I WILL RUIN YOU!!!

Zoe's POV

“I love you,” I whispered as Louis planted a kiss on my forehead.

He rested his forehead on mine and smiled. “I love you too. You are my world.”

The memory dissolved, pulling me back to the present and its harsh reality.

Louis loomed over me, his face twisted with undiluted loathing. His azure eyes bored into mine as he sneered. “Fucking bitch,” he spat.

It felt like being slapped repeatedly. I looked up at him from my wheelchair, unable to rise and cradle his face like I used to, to bring him back to me, to the person who showered me with love just yesterday afternoon.

“Answer me!” he growled, taking a step closer.

It all felt like a nightmare, yet it was real. My tears slid down my burnt cheek, the salt stinging the wound. “Louis…” I mumbled, my voice breaking. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” I insisted.

But my words only agitated him more. “Jennie told me you would deny it.”

My eyes widened at the mention of my bully, who had tormented me throughout school. What had Jenny told Louis to make him believe her?

“She was right about you. You are nothing but a cheap gold digger,” he continued, each word a bullet to my heart.

“I am as clueless as you are!” I tried to tell him, but the fire had left my throat sore. First, the fire that almost killed my family, then my mother’s and brother’s sudden disappearance from the hospital, and now Louis’s accusation. Each time I believed things couldn’t get worse, they did.

“You helped your mother elope with my father,” he said through gritted teeth, “and then you deny it to my fucking face!” he yelled.

I quivered in my wheelchair. I loved Louis more than I could ever love myself, but I wanted nothing more than to turn around and run. He did not look like the man I loved. He looked like a stranger.

“It’s your fault my mother is dying,” he pointed an accusatory finger at me.

I couldn’t take it anymore. It was all too much. “Louis, look at me!” I screamed, my tears a salt stream down my flushed and wounded face. “What do you see? I am injured, I almost died! I am in no condition to conspire with my mother. I had nothing to do with them eloping.”

Louis let out a bone-chilling laugh, but it lacked joy. It was an empty sound. “You think you’re the victim in this? You have always been a fucking witch, and now your exterior finally matches your interior.”

His expression remained cold and unforgiving in the face of my pain. I would never get through to him. He had completely turned his back on me.

“You are going to have to talk at some point. You can’t keep trying to protect your mother. I’ll make sure of it. You thought your life was hell before? Just wait and see what happens when you make me an enemy.” His voice was low and filled with the promise of his threat. “I will make you wish for death.”

The door opened suddenly, and in stepped someone who made my blood run cold.

“Louis!” Jennie said gleefully before jumping to hug him.

My stomach turned at the sight before me.

Jennie looked up at Louis. “Did she confess?” she asked.

“No,” he replied.

Jennie turned her villainous dark eyes on me, making me squirm in my wheelchair. “Then it seems she will need a little push,” she said with a sinister glint in her eyes.

A chill ran down my spine. “You believe her words over mine?” I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it. Just a few months ago, Louis had rejected Jenny in front of everyone and chosen me instead.

“Be careful how you speak about my fiancée,” Louis murmured.

My heart dropped at his words. The promise ring he had given me suddenly felt like it was throbbing. My mind raced, trying to comprehend the betrayal unfolding before me. Louis’s sudden change in attitude, left me feeling dizzy and disoriented.

The weight of Louis’s words hung heavily in the air, suffocating me. How could he so easily cast aside our love, our shared dreams, for the poison whispered by my tormentor?

Tears welled up even more in my eyes as I struggled to find my voice amidst the chaos of emotions swirling inside me. “Louis, please,” I pleaded, my voice barely a whisper. “You know me. You know I would never betray you.”

But Louis’s expression remained cold and impassive, his eyes fixed on Jenny with a determination that sent a shiver down my spine.

Jennie's laughter cut through the tension like a knife, sending a chill down my spine. “Looks like the little witch finally got what’s coming to her,” she sneered, her eyes glittering with malice.

“You gave me a ring!” I yelled. “Promised me…”

“I promised you nothing!” Louis fired back. “But I promise you suffering beyond anything you have ever experienced if you do not tell me my father’s location.”

“I don’t know!” I said, exasperated. “I really don’t.”

“Then I’ll have a little fun ruining your life,” he grinned.

“You can’t do that,” I said more to myself. “I am carrying your child.”

Louis’s eyes widened slightly before the cold mask of indifference returned.

“So?”

The single word brought my world crashing down. “Louis…”

“You opened your legs like your mother and got pregnant, and you think that will sway me. You are fucking pathetic.”

“Bruce,” Louis called. “Get her out of here.”

The guard guided my wheelchair out of the Blackwell mansion. I tried to withhold my tears but failed when Louis said his parting words. “Get ready for a war, Zoraya Carter.”

Jennie's shrill cackle followed me out of the mansion, a sound that would resound in my nightmares for years to come.

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A few months after…

Zoe's Point of View

The pouring rain was unrelenting as I made my way through the street. It was a stormy night, and I had become heavier than I used to be. Now, in my third trimester with my due date around the corner, I was desperate.

Desperate enough to seek help from the man who had so callously rejected and betrayed me. But my sister had not woken from the coma she had slipped into after the fire. And neither my mother nor my younger brother were to be found. It was almost as though they had vanished.

I tried not to think too much about the fact that my mother had left me to fend for myself and took only my brother. It hurt to delve too deep into the implications. I was alone, heavily pregnant with a dying sister.

I had no choice. I had to speak to Louis again.

Maybe if he saw me, drenched to the skin in the rain and with a bulging stomach, it would soften his heart even a little bit. This was the man who had promised to make my life hell and had delivered on his promise.

In the nine months that had passed, Louis had used his family's influence and power over the city to his advantage.

The hospital had thrown us out, and not a single homeless shelter would take us in. No one wanted to help the Carters, the children of the woman who destroyed the marriage of the beloved Jackie Rodriguez. The woman who caused the suicide attempt that almost killed her.

We were effectively ostracized in the city. Everyone looked down on us with the utmost disdain. No one would employ me, even for the worst jobs. If not for all my life savings, we would have been utterly stranded.

As if that wasn't enough, Louis ensured that my diploma was revoked. A diploma I had worked through scholarships to earn was unfairly taken away. There was no hope, no other option except to go back to him and beg like the desolate woman he had turned me into.

I reached the imposing and opulent Rodriguez mansion and made my way to their doorstep. I knocked on the door with all my might. It took what felt like an eternity, but it finally opened. It was neither Jenny nor Louis who answered the door; it was Jackie Rodriguez herself, Louis's mother.

Despite the news of her almost dying, the woman was the picture of sophistication and intimidation. Jackie cast cold green eyes on me, her lips forming a sneer.

“Please, can I speak to Louis?” I asked, my voice trembling from the cold.

The woman raised a groomed blond eyebrow. “My son?” Suddenly she burst out laughing. “The homewrecker's daughter wants to see my son.”

I recoiled at her tone but looked up expectantly.

It came in a flash. Jackie's palm connected with my face, hard. I promptly lost my balance and fell on my back. Pain shot up through my body. I groaned in agony and found that I could not get up. My nerves had awakened, all resounding with the same agony.

“Please…” I begged, raising my hand toward Jackie, but she only returned a cruel smile.

“You think you can trap my beloved son with the bastard in your stomach?” she yelled. “You are mistaken. You will never see him again. He has finally put you in your place. He has left with my daughter-in-law on their honeymoon.” She dropped the bombshell with the utmost glee. “So get lost!” With that, Jackie slammed the door on me, leaving me to tend to my injury.

Despite the pain, I began to drag myself away as the rain beat down on me. I felt something begin to slide down my legs and when I turned to investigate, I noticed the dark substance oozing from beneath my gown. Blood. The realization dawned on me just as a contraction hit me like a bull.

Then another and another, each one more agonizing than the last. When I could no longer take it, I let out a gut-wrenching scream. Yet, the rain drowned it out.

I was going into labor with no one to help me.

My heart pounded in my chest as waves of excruciating pain consumed me. With each contraction, I felt as though my body was being torn apart from the inside out. The rain continued to pour down mercilessly, mixing with the tears streaming down my face.

Desperation clawed at my soul as I lay there, alone and vulnerable on the cold, unforgiving pavement. I had never felt so utterly helpless, so completely abandoned by the world. But amidst the agony and despair, a primal instinct took hold—a fierce determination to survive, to bring my child into this world, no matter the cost.

Summoning every ounce of strength I had left, I pushed myself up from the ground, gritting my teeth against the searing pain. With trembling hands, I clutched at my swollen belly, willing my body to endure just a little longer. I would have this child.

Through the haze of agony, my mind raced, searching for a glimmer of hope amidst the darkness. I knew I couldn't do this alone, couldn't bring my child into the world on the cold, rain-soaked streets. I thought of Louis through my haze. His blue eyes resembled the morning sky, nothing like the dark sky above me as I writhed in pain. His love, his hate, his betrayal. And at that moment, my love for him hollowed out, and all I could feel was a dark, endless void in place of what used to be undying love for the man who had abandoned me.

With a guttural cry, I forced myself to crawl forward, my movements slow and agonizing. Each inch felt like a mile as I struggled to make my way to safety, to find help in my darkest hour.

But the blood gushed out of me, and weakness took over. The edges of my vision began to darken as I looked around, distraught. If I lost consciousness there, the baby would not survive, and I would die of blood loss.

Just then, the headlights of a car flashed at me before it screeched to a stop. A person stepped out, but I was too out of it to know if it was a man or a woman.

I gripped my stomach. “Please, I beg you. Help me and my baby,” I pleaded through my contractions. I reached out my hand. “Please, help…” but those were all the words I could muster before the darkness pulled me into its ominous embrace.