When Love Turns to Ashes Chapter 2

But now, nine years later, she said she was tired.

Tears poured from his eyes. Ethan wept hysterically, his anguish consuming him.

But the woman who used to fall apart when he shed a single tear, who would gently wipe his tears away—she was gone.

She was the one who said she loved him first.

Why was she also the one to say she didn't love him anymore?

He refused to accept it. He convinced himself Victoria was just temporarily confused.

So the next day, Ethan dressed carefully and found Luke's café.

Watching this busy, ordinary man who looked almost shabby, Ethan pushed a check with an enormous sum across the counter. "Mr. Mitchell, leave Victoria. This money is enough for you to live comfortably for the rest of your life."

Luke stared at the check, stunned. His eyes reddened, but he didn't take it.

"...I'll leave. Please... please don't make things hard for her."

Without even daring to look at Ethan, he turned and hurriedly began packing his things.

Watching Luke's retreating figure, Ethan felt no relief—only a suffocating weight in his chest.

That evening, he received the news.

While chasing after Luke, Victoria and Luke were in a car accident. Luke suffered multiple broken bones.

Victoria wasn't injured, but the baby she was carrying—Luke's baby—was gone.

Ethan stood frozen, paralyzed.

He didn't know what shocked him more—the accident or the fact that Victoria had been pregnant with Luke's child.

He and Victoria had been careful about contraception throughout their marriage, never planning for children.

But how long had she even been with Luke? And yet...

A week later, Victoria returned home.

She said nothing—no accusations, no screaming. She just stared at him with an unfathomable, bottomless look for a long time.

Then she grabbed him and desperately began tearing at his clothes.

"Victoria! What are you doing?!" Ethan tried to push her away in panic.

But she didn't listen. She pinned him to the bed with desperate, almost violent fervor.

From that night on, for an entire month, Victoria became someone else entirely.

She stopped going to the office, stopped seeing Luke. She just kept demanding Ethan's body, day and night without stopping, with an almost self-destructive intensity.

Ethan's body was exhausted, his spirit humiliated. Yet somewhere deep inside, a pathetic hope flickered.

Maybe she was just in too much pain. Maybe she'd come to her senses. Maybe this was her way of forgetting Luke, of trying to return to how things were before.

So he endured it, even cooperated with her.

Until one day, Victoria began vomiting violently. At the hospital, the test results showed—she was pregnant.

Ethan touched Victoria's still-flat stomach, a glimmer of hope rising in his chest. Maybe this baby could save their marriage.

But he never expected Victoria's reaction. Looking at the test results, her face remained perfectly calm.

After a moment, she gestured to her bodyguard and ordered, word by word: "Schedule an abortion immediately. Then throw him off the fifth floor."

Ethan's eyes widened in disbelief. "Victoria, what... what did you just say?"

Victoria looked at him, her eyes no longer holding love or affection—only trembling hatred and sorrow. "Ethan, you killed my child with Luke. You caused his accident and injuries. You destroyed what we created together. You made him suffer. So our child will repay that debt! And you will pay the price!"

In that moment, Ethan finally understood her bizarre behavior over the past month.

Because she'd lost Luke's baby, she'd gotten pregnant with Ethan's—so she could abort it as payback.

She loved Luke that much!

He opened his mouth to speak, to protest, to scream—but his throat felt cemented shut. No sound would come.

The next second, two large bodyguards approached expressionlessly and grabbed his arms!

"No—Victoria! You can't do this—!" He struggled desperately, crying out.

But Victoria simply turned away coldly, refusing to look at him.

The bodyguards dragged him to the fifth floor and threw him over the edge without hesitation!