Divorced, I Took Back My Crown

Ethan brought his pregnant secretary, Lily, to my haute couture bridal boutique to try on wedding dresses.

His buddies were making bets on which dress would finally make me lose control.

But even when the secretary tried on the final statement gown, I still held my measuring tape, precisely recording every measurement.

"Ethan, Natalie's actually measuring the other woman herself. She's got some serious self-control."

Ethan leaned back on the sofa, flicking cigarette ash. "She can't even have kids. She's completely dependent on me. Better she learns early what it means to be a stepmother, so she knows how to serve my son properly later."

I put away my tape measure and handed over the custom order invoice.

"Congratulations, the measurements are perfect. Two million dollar deposit."

Ethan casually tossed over a property division agreement.

"Sign it. Lily's pregnant and temperamental. She won't settle down unless she gets the title of wife."

"Just cooperate with the divorce and play along for her. Once she gives birth, I'll bring you back."

I signed without hesitation, then tore that two million dollar check into pieces.

Ethan's body, which had been leaning casually against the sofa, instantly went rigid.

His eyes locked onto those shredded pieces, the smirk on his face slowly collapsing.

Tyler, sitting cross-legged on the adjacent armchair, let out a derisive laugh.

"Natalie, this hard-to-get act is pretty pathetic."

"Ethan's giving you an out and you won't take it. You insist on playing the tough girl, but do you even deserve to?"

Ethan stood up coldly, his leather shoes grinding the paper scraps beneath them.

He walked up to me, looking down from his height.

"Natalie, getting cocky, are we?"

"Every brick in this shop was paid for with my money. You're using my money to act all high and mighty in front of me?"

I looked calmly into his furious eyes, my expression blank.

He hated most when I showed this kind of indifference.

Ethan suddenly whirled around, his arm sweeping toward the dozens of haute couture wedding gowns hanging throughout the hall.

"Destroy all of these."

Four black-clad bodyguards standing at the entrance immediately charged into the hall.

Heavy steel rods smashed the giant crystal display case in the center.

Shattered glass flew everywhere.

One by one, the gowns I'd spent three years painstakingly hand-sewing were ripped from their hangers.

The guards stepped on the pure white skirts, their hands tearing violently.

The fabric made ear-piercing ripping sounds.

Thousands upon thousands of hand-sewn crystals and pearls scattered across the floor.

Ethan stood right in front of me, staring at my face.

"Lily says these old designs smell dusty."

"Since you're so damn stubborn, let's use these rags to celebrate the kid in her belly."

One guard raised his steel rod, about to smash the glass display case in the corner.

Inside it sat a pair of worthless silver rings.

They were the promise rings he'd bought me for thirty bucks when we first started our business together.

Ethan's body suddenly moved.

He strode over and used his back to shield that display case.

A flying shard of glass tore through his suit, slicing open his hand.

The guard immediately stopped, terrified.

Ethan turned around, looking at those intact rings, breathing heavily.

He spun around abruptly, pointing viciously at the guard.

"Watch what you're doing! Don't die in front of me, it's bad luck!"

I stood in the wreckage, watching his contradictory display.

In the past, I would have softened, thinking he still cared about me.

Now I just found it laughable.

Ethan strode back to me, his hand clamping my jaw.

His fingers pressed hard, nails nearly digging into my flesh.

With his other hand, he raised his phone, pointing the camera at my face.

"Look at the camera. Record a video for Lily."

"Tell her you welcome the new life, that you're voluntarily stepping aside, and wish us a lifetime of happiness."

He forced my head down, making me face the camera directly.

His shoe was stepping on the main diamond that had been torn from a wedding gown.

That diamondhe'd stayed up all night at an auction to win it years ago.

Back then he said only I deserved to wear white.

Now he was personally grinding it into the dirt, forcing me to make way for his mistress.

I didn't struggle. I looked at my pale face in the camera.

"I, Natalie, am voluntarily stepping aside."

"I welcome Lily's child and wish you both a lifetime of happiness."

My tone was calm as I clearly enunciated every single word.

Ethan pressed stop, a flash of irritation in his eyes.

He released my jaw and casually sent the video to the elite social circle group chat.

Tyler and the others whistled loudly nearby.

"Ethan's got skills. Once this video of Natalie being kicked out gets around, Lily will definitely be happy."

Ethan shook the blood drops from his hand and pulled a cigarette from his pack.

"I'm going out for a smoke. You guys watch her, make sure she cleans up all this trash."

He walked out with that group of rich kids.

I turned around, stepping over scattered diamonds as I walked toward my private rest room at the end of the hallway.

I wanted to retrieve my passport and that design book containing my top-secret competition entry.

Reaching the door, I pushed open the half-closed entrance.

My eyes fell on the sofa.

On the leather sofa in the rest room lay several hospital lab reports.

The top one had Lily's name on it with the words "intrauterine early pregnancy."

Beside the reports sat a black tablet.

The one Ethan had left in the shop a few days ago.

The screen was unlocked, set to stay on.

A video was playing on loop.

The video's background was the master bedroom of our hillside villaour marital home.

Lily wore my silk nightgown, leaning in Ethan's arms.

She pointed coquettishly at my design sketches on the nightstand.

"Ethan, this mattress is too hard, and those ugly papers on the desk are annoying."

"This whole room smells like her. It makes me sick."

Ethan lowered his head, tenderly kissing Lily's hair.

His hand caressed her belly.

"Then we'll burn everything that has her smell on it."

"Including those precious broken sketches of hers. Once she leaves with nothing, we'll use them all to start fires for you."

"We'll just keep her around to serve you during your postpartum recovery."

The man's voice in the video was cold to the extreme.

I stood there motionless. No tears came.

I walked over and picked up the pregnancy test report from the sofa.

Then I opened the drawer and pulled out a stack of yellowed letter paper.

Those were love letters Ethan had handwritten to me in college.

I walked to the paper shredder in the corner and turned it on.

The machine made a harsh grinding noise.

I fed those lab reports stained with their bodily fluids into the feed slot, along with that stack of love letters.

The shredder mercilessly devoured the papers.

Sharp blades cut the past into irreparable waste.

I turned and opened the hidden compartment beneath the wardrobe.

Pulled out a black suitcase.

I unzipped it and placed my passport in the inner pocket.

Then I carefully packed that design book that could let me rise againmy top-secret entry for the international competition.

The half-finished statement gown "Aurora" that I'd spent six months creating was also neatly folded and placed in the case.

After finishing all this, I zipped up the suitcase.

Sealing away five years of youth and foolishness completely.

I grabbed the case and walked out of the rest room.

The hall was still a wasteland, covered in broken glass and torn fabric.

I avoided those sharp fragments and walked straight to the shop entrance.

Cold wind blew outside.

I pulled out my phone and had just opened the ride-hailing app.

Several black-clad bodyguards as imposing as towers suddenly closed in from both sides.

They blocked my path completely, forming a wall of flesh.

Tyler walked out from behind the guards, a toothpick between his teeth.

"Natalie, Ethan didn't give you permission to leave. Where exactly do you think you're going with that suitcase?"

Ethan returned, a half-smoked cigarette still between his fingers.

His gaze slowly moved from my face down to the suitcase in my hand.

His expression instantly turned sinister.

He strode up to me and exhaled a cloud of white smoke.

The smoke hit my face with its acrid smell.

His cigarette-holding hand pointed at my suitcase.

"Open it."

Ethan's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an unmistakable command.

I gripped the suitcase handle tightly.

"These are my personal belongings, Ethan. We already signed the property division agreement."

Ethan let out a cold laugh.

"You're overdoing this 'leaving with nothing' act. Now you want to steal needles and thread from the shop?"

He tilted his head slightly.

Two bodyguards immediately stepped forward, forcibly pushing me aside.

They seized the suitcase and laid it flat on the glass-covered steps.

The guards used steel rods to pry open the locks.

The zipper was violently ripped open.

My confidential sketchbook slid out, pages scattering across the ground.

That statement gown "Aurora" I'd spent six months creating for the Paris international competition also tumbled out.

The pure white silk unfurled in the wind, the dark patterns on the lining refracting light.

Just then, a black luxury van pulled up at the curb.

Lily was carefully helped out of the car by several servants.

She walked over to Ethan with an exaggerated sway, linking her arm coquettishly through his.

"Ethan, I can't find my tablet. Did I leave it at the shop?"

Her eyes suddenly fell on "Aurora" lying on the ground.

Lily's eyes immediately lit up.

She released Ethan and walked to the gown, kicking the skirt with her toe.

"Ethan, this dress is so much prettier than the one I tried on for measurements."

"And the waist is loose, it'll show off my baby bump better."

Without hesitation, Ethan bent down and picked up that piece representing my rebirth.

He dusted it off and directly draped it over Lily.

Lily's frame was bigger than mine. This half-finished piece custom-made to my measurements wouldn't fit her at all.

Ethan pulled hard twice. The fabric made strained sounds.

He frowned in disgust.

"Cheap design. Can't even accommodate a pregnancy."

With that, he grabbed the bottom of the skirt with both hands and violently pulled in opposite directions.

The sound of tearing fabric pierced my eardrums.

The hand-sewn silk train I'd created stitch by stitch was torn in half by his bare hands.

The moment he tore it, his hands seemed to pause briefly.

He instinctively avoided the label on the inner neckline embroidered with my initials "NN."

Lily said sweetly, "Ethan, you tore it. I want to take it home as a cushion."

Ethan looked at her coldly and threw the ruined wedding dress on the ground.

"This trash doesn't deserve to be worn by you."

I stared at "Aurora" torn in two, my mind completely blank.

That was the competition piece I was going to take to Paris.

He'd once said he would personally place the competition crown on my head.

Now he'd trampled my life's work into the dirt.

I lunged frantically toward the confidential sketches on the ground.

I had to protect what remained of my designs.

My hand had just touched the edge of the album.

Ethan grabbed my shoulder and shoved me backward hard.

"What the hell are you doing!"

My body lost balance, falling heavily backward.

My back hit the ground, my abdomen slamming hard into the corner of a shattered glass coffee table nearby.

A tearing pain instantly swept through my entire body from my lower abdomen.

I collapsed in the broken glass, gasping for air.

Warm blood gushed from between my legs.

It instantly stained my light-colored skirt red, spreading across the white floor tiles.

The mockery on Ethan's face suddenly froze.

He stared fixedly at the glaring red beneath me.

My body curled up among the glass shards.

My purse had fallen when I collapsed.

A pregnancy test report tucked in my passport slipped out, landing right beside Ethan's shoe.

It was the report I'd just received this morning.

I had originally planned to give it to him as a surprise at tonight's anniversary dinner.

I wasn't a hen that couldn't lay eggs. I had just conceived his child.

Ethan's gaze moved from the blood to that paper.

He bent down and picked up the pregnancy report.

After seeing the words clearly, a flash of obvious panic crossed his eyes.

His fingers holding the paper involuntarily tightened.

Lily stood nearby. Seeing the report's contents, her face instantly twisted with jealousy.

She immediately clutched her own belly and let out a scream.

"Ow... Ethan, my stomach hurts so much! It must be from the scare she just gave me!"

Hearing Lily's cry, Ethan immediately masked his panic with an even more vicious expression.

He tore that pregnancy report in half and threw it viciously in my face.

"Natalie, you're so desperate for attention you'd forge a pregnancy test?"

The paper edge scraped across my cheek, leaving a red mark.

He pointed at the blood on the ground, his voice cruel to the extreme.

"Even if you really were pregnant, a vicious woman like youthat baby would just be a disaster."

"Consider it doing a good deed for Lily's kid!"

Without hesitation, he turned around and bent down to scoop up Lily clutching her stomach.

He strode toward the waiting luxury van.

Before getting in the car, he turned his head, looking at me collapsed in the pool of blood.

"Today you need to learn a lesson you'll never forget."

He looked at the bodyguards standing outside the door.

"Pull down the security shutter and lock it."

"Nobody calls an ambulance for her. Let her reflect properly in there!"

A guard picked up my phone that had fallen in the distance and threw it into the trash outside.

The heavy metal shutter made rumbling sounds as the motor drove it down.

Slowly descending.

In the last sliver of light was Ethan's silhouette carrying Lily away in the car.

With a loud "bang,"

The metal door crashed heavily to the ground, the lock clicking shut.

The bridal shop plunged into darkness.

Only a few rays of light seeped through the door crack.

I lay in the ruins of wedding dresses I'd designed myself, blood flowing more and more beneath me.

My body temperature was rapidly dropping. The severe pain made even breathing difficult.

Gritting my teeth, I grabbed a sharp piece of broken glass and viciously slashed my left arm.

The stabbing pain brought my fading consciousness back slightly.

I dragged my heavy body, crawling across the floor.

Leaving a long trail of blood behind me.

I finally reached the old landline in the corner of the counter.

With blood-soaked fingers, I pressed 91

The operator's voice came through the receiver.

My consciousness began to blur, my vision turning blood red.

Just as I was about to lose my grip on the phone.

Tyler's shrill, panicked scream suddenly came from outside the metal shutter.

"Ethan! Come back! Don't drive away!"

"That wasn't a fake pregnancy report! The hospital just called saying she has extremely rare Rh-negative blood!"

"If she's locked in there, both of them will die!!"

The car engine's roar outside suddenly stopped.

Immediately after, an agonized roar came from outside.

The sound of someone frantically pounding on the door was deafening.