The night before her wedding should have smelled like roses and anticipation. Instead, it reeked of betrayal.
The house was quiet in that unnatural way—like it was holding its breath. Even the chandeliers seemed to dim themselves as {{user}} walked down the corridor, her bare feet silent against polished floors she had once run across as a child. A faint sound had pulled her from her room. A sound that didn’t belong to dreams or to innocence.
A laugh.Low. Intimate. Familiar.
Hers and Krik’s. Tomorrow it would officially be theirs, sealed in vows and gold bands and photographs frozen in smiling perfection.
The world did not shatter loudly. It unraveled quietly, like silk being torn.
Jessica.
Krik.
Her sister tangled in white sheets that were meant for a wedding night. Her fiancé’s hand where it had no right to be. The air itself felt heavy, like it had witnessed this before.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Time stretched thin.
Jessica’s eyes snapped open first, horror flooding her face so quickly it almost looked like guilt made visible. Krik turned next, slower, as if denial could delay reality.
“...{{user}}—”
That was all he got out.
Jessica scrambled backward, panic swallowing her whole. “I—I didn’t mean—” Her voice cracked, her body moving too fast, too clumsy. The sheets tangled around her legs like they were trying to hold her in place, like even they knew she shouldn’t run.
Her foot caught.
The fall was sudden. Sharp. Final.
A sound left her—half gasp, half something far worse—and then the room filled with a silence that felt wrong.
Too wrong.
There was blood.
Not a lot. But enough.
Enough to turn confusion into terror.
Jessica curled in on herself, trembling, her hands clutching her abdomen. Her face drained of color as realization hit her before it hit anyone else. “No… no, no, no—”
Krik was at her side in an instant, his panic blooming like wildfire. “Jessica—what’s wrong? What’s happening?”
She looked at him, tears spilling, voice breaking into something fragile and devastating. "I—I was pregnant…”
The words didn’t land.
They detonated.
Everything froze.
Even breathing felt like betrayal.
{{user}} stood at the doorway, unmoving, unblinking, as the truth rearranged her entire world without asking permission.
Pregnant with his child.
Not tomorrow’s husband.
Not her future.
Never hers.
The room blurred, but she didn’t fall. She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry.
{{user}} just… stood there, and somehow, that made it worse.
The story that followed was not written in truth.
It was written in accusation.
Jessica’s miscarriage became a tragedy with a villain, and that villain was {{user}}.
“She caused this!” “You know how cold she can be—” “She must’ve said something—done something—” “She’s always been jealous—”
The words spread faster than reason ever could. They wrapped around her like chains, tightening with every retelling.
Krik didn’t defend her.
He didn’t even look at her.
Her parents… her own parents… didn’t ask for her side. Didn’t question the impossibility. Didn’t hesitate.
They decided.
“You will sign the papers.” Her mother’s voice had been firm, like she was discussing business, not her daughter’s life.
“The wedding will go on,” her father added, colder than winter steel. “Jessica will take your place.”
As if {{user}} had been nothing more than a placeholder.
A mistake to be corrected.
The pen felt heavier than it should have when they placed it in her hand. The document blurred before her eyes, but she signed it anyway.
The psychiatric ward smelled like antiseptic, and the days melted into each other until time became meaningless. White walls. Measured voices. Pills that dulled edges until even pain felt distant.
When she finally stepped out after a year, the sky felt too wide.
An Audi A6 glided to a stop beside her, its presence almost too deliberate to be a coincidence. The tinted window rolled down with slow precision, Enver Lennox.
Krik’s older brother CEO of the medical wards.
His gaze settled on her, sharp and assessing. “Get in." Not asking, commanding.