Chapter 1

Liam Sullivan died with eyes wide open. Even though he used his own back to shield me from the collapsing beam in the fire, even though that final push used the last breath from his lungs, I still didn't grant him his final wish. "Let you and Violet Croft be together?" I lay sprawled on his charred chest, listening to the death rattle in his throat like a broken bellows, my nails digging deep into his still-warm skin. "Liam Sullivan, you're dreaming." His remaining strength was spent staring at me, his pupils reflecting my fire-blackened face. I leaned close to his ear, spitting out blood-flecked words, one by one: "Alive, you are my husband, Wendy Croft's. Reduced to ashes, you will still be my ghost." Even when the firefighters carried him away, those eyes were still fixed stubbornly on the ceiling. The Sullivan family funeral was hastily arranged yet grand. Old Madam Sullivan, leaning on her cane, cursed me over the phone, her voice trembling like a candle in the wind: "Wendy Croft, if you dare set foot in the cemetery, I'll dash my brains out right on Liam's gravestone!" I went anyway. Although the Croft family was prestigious, I wasn't the refined, properly raised noble daughter they had cultivated. On the contrary, I grew up in an orphanage, a vicious girl who clawed her way up. The funeral came to an abrupt halt when I burst through the iron gates of the cemetery. The crowd in black, like ants dropped onto a red-hot iron, instantly erupted into panic. Liam Sullivan's photo hung in the center, the corners of his mouth slightly upturned—that expression I knew so well. But next to his photo, was Violet Croft's picture, glaringly obvious. She wore the pearl-white dress I gave her, smiling like an untainted white lotus. Two coffins lay side by side in the center of the mourning hall, bound together with a red silk ribbon. "Wendy Croft! You lunatic!" Old Madam Sullivan slammed her cane hard on the ground. “You’ve already driven Liam to his death—must you rob him of peace in his grave as well?” I ignored her, my eyes fixed on the two coffins. So they had prepared this all along. They always intended for this "star-crossed lovers" to keep each other company on the road to the underworld. "What are you doing here!" A sharp, crying shout pierced through the crowd. Leo Croft, wearing a little suit, his tie askew, ran up to me, mud from his shoes splattering onto my red dress. He was twelve this year, his features strikingly like Liam Sullivan's, even the frown lines identical. "Why did you come?" He looked up at me, his eyes red like a rabbit's. "You killed Dad! You drove Mom Violet to her death! Are you here to cause more trouble now?" My heart felt like it was being squeezed hard by something, the pain stealing my breath. This was the child I carried for ten months, the life I fought tooth and nail to bring back from the brink. "I don't have a mother like you!" He suddenly lunged at me, his small fists raining down on my waist like hailstones. "If I'd known how evil you were, I would have helped Dad divorce you sooner! I want to be with Mom Violet!" His strength wasn't great, but each blow felt like it hit cotton, leaving a stifling ache in my chest. "Enough!" My parents pushed through the crowd, the disgust on their faces like poisoned ice picks. My mother pointed a trembling finger at me, her voice shaking like a leaf in the autumn wind: "Wendy Croft, haven't you caused enough trouble? Violet is barely cold, Liam has just left, must you deny them peace even in death?" "Wasn't it you who were worried Violet Croft would suffer if she married into the Sullivan family, so you schemed to have me marry him instead?" Her face instantly flushed crimson, then turned deathly pale. "You... what nonsense! If it weren't for you pestering and clinging, insisting on marrying into the Sullivan family back then, how could Violet have..." "How could she have been a secret mistress all her life?" I finished for her. "You were all afraid she'd be wronged, afraid she couldn't become the rightful Mrs. Sullivan, so you pushed me out as a shield. Now that she's dead, you want to give her a proper title? Then what about me? What do these twenty-five years of my marriage count for?" My father suddenly raised his hand and slapped me. The sharp sound echoed in the silent mourning hall, like shattering something. My cheek burned fiercely, my ears ringing. "Ungrateful wretch!" He pointed at me, shaking with rage. "We raised you for nothing! If we'd known you were so vicious, we never should have taken you in from the orphanage! Violet is a thousand, no, ten thousand times more sensible than you!" What use is blood relation? The biological child isn't as good as the adopted one. This sentence was like a poisoned needle, thrust deep into the softest part of my heart. I pushed past the people surrounding me and walked step by step towards the two coffins. My red dress swept over the white chrysanthemums on the floor, crushing petal after petal. Leo was still crying, the Sullivans were still cursing, my parents stood rooted, their eyes cold as ice. But I couldn't hear anything anymore. The words on the tombstone stabbed at my eyes. "Liam Sullivan and His Beloved Wife Violet Croft." The gilded font glittered under the gloomy sky, mocking my stupidity. Tears finally fell from my eyes. So, Liam Sullivan really never loved me. The world spun. I collapsed before the tombstone, all my obsessions for anyone finally gone from my eyes.