Chapter 195
The truth was simple and ugly, Terry had injected Victoria with a lethal cocktail, intending her death to go unnoticed so Mia could step into her place.
He would never breathe a word of it to Martin.
"Mr. Collins, Ms. Gonzalez is pregnant again. i just found out, only two weeks along. Mr. Collins, my condolences." Terry wasn't lying. Victoria's body was in no condition to get pregnant. Who would have thought that right after losing one baby, she'd get pregnant again so quickly?
Even a sow didn’t breed that fast.
Mia had grown impatient. She had pressed him to seize the moment—just as he had with Tamsin—silent, invisible, final.
Martin’s face froze. Pregnant?
The baby just miscarried, and Victoria was reincarnated back into her belly?
Their child had come back.
With a life growing inside her, how could she die?
She couldn’t. She absolutely could not.
Martin burst back into the operating room and stopped dead at the table.
Victoria lay motionless, eyes closed, skin already ghostly.
He reached out. His fingers brushed the back of her hand.
The warmth was slipping away.
"Victoria! Victoria! Victoria, open your eyes! Victoria, do you hear me? You're not allowed to die, not allowed to die!" Martin grabbed her shoulders, eyes bloodshot, roaring.
This was the first time Terry had seen Martin lose control like this. He could tell that Martin had truly fallen for Victoria.
Which made her death all the more necessary.
No one would threaten Mia’s future.
“Mr. Collins, we’ve tried everything—multiple times. Please accept it.” Terry’s voice dripped rehearsed sorrow.
Martin rounded on him, veins throbbing. “Shut up. She won’t die. Everyone else might, but she won’t.”
"Mr. Collins—"
Terry pressed his lips together.
“Get out!” Martin roared. “Get the hell out!”
Terry bowed his head, turned, and left with the staff.
Walking to the stairwell corridor, Terry pulled out his phone and called Mia, "Baby, I have bad news and good news for you. The bad news is, Victoria is pregnant again."
“She’s pregnant again?” Mia hissed. “Is she a pig? Even pigs don’t breed like that.”
Terry adjusted his glasses, voice dropping. “Good news: she died on the table. Two lives gone. Happy? Mrs. Collins is yours now.”
"Really?" Mia’s voice lifted.
“When I handle something, don’t you trust me?” He smiled thinly.
“Then I’ll come now—comfort Martin.”
“Not yet. He might suspect. Anyway, she's definitely dead, already pretty much cold. In about half an hour, she'll be sent to the funeral home." Terry said with a smile.
Mia practically sang. “Terry, you’re so good to me.”
"So how are you going to thank me tonight?"
"However you want me to thank you, that's how I'll thank you." Mia was in great spirits. How wonderful, Victoria was dead.
Victoria was finally dead, and died so quietly.
Mia had waited far too long for this.
She would hang up, book a facial, get her nails done, and spend the night rewarding Terry.
She would still give him some rewards for doing things for her. After she became Martin's wife, she'd deal with Terry, because he knew too many of her secrets.
For such a major threat, uprooting it completely and eliminating it entirely was her style.
Back in the operating room, only Martin, Victoria, and Brian remained.
Martin shook her again. Her body grew colder beneath his hands. Panic clawed at him.
How could he keep her here?
No threat worked. No provocation reached her.
Nothing worked anymore.
Her eyes seemed sealed shut, unable to open no matter what.
Martin's eyes were bloodshot, tears streaming down.
She was heartless.
Carrying his child—and still choosing to leave.
Selfish beyond measure.
She no longer cared about the Gonzalez family. No longer cared whether Hayden lived or died.
Her parents raised her for nothing.
Martin remembered the question Victoria had asked him many times. She looked at him with sad eyes and asked, "Martin, if one day you find that you've lost me, lost me forever and ever, the kind you can never find again. Would you be sad? Would you cry?"
“No,” he had told her once. “I’d set off fireworks at your funeral—days and nights—wishing you a swift trip to paradise.”
How could he not be devastated?
How could he not grieve?
How could he not break?
His nose burned. Grief slammed into him like a wave. He shook her harder. Tears splashed onto her cheeks.
“Get up, Victoria! I’m ordering you—get up! What is this act? Are you addicted to pretending?”
“I know you’re faking. You want to leave me. You want to run to Aaron!”
“I won’t let you have it. I won’t let you two disappear together!”
"Get up! Wake up!"
“Victoria, listen—I’m angry. Really angry. You know what happens when I’m angry.”
“You want Hayden to die? You want your mother in a mental ward?”
He threw every cruel word he could summon.
Before, she would have flinched. She would have obeyed.
But this time, the more he spoke, the less confident he felt, the more his heart ached, the more afraid he became.
Why wasn’t she reacting?
Tears shattered from his eyes.
"Get up! Get up! Victoria, I'm fucking telling you to get up, can't you hear me? Are you deaf?" Martin held her body, kneeling on one knee, crying and roaring.
But she still didn't move.
He kept trying.
Who could tell him what to do to make her open her eyes and wake up?
So Victoria had wanted to die all along, wanted to use death to leave him at any cost.
The lenses of his glasses fogged up with heat.
Martin's pushing force grew stronger and stronger. He didn't believe she would die, didn't believe she dared to treat him this way, didn't believe she would go to her death so carefree.
"Victoria, I'm counting to three, you better wake up right now, you hear me?" Martin said viciously through his tears, counting.
He counted from one to one and a half, then from one and a half to two.
From two to three.
He kept giving her chances.
He said, Victoria, as long as you wake up, everything will be forgiven.
Hayden will get treatment again, he won't blame her anymore, he won't be angry about her miscarrying the baby.
But Victoria insisted on going against him, as if she couldn't hear anything anymore, as if she didn't care about anything anymore.
Martin felt like a clown. What was the use of saying all those harsh words?
Martin felt like a fool. What was the point of threats when she didn’t care?
“Mr. Collins…” Brian’s voice cracked. He was crying too. “Please…”