jeffery Shepard's Fiancée About to Be Replaced?"

My phone chimed with an anonymous video.

On screen, Karina was emotionally unhinged.

"I give up! I admit defeat, alright? At first, I just wanted to use you to torture Ava, but then... Then I fell for you myself! I love you. How could I not love you? You designed the villa just for me, organized my cramp painkillers by date in the cabinet, chain-smoked downstairs through all my late nights... You even claimed responsibility for the Highland Manor fire, took all those stabbings from Ava... You care about me, too, don't you? Answer me!"

She alternated between screaming and sobbing, hurling the same questions relentlessly.

When an assistant stepped in, she slapped her across the face.

"Get lost!"

In the heavy silence came Jeffery's weary sigh.

He just uttered one clear word, "Yes."

My head buzzed; my blood ran cold.

Years ago, when fire claimed my mother, firefighters had pried a tiny wooden carving of me from her charred palm.

I cried until I wished I could follow her to the grave.

Instead, those ninety-nine self-inflicted wounds all found their mark on Jeffery.

Bleeding and in tears, he kept apologizing, blaming my mother's death on vengeful rivals. Scissors carved crimson trenches down his arm. He didn't even twitch, crushing me in his arms instead.

"It's okay, it's okay, Ava. I'll stay with you for your mother. You've still got me, and you're all I have left. Like when we were seven—don't let go of my hand."

But it turned out that everything that had moved me was a lie.

Reading financial headlines predicting the two families' joint project's imminent stock surge, I scheduled the video to auto-send to 30 major outlets.

'Since you're so fond of your powerful alliance, let's watch you both crash from your glorious heights!'

That evening, Jeffery appeared by my hospital bed, going through my medical charts. Seeing me awake and not making my usual scene, he froze for a second, thinking I'd finally come to my senses. Satisfied, he reached out.

But I was destined to disappoint him.

I smacked his hand away hard.

Jeffery's expression turned stormy.

"Ava! It was a misunderstanding. How long are you going to keep making a scene?"

"Did you cover for Karina about my mother?"

Tears flooded down my face.

Yet to my shock, Jeffery's eyes showed no guilt, just an even icier stare.

"So it was you behind those leaks. Karina told the truth."

Karina burst in through the door, tears flowing like a river. "Everyone's slandering my mother, calling her a mistress... She's a good mother and a devoted wife, only for Maeve, your mother, to destroy her reputation!"

David Jones, my father, sat up and pointed at me, shouting, "You're getting far too cheeky!"

Everything before my eyes twisted into something grotesque.