Chapter 3

3

Thinking back to that night made my blood run cold.

My father literally died because of the Baxter family.

The Baxters were battling a rival conglomerate for a massive real estate contract. Peyton's father forgot a vital file and ordered my dad to fetch it.

They kept calling my dad nonstop, harassing and rushing him until he lost focus and crashed on the freeway.

He could have survived with emergency surgery, but the hospital required an upfront deposit. Because the payment was delayed, the golden window closed, and my dad died on the operating table.

The Baxters never offered an apology.

Instead, they blamed my dad and me for losing the multi-million-dollar deal, calling us useless failures.

Even my mother turned on us, sneering at our worthlessness before packing every dime of the family savings and vanishing forever.

To the outside world, I was a lucky guy who married into an elite dynasty.

In reality, my monthly allowance was barely five hundred dollars.

I even had to pour my modest salary into household expenses to keep up with Peyton's extravagant standards.

When my father lay dying, I did not have a single penny left.

I called Peyton desperately, but she was busy soothing a wasted Chase at a nightclub. Chase whined over the phone about her taking calls, and Peyton hung up instantly.

When I dialed back, her phone was powered off.

"Ha! Aren't you just as useless as your deadbeat father?"

Over the years, the word I heard most from the Baxter family was "useless."

I was supposedly inferior to every man who crossed Peyton's path.

Peyton and I met in college. We went to the same university, studying different majors.

We bumped into each other during a general lecture. After that single encounter, she tracked down my number and pursued me relentlessly.

She poured her heart out to me.

Knowing our social gap, I rejected her multiple times.

Her fierce persistence eventually wore down my defenses, and I agreed to date her.

Her love back then was fiery and all-consuming.

I grew up in a toxic household where my mother constantly degraded my father.

My dad worked tirelessly to give my mother the best life, even letting her stay home without working, but she was never satisfied. She resented him for being an ordinary clerk who could not give her bragging rights.

Back then, Peyton was different.

She considered my feelings and guarded my self-esteem with fierce loyalty.

She shared everything she learned from her elite upbringing with me.

In those golden days, our love was pure and unblemished.

I loved animals, so we rescued a stray calico cat together.

Worried it would get hurt on the streets, I decided to bring the kitten home.

That was when I witnessed the true monstrosity of my mother.

My mother found out about Peyton's wealthy background and demanded I get Peyton pregnant immediately to trap her.

When I refused, wanting our love to grow naturally, my mother went insane.

She brutally harmed our kitten and placed the dying, mangled creature on my bed.

The kitten took its last breath in my trembling hands on the way to the vet clinic.

For years afterward, nightmares of that gruesome scene haunted me every time I closed my eyes.

From that day on, I cut all ties with my mother.

Peyton stayed by my side, wrapping me in warmth until the trauma faded.

I refused to use dirty schemes to trap Peyton.

Thankfully, we fought our way to the altar.

I truly believed we would support each other through thick and thin forever.

Yet in just fifteen years, every precious memory we shared turned into a cheap punchline she used to pamper Chase.