The Betrayal and Birth

The night enveloping the Ashford mansion was as black and impenetrable as ink, heavy with an oppressive silence that was suddenly, violently shattered by a gut-wrenching, agonizing scream.

Inside the cold, unforgiving confines of the mansion’s locked warehouse, Clara Ashford lay collapsed on the freezing concrete floor. Her face was as pale as a ghost, and her cracked lips were completely bloodless. Another ruthless contraction ripped through her abdomen, tearing a breathless gasp from her throat. Hot blood gushed out of her private parts, soaking into the thin fabric of her dress and pooling in a horrifying amount on the rough ground beneath her.

She was only eight months pregnant. The excruciating waves of pain radiating through her belly signaled a terrifying reality: she was going into premature labor. Delivering a baby a month early in a filthy, freezing room without medical help was a death sentence.

Desperation and primal fear fueled her. She could not just lie there and die. Dragging her heavy, convulsing body across the rough ground, she crawled on all fours, agonizingly making her way toward the heavy metal door. Every inch forward felt like shattered glass grinding against her bones. Summoning the last vestiges of her fading strength, she slammed her bloody fists against the unforgiving steel.

“Mr. Hawkins!” she screamed, her voice cracking. “I’m about to give birth. Please, send me to the hospital. I’m begging you!”

Standing comfortably on the other side of the door, a guard in his forties sat in a folding chair. Hawkins calmly took a drag from his cigarette, the smoke curling into the cold night air as his voice dripped with cold, calculated indifference.

“Miss Clara, you don’t even know who the father of your unborn children is,” he mocked, his tone devoid of any humanity. “Do you honestly think the master and madam will send you to a hospital just so everyone can see what an embarrassment you are? Stop causing a ruckus and remain quietly inside.”

Tears spilled down Clara’s pale cheeks, mixing with the cold sweat on her face. She had been locked away in this pitch-black solitary confinement for eight long months. It had all started with a devastating hotel scandal that had utterly ruined her pristine reputation. Reporters had caught illicit pictures of her in bed with a stranger, turning the pride of the Ashford family into the city's biggest laughingstock overnight.

When her father discovered she was pregnant, he deemed her a disgrace and demanded a forced abortion. But Clara had refused to let her precious babies die in her womb. She had jumped off the operating table and fled, choosing this dark prison over the murder of her children.

“Mr. Hawkins, please!” Searing pain clamped down on her uterus again, making her curl inward. “Save my children. They’ll die in here... please, help me!”

Her pleas grew weaker, but the guard acted as if he could not hear her. He just took another relaxed drag of his cigarette.

Warm blood continued rushing from Clara’s private area, drenching her clothes further. She was now sitting in a terrifying pool of her own blood. Despair triggered a surge of frantic energy. She reached up, grabbed the heavy metal door handle, and threw her entire body weight against it. She rattled it with everything she had. She refused to let her babies die in her womb!

“Are you mad?! What are you doing?!” Hawkins barked.

An annoyed Hawkins unlocked the heavy door and finally forced it open. He completely ignored her blood-drenched, pitiful state. Reaching down, he grabbed her violently by the hair and dragged her backward, pulling her deeper into the grim, dark warehouse and away from the exit.

Clara cried out as her scalp burned, her hands desperately trying to pry his fingers away. But suddenly, Hawkins froze. His hand loosened its brutal grip at the sound of a cool, composed voice echoing from the doorway.

“What is going on here?”

Clara forced her eyes open through the blur of tears. Stepping elegantly into the grim room was her beloved sister, Sloane Ashford. They had grown up together, shared every secret, and been inseparable.

Latching onto the hem of her sister’s pristine coat like a drowning woman finding a lifeline, Clara desperately begged, “Sloane! Please, help me. Save my babies...”

Instead of pity, Sloane’s face twisted into a cruel, disgusted sneer. She did not reach out to help. She looked at the guard and reprimanded him—not for his violence, but for his lack of decorum. “Mr. Hawkins, this is the eldest daughter of the Ashford family. How could you drag her around like a dying dog?”

Hawkins quickly caught the underlying tone and bowed his head respectfully, defending his ruthless actions. “Miss Sloane, I meant no disrespect. Miss Clara just didn't know what was good for her and wanted to run to the hospital. If outsiders learned she is pregnant with bastards, it would ruin the Ashford family’s reputation. I was only protecting the family name.”

“Not bad,” Sloane praised him openly, a chilling smile forming on her lips. “I will tell Father to have your wages significantly increased later.”

She turned her hostile, unfeeling gaze back to Clara, fixing her eyes on the swollen stomach. “Your babies sure cling to life like cockroaches. When Father told you to abort them, you insisted on keeping them, knowing the family wouldn't accept them. If they survive this, we’ll have to consider them having unrivaled tenaciousness. But honestly, it would be so much better if they just died right here. The Ashford family would then get to preserve its spotless reputation.”

“No... my children cannot die...” Clara gasped in horror.

Sensing the sheer venom radiating from her sister, Clara recoiled in a pool of her own blood and cold sweat. Clutching her cramping abdomen, she instinctively crawled backward. She was a horrifying sight. Blood and grime matted her hair to her forehead. Her lips were cracked open and bleeding, making it look as though she wept tears of blood. The once most beautiful woman in Bay City had been reduced to someone who looked like they had crawled out of a garbage dump.

Sloane let out a sharp, mocking laugh at the pathetic display. She bent down until she was eye-level with Clara, a malicious smile playing on her lips, and delivered a crushing revelation.

“Clara, do you know why you slept with a strange man eight months ago?” Sloane asked softly. “It is because I made the arrangements.”

“What?!” Clara choked out, stunned.

Before she could process the words, she started convulsing from another bloody contraction. More blood gushed out, but she forced herself to listen in absolute horror as Sloane confessed her venomous, deep-seated jealousy.

“You were always the precious princess of this family,” Sloane hissed, her composed facade cracking. “You held half of the Ashford Corporation’s shares, and on your eighteenth birthday, you became the coveted heiress. Do you have any idea just how jealous I was? If you are so pure that you stand above everyone else, then I swore I would meticulously orchestrate your utter ruin. I vowed to turn the pure Clara into a whore who sleeps with anyone!”

Clara stared at her, her mind spinning. She had run through countless scenarios over the past eight months, wondering who had destroyed her life. Not once did she suspect her beloved sister.

Sloane stood up, crossing her arms and cackling triumphantly. “In the eight months you have been locked away in here, I became the new heiress of the Ashford family. Clara, from now on, you are only the woman with the worst reputation in Bay City. You are a whore who gave birth to bastards who will never even know who their father is! Your life is ruined! Hahaha!”

The shocking betrayal compounded with the excruciating physical trauma. Great waves of pain surged through Clara’s stomach as she listened to the horrifying words. It felt as if her private region was literally being torn apart. The sheer intensity of the agony nearly made her faint.

“Aaaaahhhh!”

A horrific scream tore through Clara's throat as she collapsed onto the hard floor. Her pale face tilted up, staring at the ceiling in pure, unadulterated agony. Survival instinct took over her failing body, and she opened her legs instinctively on the freezing concrete. Waves of blood gushed out from her private region.

Something pushed heavily at the area between her legs, the pressure so intense it felt as if she were being torn into several pieces. She pushed with everything she had left, her fingernails scraping bloody paths against the floor as her body fought to bring her children into the world.

An agonizing stretch of time passed in the oppressive darkness. The relentless pain blurred her vision, pulling her to the very edge of unconsciousness until, suddenly, the cries of babies rang out in the warehouse.