He Killed Our Baby for His Mistress , Now I'll Destroy Him

"This child is your own flesh and blood. The doctor said if we wait two more hours, he won't survive..." I had been married to Antony for three years. Three years of being the dutiful Mrs. Gilbert, keeping my place, never making a fuss. Even when I knew his heart had always belonged to Betty, I swallowed it in silence. All I wanted was to bring this baby into the world. I lowered myself as far as a person could go. For this child, I was willing to give up everything. "Please... just let me deliver this baby. I'll hand everything else over to Betty!" Antony looked down at me, his gaze cold and remote. "As if it's yours to hand over." "Everything Betty wants, I'll give her myself." "I made her a promise. Only she would bear my firstborn." His tone was flat, but every word cut like a blade. "The eldest son of the Gilbert family inherits everything. Your child was conceived in wedlock. I'll give him the best life, provide for him for as long as he lives." "It's only a two-hour delay. That small inconvenience is something my son can handle." Handle? That was a living, breathing life! A tiny being who had spent ten months inside me, kicking me every day, responding to my voice. My whole body shook with sobs. Pain and despair crashed over me like a tide, dragging me under. The doctors and nurses watched me. Their eyes brimmed with sympathy, but not one of them dared defy Antony's orders. The cold needle pierced my skin again. The fluid crept into my veins. The contractions intensified violently, yet somehow I couldn't feel them anymore. I stared at the ceiling with hollow eyes. And I felt the movement inside me fade. Little by little. From frantic thrashing, to feeble squirming, to nothing at all. "No fetal heartbeat!" The doctor's voice trembled. "The baby... there are no vital signs!" In that moment, something inside me died too. I couldn't tell if it was real or a dream. Voices swirled around me, urgent and frantic. "Where's the family? Who here is Lauren Fisher's next of kin?" "The patient is critical. She needs emergency surgery. We need a family member to sign the consent form!" No one answered. No echo came back. A young nurse nearby spoke up. "I recognize her. Isn't she Mrs. Gilbert? Her husband is Antony Gilbert. He just went home to make bird's nest soup for the woman in Room 7." Then, in the middle of all that chaos— A calm, measured voice cut through. "I'll sign." The air went still. The doctor looked up, confused. "And you are? What's your relation to the patient?" "I'm her... older brother." The paperwork was handled quickly after that. I was wheeled back into the operating room for another emergency procedure. But even after surgery, the doctors' faces remained grim. "The patient's will to live is dangerously weak. The surgical outcome is far from ideal." "Whether she wakes up depends entirely on her." I knew. I was the one who didn't want to live anymore. But just as the last flicker of fight drained out of me, a man's voice reached me from somewhere above. "Lauren Fisher. Are you really going to die like this? Quietly? Like a coward?" "The people who killed you, who killed your child, are still out there. Living their lives without a care in the world." "They'd be happy if you died. Happy you got out of the way. Is that really what you want? To give them exactly what they're hoping for?" No. I would not die like this. I would avenge my child. A nurse's startled cry rang out beside me.

"We have a pulse!" "This is nothing short of a miracle." I didn't know how much time had passed before I gradually regained consciousness. My eyes fluttered open to a haze of doctors and nurses scrambling around me. There was no man anywhere in sight. If fate had decided to give me back this life, then I would live it well. I stayed in the hospital and focused on recovering. A full week passed. Antony never came to see me, but every detail of my care was arranged impeccably. The housekeeper and the private nurse attended to my every need without missing a beat. Every few days, I caught the nurses whispering excitedly when they thought I couldn't hear. "That woman in VIP Room 7, Betty Henson? She really lucked out, having a husband like that." "Please. She's not the wife. The one in Room 6 is the real Mrs. Gilbert. Haven't you heard? Betty's just his first love." "He made his wife delay her delivery so his first love could give birth to the firstborn son. The whole hospital's been buzzing about it." "If you ask me, marrying into money isn't all it's cracked up to be. End up with a man like that and you've got one foot in the grave." "All the money in the world doesn't matter if you're not alive to spend it." They noticed me lying there, expression calm, listening to every word. The two young nurses cleared their throats, grabbed their medicine trays, and hurried out. Through it all, I felt nothing. As if the baby who had died moments after being born wasn't mine at all. Betty did come by once, baby in her arms, to gloat. "Oh, sweetie, I never imagined your little one would have such a short life." "And here I thought, since we were both pregnant at the same time and due on the same day, our boys could grow up together like brothers." She cooed at me with that saccharine sympathy of hers. "Oh, you probably don't know yet, do you? Antony already named my son. Michael Gilbert." My head snapped up. Michael. There had been a time when Antony and I were happy together. Back when the love between us still felt real, he had made me a promise. "Michael. What do you think of that name?" "When we have a child someday, boy or girl, we'll name them Michael." I had been naive enough to believe that Antony and I would be happy forever. Then his first love finalized her divorce abroad and came crawling back, destitute and desperate. Antony lost himself completely. His entire heart latched onto her like a man possessed. That was when I finally understood. All those countless times he had held me close and whispered "Lauren"... he had been saying "Betty." Faced with Betty's taunting and her smug little show, my expression didn't change. I gave her one word. "Congratulations." The smile froze on her face. Two weeks later, I was finally discharged. The first thing I did was go back to the Gilbert house. Antony glanced up at me, utterly indifferent. "I knew you'd come back." "It's been over two weeks. You should be done being angry by now." He bent down and tossed a check at my feet. "This month's allowance." "Buy whatever you want. Spend it however you like." I didn't pick it up. My voice was flat. "You already gave me one." Antony raised an eyebrow. "Last time was compensation for the baby. This one is for your living expenses." A bitter smile tugged at my lips. "How generous of you, Mr. Gilbert." It was always the same. Whenever Antony knew he had wronged me, he threw a check at the problem. Betty called him once while I was sick with a fever, and he shoved me out of his car on the freeway overpass. I walked three miles in bare feet until they were raw and blistered. He gave me a check for a hundred thousand dollars. I took the fall for Betty's crime, and the people who came for her dragged me away and beat me instead. He gave me a check for five hundred thousand.

To make sure Betty could deliver his child first, he'd let my baby be killed in my womb. A ten-million-dollar check. But I was tired of these games. "Antony, I need to talk to you about something—" "Antony!" A bright, lilting voice cut through the air. Betty walked over cradling a swaddled infant, a gentle smile on her face. When she noticed me, a flicker of surprise crossed her features. "Lauren, you're out of the hospital?" I turned to Antony. "Why is she in our home?" Throughout my entire pregnancy, I had accepted the tangled relationship between Antony and Betty. My only request had been simple: don't bring her here. Even during our worst fights, our coldest silences— Antony had never once brought her home. But now. Betty had moved in like she owned the place. She was wearing my silk pajamas, sleeping in my master bedroom—the one I'd chosen for its perfect morning light. Antony seemed displeased with my reaction. His brow furrowed. "Betty just gave birth. She's weak. That rental she was staying in isn't suitable anymore." "Besides, her son is the eldest child of the Gilbert family. There's no reason for him to be raised somewhere else." "Betty will be living here from now on. If you want to be a proper Mrs. Gilbert, Lauren, you'll learn to get along with her." "Otherwise—" He let out a cold scoff, his eyes glinting with the casual contempt of a man who believed he held all the leverage. "You can move back to the Gilbert estate yourself." Silence from me. Betty seized the opening, her voice dripping with false concern. "Lauren, am I causing trouble by moving in?" "I never meant to disrupt your home. I just wanted to be close to Antony so badly. And now that we have his child together, I only want to be near him." Antony wrapped an arm around her waist, tender and indulgent. "Why did you come downstairs? Let the nanny handle the baby. Go rest." Watching them play house, perfectly in sync, perfectly rehearsed— The word divorce climbed to the tip of my tongue. I swallowed it back down. I nodded calmly. "Fine. I'll move to the estate." I turned and walked away without a backward glance. Antony clearly hadn't expected me to agree so easily. He froze for a beat before finding his voice. There was a note of bewilderment beneath his tone, threaded with something almost like frustration. "Lauren, stop throwing a tantrum." A tantrum? I used to throw them. I used to argue, cry, beg. I begged him to cut ties with Betty. I begged him to think of the baby in my belly, to hold on to the last shred of dignity between us. But all he ever saw was a nuisance. A woman too emotional, too clingy, unworthy of the title Mrs. Gilbert that he loved to lord over me. Now that I'd stopped fighting, he didn't know what to do with me. My feet stilled. I lifted my gaze to meet his, perfectly composed. "I'm not throwing a tantrum, Mr. Gilbert. I told you—I can walk away with nothing." Antony stared at me, the color slowly draining from his face. He was probably remembering that day in the delivery room, when I had abandoned every last scrap of my pride, nearly on my knees before him. Please. Please, spare our baby. I'll give everything to Betty— Something clenched hard around his chest. He was still standing there, frozen, when I disappeared down the hall. While I packed, the housekeeper hovered nearby, visibly uneasy. I kept my voice light. "Just a few changes of clothes. That's all I need. Leave everything else." None of it would matter soon. Betty would claim every corner of this place. Anything I left behind would only be an eyesore to her. The driver asked quietly, "Ma'am, are you really going back to the estate?"

I stared at the house that had once held all my hopes. In the car window's reflection, I could see Betty nestled in Antony's arms. The image burned. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, there was nothing left but calm. "Take me to the estate." After all, I wouldn't be alone there. There was someone else living under that roof. Someone who could help me. That evening, I arrived at the Gilbert estate and told the housekeeper to set my luggage down and turn in for the night. I didn't go to my room. Instead, I took a detour and knocked on the study door in the other courtyard. In three years of marriage, I had never once set foot in that study. Because it belonged to Antony's older brother, Greg. The two of them had been at each other's throats for years, locked in a bitter war over the family fortune. Antony had warned me more than once. Don't talk to Greg. Don't go near him. For three years, I'd treated those words like gospel. Whenever I crossed paths with Greg, I kept my distance. But now that I'd been dragged to the edge of death and back, I finally understood who was human and who was the monster. Three knocks. The door swung open. Greg stood behind it, gold-rimmed glasses catching the light. He looked up, surprise flickering across his face. "Lauren?" He glanced past my shoulder. When he didn't see Antony, a dry laugh escaped him. "Well, this is unexpected." He leaned against the doorframe. "Antony didn't come back, but here you are at the estate. And knocking on my door, no less." Every other time I'd visited, Antony had been right beside me. I saw no reason to hide the truth. "He threw me out." Greg blinked. His brow furrowed as he studied me. "So you came looking for me?" I looked at the face in front of me, sharp-featured yet somehow gentle, and allowed myself a small smile. No point in dancing around it. "I never properly thanked you for signing off on my surgery at the hospital." I held his gaze. "Tonight, I'm here to show my gratitude in a more meaningful way." Greg went still. He stared at me for a long moment, then dipped his head with a quiet laugh. "Interesting." He straightened. "And how exactly do you plan to show this gratitude?" Greg was Antony's biological older brother, the true firstborn of the Gilbert family. But his mother had died young, and the old patriarch had shipped him overseas. For years, he'd been kept on the margins, far from the family's inner circle of power. Antony was the son of the second wife. Through cunning and manipulation, he had clawed his way into the CEO's chair at Gilbert Group, shoving Greg aside at every turn. Everyone knew the two brothers were sworn enemies. No matter how I looked at it, Greg was the perfect ally. "I know everything." I met his eyes steadily. "I know you were never the villain in this story. The Gilbert fortune should have been yours. Antony stole it. I'll use every skill I have to help you take back what's rightfully yours." I lifted my chin. "Besides, no one alive knows Antony's weaknesses better than I do." There was no calculation in Greg's gaze. Only honesty. "What do you want in return?" His voice was low, almost hoarse. "Revenge for my child." My tone was even, but the certainty behind it left no room for argument. "Antony killed my baby. I want him to know what it feels like to lose everything. To watch the people around him turn their backs, one by one, until his name is dirt and his empire is ash." Greg studied me in silence for a long time. Just when I thought he was going to refuse, his expression broke into a slow smile. He reached out and clasped my hand. "Deal." One week later, Antony arrived at the estate. His tone was casual, as if he were discussing the weather. "Arrange a family banquet here. Three days from now, I'm bringing Betty and Michael to formally introduce them to everyone." He wanted to give Betty a title. He wanted his illegitimate son to be placed above me, his lawful wife, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The old me would have crumbled. I would have screamed and cried and demanded to know how he could do this to me. But now, I simply replied with perfect calm. "Of course. I'll take care of everything." My composure and obedience pleased Antony. "Lauren, you've been so much more sensible lately. You're finally starting to look like a proper Mrs. Gilbert." Three days later. The banquet at the Gilbert estate. "Everyone, thank you for coming. I wanted to formally introduce someone." Antony's voice rang with pride as he addressed the room full of family elders. "Betty is a hero to the Gilbert family. She gave birth to the firstborn Gilbert son, my boy Michael. From now on, she and the child will be living here at the estate." His gaze dropped to Betty, soft and indulgent. Betty nestled against his chest, cradling the baby in her arms, basking in the congratulations flowing from every direction. She turned her eyes toward me, gleaming with triumph. The Gilbert elders were clearly displeased with Betty's background, but for the sake of the child, none of them spoke up. Antony believed this was the proudest moment of his life. He walked over to me and raised his voice deliberately. "Lauren, since you're Mrs. Gilbert, you'll raise Michael as your own from now on. After all, he's the only Gilbert bloodline we have." He wanted to see me fall apart. He wanted to watch me lose control. I picked up my wine glass, took a small sip, and spoke lightly. "Antony, do you have some kind of humiliation fetish?" The warmth drained from his face instantly. "What the hell are you talking about?" My smile only deepened. "If you don't, then why are you parading around someone else's bastard and calling him a Gilbert?"