“Natalie Shepard, stop playing the victim. You know perfectly well whether your injuries are serious or not!”

As soon as he said that, he grabbed me by the collar and flung me to the floor. He completely ignored that the knife was still lodged in my abdomen.

Feeling the wound tear further, I cried out in pain. Warm blood poured down, soaking through my clothes and taking away the tiny life inside me.

Meanwhile, he gently picked up his junior, Karina Burton, and placed her on the hospital bed.

“Don’t be scared, Karina. I’m here. You’re going to be okay.”

There was only a shallow cut on her arm, yet she was sobbing as if her heart was breaking.

“Max, it hurts so bad. What if I can’t hold a scalpel anymore because a nerve might be damaged?”

Maxwell’s face twisted with heartbreak. “You silly girl. If that ever happens, I’ll take care of you. I swear, I’ll make whoever hurt you pay.”

The deputy director, Jake Pratt, stood nearby.

He frowned and said, “Dr. Conner, Mrs. Conner is still carrying your child. The stab wound is quite deep. If we don’t save her now, you might lose both her and the baby.”

Maxwell cast a disgusted glance at me.

“She’s just faking it. She must have stuffed cotton and blood bags under her clothes. She’s been scheming with that attacker to put on a show to deceive me. How could I possibly fall for it?”

The doctors around us stared in shock. None of them could believe those words came from the mouth of a hospital director—the man who had been my husband for seven years.

Maxwell sneered and kicked me in the stomach twice.

“Natalie, you’re quite cunning, aren’t you? You even bribed the doctors in my hospital. Women from the impoverished countryside are indeed ruthless. You’d stoop this low just to win my affection. I never should’ve listened to Grandma and married you.”

Hearing this, I instinctively looked toward Karina on the hospital bed.

Sure enough, I caught the smug glint in her eyes.

Earlier, when the attacker had lunged at us with the knife, she whispered, “Natalie, do you dare to make a bet? Max only cares about me. Even if you die in front of him, he won’t waver.”

Maxwell clearly believed every word she said.

Jake couldn’t take it anymore and tried to speak up for me again.

I shook my head, cutting him off. “Never mind. Save her.”

Clutching my intensely throbbing stomach, I wanted to stand up and leave. The moment I put weight on my legs, the pain forced me to my knees again. Gritting my teeth, I crawled out of the ICU sideways, one agonizing step at a time.

Behind me trailed a long, dark line of blood.

Maxwell watched it all coldly, unmoved.

“Natalie, stop acting. Go home, change into clean clothes, and come back to apologize to Karina. She’s only hurt because of your nonsense.”

In the past, I’d have desperately tried to explain myself in light of the misunderstanding and bias toward Karina.

But this time, I wouldn’t.

Collapsing at the ward door, I looked back and saw Maxwell’s and Karina’s hands intertwined. I took off my wedding ring and threw it into the trash.