Chapter 3
“Stop! Stop this instant! This is a sin!” Mrs. Curtis’s arrival interrupted Gabriel’s actions. I fell from his grasp onto the floor, coughing violently, my mouth full of a bloody taste. Mrs. Curtis looked at the scene before her and sighed deeply. She helped me up. “Aria, are you alright?” I managed to say a few words with difficulty: “I’m fine.” Mrs. Curtis’s whole body shook. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing: “Aria, you… you can speak?” She suddenly seemed to age a decade, too weak to stand. Tears streamed down her face as she muttered, “It’s over, it’s all over…” Gabriel looked at her strangely and asked, “Mom, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Curtis’s voice was heavy with age and sorrow: “Years ago, when the Curtis family was in crisis, your father paid a great price to have our fortunes read. The fortune-teller said that if you married a mute woman with a matching birth chart, it would protect the Curtis family’s fortunes from decline.” “But when the mute woman speaks, the Curtis family… will be ruined!” The fortune was correct, but it didn’t account for the fact that I was pretending to be mute because of my cursed words. Gabriel didn’t believe it, scoffing at the idea: “That’s all superstition to trick old people like you. Our Curtis family’s wealth is what we’ve earned ourselves. What does it have to do with Aria Stone?” “If she really had such power, how come she couldn’t even raise her own son properly?” Mrs. Curtis wanted to say more but held back. She had doubted it too, but the Curtis family’s business had rapidly improved after Gabriel married Aria. Mr. Curtis had died just two years after getting the fortune read. Part of her had to believe it, while another part hoped it wasn’t true. Hearing about Jack, she perked up a bit. She doted on Jack the most. “Where’s Jack? I haven’t seen him.” Gabriel looked at me coldly: “Aria Stone couldn’t teach him properly, so I sent him to a dog training facility to learn some manners.” I looked at Mrs. Curtis and said hoarsely: “Jack is dead.” Gabriel couldn’t tolerate me repeating the same lie. He impatiently said: “How long are you going to keep this up? Are you going to say that pile of rotten meat is Jack again? Someone, burn that mess to ashes and use it as fertilizer for the roses.” Watching Jack’s body being thrown into the fire, this time I didn’t struggle. Jack was gone. Keeping his body had no meaning. It was better to burn it and let him leave this world clean. In his next life, he could be born into a good family and live a happy, peaceful life. Mrs. Curtis looked from Gabriel to me, not knowing who to believe. She hurriedly left for the dog training facility. After Mrs. Curtis left, Lily said tearfully: “My poor baby, you didn’t even get to see the world. You would have grown up to be as big as Jack, calling us Mommy and Daddy.” “Gabriel, do you think we’ll have children in the future?” Gabriel kissed her forehead tenderly, comforting her: “We will, in the future.” His gaze turned even more hateful when he looked at me: “Aria Stone, I let you off easy earlier because my mother was here, but I must teach you a lesson.” “Since Lily’s child is gone, the child in your belly will have to make up for it.” Watching Gabriel approach me step by step, I fearfully backed away until I fell to the ground with nowhere else to retreat. I said with a trembling voice: “Gabriel Curtis, you’ve already killed Jack. Are you going to kill my other child too? It’s your child as well!” Gabriel paused. Seeing his hesitation, Lily spoke up: “Gabriel, you don’t need to do this for me. My position in this family is already awkward. How can my child compare to Aria’s? Even though you said the Curtis heir would be my child, no one really believes it.” Gabriel said solemnly: “I make the decisions in this house. What I say goes, and everyone will take it seriously. Aria Stone isn’t worth a single hair on your head.” He hesitated no longer, raising his foot to stomp hard on my stomach.