The Ex-Wife's Escape: From Betrayal to Revenge

Chapter 18

The moment the hospital door slammed shut, Ethan Johnson jolted awake from his daze and lunged forward.

"Sophia!" He pounded on the door, his knuckles turning white.

Silence.

His forehead pressed against the cold surface as his voice trembled. "I know you can hear me... please..."

The fluorescent hallway lights cast a sickly pallor over his face.

"That night, I was drunk... It was her..." His Adam's apple bobbed as he forced out the words. "I could've—"

He swallowed the rest.

Inside the VIP ward, Sophia Williams leaned against the door, her nails digging into her palms.

She remembered everything.

That day, burning with fever, she had called him thirty-seven times.

On the thirty-eighth attempt, the line connected—only for her to hear a woman's breathy moan.

"Ethan... not so rough..."

Her blood had turned to ice.

Later, she spent three days in the hospital.

While he spent those same three days tangled in Isabella Taylor's sheets.

"Sophia..." His choked sob seeped through the door. "I just... couldn't bear to see you suffer..."

A laugh burst from her lips—sharp, humorless.

Tears welled in her eyes.

How pathetic.

He couldn't bear her suffering through childbirth, but her heartbreak was acceptable?

She yanked the door open.

Ethan staggered forward, caught off-balance.

"Explain?" Her voice was glacial. "Explain how, while I was telling you I missed you, you were whispering sweetheart into another woman's ear?"

His face drained of color.

"It wasn't like that—" He grabbed for her hand, frantic. "It only happened once—"

"Once?" She wrenched free. "Should I refresh your memory?"

"February 14th. Valentine's Day. You said you were working late."

"March 8th. My birthday. A sudden business trip."

"May 20th—"

With each date, Ethan's expression grew more ashen.

"Stop!" He dropped to his knees. "I was wrong... I know I was wrong..."

Nurses in the hallway turned to stare.

Sophia looked down at him.

The man who had once made her weak in the knees now knelt like a beaten dog.

"Ethan," she said softly. "You know what's worse than cheating?"

"It's pretending you still love me afterward."

She turned to leave—but he seized her ankle.

"Sophia..." He wept like a child. "I'll die without you..."

One by one, she pried his fingers loose.

"Then die."

The words were feather-light, yet they struck him like lightning.

She walked toward the elevator without looking back.

Ethan crumpled to the floor before scrambling up in a frenzy.

"If I die, will you forgive me?" he screamed. "Will you?!"

The elevator doors slid shut.

The last thing she saw was the madness in his bloodshot eyes.

Ding.

The first floor.

Stepping outside, Sophia squinted against the harsh sunlight.

She pulled out her phone and deleted every photo of him.

Including the one from their first date.