Blood on the Divorce Papers

The atmosphere in the sterile, opulent hallway of the Vanguard Estate was suffocating, thick with a tension that mirrored the torrential storm raging outside the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. Lightning flashed, casting long, fractured shadows across the pristine marble floor.

"Seraphine Hawthorne, you're a murderer! Why are you still alive? You should have died instead!"

The words tore from Kaelen Vanguard's throat, vicious and heavy with pure abhorrence. He stood over her, clad in a sharply tailored, funereal black suit that seemed to absorb the dim light of the corridor. His aristocratic face, usually so composed, was contorted into a mask of desolate fury. He did not possess a sliver of hesitation. His muscular arm shot forward, and his large hand brutally shoved Seraphine away.

The sudden force of the impact caught her off guard. Seraphine threw her arms out to brace herself, but her heels slipped on the polished surface. Unable to catch her balance, she crashed backward. Her body hit the unforgiving marble floor with a sickening thud. The brunt of the heavy impact landed directly on her swollen, pregnant belly, sending a shockwave of agony through her system.

Intense, agonizing spasms seized her fragile frame. Her breath caught in her throat. A warm, terrifying trickle of crimson blood began to pool beneath her on the pristine floor, stark and horrifying against the white stone.

Tears streamed from her swollen, red-rimmed eyes. She pushed through the paralyzing pain and desperately clutched at his immaculately polished shoes. "Kaelen, please, listen to me! How many times do I need to say this? I wasn't the one who betrayed your family, and I didn't cause your grandfather's death. It was Giselle! I swear to you, it was her!"

Towering above her, Kaelen glared down. His eyes were devoid of any lingering affection, resembling two shards of glacial ice. "You have the nerve to say that to my face?! Haven't you done enough harm already? How dare you involve your sister in this mess!"

He reached into his jacket. With a swift, merciless motion, he withdrew a thick stack of papers—a divorce agreement. He whipped them directly into her tear-streaked face. The sharp edges of the paper sliced the air, scattering like dead leaves across her prone, trembling body.

"You will sign this immediately. I vow to make you pay a thousand times over for the blood on your hands." His voice dropped to a lethal, vibrating baritone, devoid of the warmth they once shared.

Trembling, Seraphine vehemently refused. Her maternal instinct fiercely overrode her physical agony. She was desperate to protect her unborn child from the inescapable stigma of being a murderer’s offspring. She shook her head, clutching her stomach in a futile attempt to shield her baby. "No, I will not sign the divorce papers. Our child hasn't been born yet."

Kaelen’s expression hardened further into a sneer of pure disgust. He stepped back, pulling his shoe from her desperate grasp. "I warn you, do not use that innocent baby as a bargaining chip or a threat against me. If it were not for your pregnancy, do you think I would even let you live? You will pay for what you did to this family."

He turned his broad back on her writhing form. He looked toward his waiting subordinates standing rigidly near the entrance. "Call the police."

His heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor as he stalked out into the storm, leaving her bleeding on the marble without sparing a single backward glance.

Seraphine refused to give up hope. She could not accept that he would treat her with such staggering cruelty. Ignoring the tearing, blinding pain radiating from her abdomen, she dragged herself upward. She leaned heavily against the cold walls, forcing her way through the heavy oak doors to follow him into the freezing rain. She had to make him understand the truth.

Instead, she was met with a sight that shattered her soul.

Through the sheets of driving rain, she saw Kaelen getting into the driver's seat of his luxurious black sedan. Seated comfortably in the passenger seat, illuminated by the harsh glow of the dashboard, was her twin sister.

Giselle.

The true instigator of this nightmare looked down at Seraphine through the rain-slicked window. A triumphant, venomous smirk twisted her delicate features. She sat there, acting like the undisputed mistress of the Vanguard household, relishing the sight of her sister bleeding and broken on the cold stone driveway. Giselle had planned everything, framing Seraphine for selling corporate secrets and murdering their grandfather. Now, she was stealing Seraphine's husband and life.

Before Seraphine could take another step toward the vehicle to drag her perfidious sibling out into the storm, the piercing wail of a police siren slashed through the thunder.

Police cruisers skidded to a halt in front of the estate, their red and blue lights fracturing the darkness. Officers swarmed the portico. They seized her arms, wrenching her back from the driveway. The cold metal of handcuffs bit into her wrists, pinning her arms behind her back.

"Seraphine Hawthorne, you are under arrest. We have conclusive, irrefutable evidence of murder and corporate espionage."

The officers dragged her unceremoniously down the estate's stone steps and through the freezing rain. Her legs failed her. She collapsed onto her bruised knees. Her blood left a macabre, creeping trail onto the wet pavement as they hauled her toward the flashing lights of the squad car. The raw hatred consumed her, burning hotter than the freezing rain and blinding her to the physical pain tearing through her pregnant belly. She struggled furiously, thrashing against the officers' iron grips with every ounce of strength she had left.

She glared at the departing car carrying her husband and her twin sister. She shrieked hysterically at the taillights fading into the night. "Kaelen Vanguard, you only ever believe whatever that bitch says, never me! You'll regret this! If you've caused my unborn child to come to any harm, I'll never forgive you, ever!"

Her desolate cries carried through the storm like a banshee wailing, mingling with the heavy downpour.

As the sedan pulled away into the night, Kaelen sat rigidly in the driver's seat. His knuckles were stark white on the steering wheel. He could hear her gut-wrenching wails echoing hauntingly through the storm. For a fleeting, incomprehensible second, looking out into the pitch-black road, he felt a sudden, inexplicable weakening of his ironclad resolve.

Five years later.

The landscape had shifted to the bleak, wind-swept expanse of Pine Ridge Cemetery. A bitter, biting wind howled through the ancient trees, rustling the somber leaves in the cold, desolate air.

Clad in an austere, impeccably tailored black trench coat that accentuated her slender figure, Seraphine stood like a solitary phantom before Alistair Vanguard's towering marble grave. She gracefully placed a vibrant bouquet of pristine white lilies against the cold stone, the bright petals a stark contrast to the gray surroundings.

Slowly removing her dark sunglasses, she revealed a face whose cool, aloof beauty remained undiminished by the passage of time and tragedy. Her features were striking, her nose exquisitely straight, and her long hair swept elegantly over one shoulder. Even in the austere garb of mourning, her presence commanded attention.

"I am so sorry I took this long to visit you, Alistair." She murmured soft apologies for her long, enforced absence. Her voice was steady but laced with a profound, hidden grief.

She knew deep in her bones that Alistair had been watching over her from beyond, acting as her guardian angel. Five years ago, on the harrowing night of her arrest, the stress and trauma had forced her into premature labor right there in police custody. Surrounded by strangers, amidst the blood and the sheer terror of that night, she had given birth to triplets. In the ruthless, chaotic aftermath, Kaelen had used his immense wealth and power to take her firstborn son away, leaving her hollow and broken.

Fortunately, a mysterious, powerful benefactor had intervened before Kaelen could discover the other babies. They had helped her hide the existence of her other two sons, securing them far away from the Vanguard family's reach, and flawlessly faked her own death in a prison hospital fire. That intervention allowed her to escape the crushing stigma of a notorious criminal, survive in the impenetrable shadows of Oakhaven, and rebuild her life from nothing.

She stared intently at Alistair's kindly, etched photograph on the headstone. The warmth in her gaze abruptly vanished. It was replaced by a glint as cold and sharp as a freshly honed steel blade.

She had recently intercepted the news. Kaelen and her treacherous sister were preparing for an impending, highly publicized wedding. The very thought of Giselle taking her place and reaping the rewards of her monstrous betrayal turned Seraphine's blood to ice.

Her fingers tightened around the frame of her sunglasses. The wind whipped the hem of her trench coat around her legs, but she stood unmovable.

"Don't worry, Alistair." Her voice dropped to a deadly whisper, carried away by the harsh cemetery wind. "As long as I'm still alive, I'll make sure that murdering bitch Giselle won't ever be part of the Vanguard family, not after she betrayed you."