Chapter 3

3.

Nora had often been called a worthless trust fund parasite.

Her husband, Julian, was one of the people who said it.

Years ago, the Thorne family faced a hostile takeover and was drowning in debt. Ivy had decisively broken up with Julian and fled to Europe. It was Nora who used her family's vast fortune and connections as leverage to become Julian's wife.

On their wedding night, Julian had pointed his finger in her face and called her a leech who could only use her family's power to threaten others.

Even now, she remembered him slapping her hand away, his cold gaze looking down on her. "Let's see whose blood you'll suck when the Vance family finally falls."

It was as if Julian had cursed her.

Three years later, the Vance family empire crumbled under allegations of a Ponzi scheme.

Nora fell from grace overnight.

She tried everything to save her family's business, but she was powerless. The only thing she could think of was the desperate, low-class trick of poking holes in a condom.

Soon, she got her wish. With a baby in her belly, she forced Julian to lend a hand to the Vance family.

Just as she was about to share the good news with her parents, she saw it on a live news broadcast. To escape arrest by the Feds, the two people who loved her most in the world had jumped from their penthouse apartment.

The warm blood felt like it had splattered across her heart, plunging her into an icy abyss.

She fell into a deep depression.

But she couldn't take antidepressants.

Because she was carrying a child.

This child was all she had left.

Without this baby, Julian would surely kick her to the curb.

For ten months, she forced her psychiatrist to tie her to the bed to get through it. She gave birth to Leo for Julian.

But she never imagined that the first words her son, the child she had fought so hard for, would say to her were:

"Mommy is a parasite who only leeches off Daddy."

By then, Ivy had returned to the country.

And Julian had grown to despise her completely.

All she had was Leo.

So she poured all her energy into loving him, giving him everything he wanted, just to prove that someone in the world still loved her.

Until that day on the mountain in Aspen, when she waited alone for a day and a night. In the end, it was a passing hiker who took her to the hospital.

After a near-death experience in the ICU, she was diagnosed with a terminal illness. She didn't shed a single tear. Instead, she calmly accepted the research institute's experimental offer.

Because she had finally realized that neither her husband nor her son loved her. They only loved Ivy.

So, she didn't want them anymore either.

Nora's grip on the phone loosened.

Memories that used to be bitter now seemed less agonizing in the face of death.

So, when the researcher asked,

"This is a major procedure. Should we inform your emergency contact?" she refused.

"I have no family left."

Nora set aside a few days to handle her affairs.

The late-stage cancer took a huge toll on her body. Many of the things she once cherished were now useless to her.

The cashmere scarf she'd spent nights knitting for Julian, the love letters she'd written, the holy relics she'd foolishly spent hours in a church praying for...

She packed them up one by one, either tossing them in the recycling bin or sending them to a charity shop.

Soon, the only thing left in the bedroom was the massive wedding portrait on the wall.

The maids watched her struggle to take down the heavy frame, whispering among themselves. "What's the missus throwing a fit about now?"

"Probably had another fight with the master. She's just smashing things to get his attention."

"How many times has this happened? And isn't she always the one who ends up crying and begging a restorer to fix it? As if the master actually cares."

That's right.

Everyone knew Julian didn't like her.

The last time they fought, she had smashed the wedding portrait, and Julian had simply ordered the digital negatives to be deleted.

In the end, she had to beg the owner of the photography studio, paying triple the price to have the photo restored. He had made it clear: "The negatives are gone. This is the last copy."

She had hung it back up carefully, as if it were the Holy Grail.

But now, she took it down with her own hands, shattered the glass, pulled out the photograph, and tossed it into the fireplace without a second thought.

The flames instantly devoured the image.

The maids gasped.

"Ma'am, if you burn it, it's gone forever!"

"What's gone forever?"

Julian stood at the door, his brow furrowed.