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“If you let me bleed to death, you could tell the police that you found us like this. I killed him, and then I killed myself.” Her voice was chillingly calm. “I’ll take all the blame.”

“No.” I snapped. “Stop talking like that. Have you thought about your children? The baby you’re carrying?”

“Yes, of course. I think about them every single day.” Her voice cracked with pain. I knew she loved them deeply—no matter what anyone else believed. She hadn’t abandoned them out of selfishness. She had left to survive.

“Mario… Mario will know what to do.” The words felt hollow, but I clung to them. Right now, I had no better ideas. I tried to keep my composure, but my lips trembled as I spoke.

I had done my fair share of terrible things. But I had never got my hands dirty—not like this. Paying someone else to handle the mess had always been my way. But this? This was something else entirely.

“It would be easier if I die with him.” Jenny said quietly.

“No.” My throat tightened. “Please stop that. It was self-defense.”

“Was it?” Her smile sent an icy chill through me—a smile that belonged in a horror movie.

“It was? I saw it with my own eyes. Everyone here can testify for you—Mario included. The guards and the housekeeper must’ve seen what he did.”

“They can only prove that I was assaulted,” she said. “But bruises don’t have names. Everyone will think I killed him for the money.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“No, it isn’t.” Her laugh was bitter. “My family’s been drowning in debt for years. That’s why they made me marry him in the first place—hoping his family connections would save my father’s crumbling empire.”

“I… I thought you loved him.”

“I did. For the first few years.” Her voice softened. “I was naive. I thought I’d found the perfect husband.”

“That’s what you made everyone believe,” I said quietly. “You seemed so happy.”

“I was. And then… I wasn’t.”

A faint sound interrupted us.

“Help…” Chen’s voice, weak and broken.

“We should help him,” I declared, guilt gnawing at my chest.

I should have helped him before. But the truth was, I cared more about Jenny. Her life mattered more to me.

“Let’s wait another minute.” Jenny murmured, her words sending another chill down my spine.

On the floor lay the husband she had once loved. The father of her children. The man she had tried to win back, time and again.

“Qing Qing.” I whispered, using her childhood nickname again—a desperate plea.

She wrapped her arms around my waist. “Please.”

One. Two. Three…

I counted silently, the seconds dragging by. When I reached sixty, I moved to Chen’s side. Tearing off my sleeve, I pressed it against his throat, trying to stem the flow of blood.

“Stay with me. Stay with me, you bastard,” I muttered.

Chen let out a faint, familiar smile—the kind reserved for trusted friends. It twisted something deep inside me.

Mario returned, his face hard. “Give me your phone.”

“Can’t you see I’m a little busy?” I snapped.

Without a word, he frisked my pocket, pulled out my phone, and slammed it to the floor. The screen shattered under his boot.

“What the fuck, Mario?”

“It’s what they do in the movies,” he said with a shrug. “Don’t want them tracking us.”

Idiot. That was who I had to rely on.

“Grab me a towel—he’s soaking through…” I barked.

“Why? We should just watch him die.” His tone was casual, but the words were ice-cold.

He returned with a towel, tossing it to me.

I padded the towel on top of the bloody sleeve.

“Call an ambulance,” I ordered.

“Why?” Mario protested.

“Because you broke mine.”

“It should come from me.” Jenny’s voice was quiet but firm.

She pulled her phone from her blood-soaked dress, her fingers trembling as she held it.

For a second, she just sat there, staring at the screen like she was weighing every possible outcome.

Then, with a sharp breath, she hit the green button.

“Help,” she cried, her voice raw with panic. “Please, my husband—he hit me, and now he’d bleeding everywhere. Please come, hurry!”

She dropped the phone with a dramatic finality, her performance chillingly perfect.

“Unbelievable,” I muttered under my breath.

Chen was too weak to even say another word at this point. His breaths came in shallow gasps, his lips trembling as blood pooled around him.

“Don’t fall asleep,” I said sharply, shaking him as though sheer force of will could keep him alive.

Jenny turned to face me.

“I couldn’t take it anymore,” she said, her voice hollow. “Years. I’ve spent years enduring his anger, his fists. Every time he hurt me, I told myself I could survive it. That it would get better. That if I was just patient enough, he would change. But he didn’t.”

Her hands trembled at her sides, her nails digging into her palms.

“He always promised he would stop, but the beatings got worse. The words got sharper. And I—” Her voice cracked. “I became someone I didn’t even recognize. Scared. Weak.”

She laughed bitterly, a sound too hollow to carry any warmth. “It had to end eventually. One way or another. Either I died, or he did, or maybe both of us. There was no other way out.”

A shiver ran down my spine at the rawness of her words. I had known Jenny for most of my life, but I had never seen her like this—so broken.

“No one ever really saw it,” she continued, “not my family, not my friends. I smiled for the world because that’s what a good wife does, right?

You hide the bruises. You hide the fear.

But behind closed doors… she made sure I never forgot who had the power.

Every slap, every broken bone, every time he threatened to take my children away… ”

Her body swayed, weak from blood loss and the weight of her confession.

“Tonight… tonight was the last time. He wasn’t going to stop. And if I hadn’t done it—” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He would have killed me.”

“Jenny…” I reached for her, but she shook her head.

“I didn’t mean to kill him,” she said softly, tears began to fall again, “you have to believe me. I just wanted him to stop. I wanted him to be afraid. To know that I have the power to stand up for myself.”

“Don’t worry, boss,” Mario said, his voice cutting through the heaviness of Jenny’s words. “I talked to the staff. They know what to say.”

“We did nothing wrong,” I insisted, though the words tasted like a lie in my mouth.

“Doesn’t look like it,” his reply a little too quick before realizing he had spoken too soon.