The husband accused me because of his former lover and stabbed me twice, but one gesture from the doctor changed his face

“If you touch Selina one more time, I swear, I will kill you!”

These were the last words my husband said to me before he drove a sharp knife into my stomach twice.

Since that day I know one thing exactly: sometimes a person dies in the middle of their own home while their heart is still beating.

My name is Mabel Vance. I was twenty-eight years old and for three years I had been trying to convince myself that my marriage to Flynn could still be saved. He headed Vance Global Group, while after the wedding I stopped working at the investment fund. It seemed I had everything—a large house, an expensive car, and a husband whose surname the whole city knew.

There was only one thing missing from us.

Trust.

And that trust had a name and a face—Selina Cole.

Flynn’s first love. The woman about whom his friends quietly said that he had never forgotten his wife.

That afternoon we were sitting in the living room. Flynn was sitting on the sofa and cutting fruit, while I was by the window, with a book on my knees, although I had not read a single line. In the kitchen, the clock mechanism was ticking loudly.

The doorbell rang.

Selina rushed in. Black mascara was running down her eyes, and on her arm she had such a small scratch that it could be seen only from close up.

“Flynn, I did not want to come here,” she sobbed. “Mabel pushed me. She hurt me.”

I stood up.

“That is a lie. I did not leave the house at all that day.”

Flynn did not even look at me. The knife slipped from his hand and fell onto the carpet. Then he bent down, picked it up, and came toward me.

My husband was no longer standing in his eyes.

“Did you lay a hand on her?” he asked.

“Flynn, listen to me, please.”

“I asked you, did you touch her!”

“No!”

Selina stepped back and began crying more loudly.

“Enough, Flynn. I do not want you to fight because of me.”

Those words were enough.

With the first blow my breath caught. The second knocked me to the floor. I pressed my palms into the carpet, but warm blood was already gathering between my fingers.

I looked at Flynn and waited for him to become frightened. For him to realize what he had done.

But he only took off his jacket, draped it over Selina’s shoulders, and quietly said to her:

“Now everything will be all right. She will never touch you again.”

Selina looked over his shoulder from there.

And smiled at me.

Three days later I woke up in the intensive care unit. The doctors told me that I had lost a lot of blood and that if they had been delayed a few more minutes, I would not have survived.

Flynn entered the room with a huge bouquet of white roses. The flowers could not cover the hospital’s disinfectant smell.

“Mabel…”

Doctor Marcus Reed immediately stood between us.

“Mr. Vance, you must see this first.”

“I am her husband,” Flynn said irritably.

“Precisely because of that.”

The doctor opened my file, but did not take out the necessary sheet. He only watched his face.

“Before he came to you, he lost something,” he said.

Flynn looked at me in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

Marcus took a small sealed folder from the drawer beside the bed.

“When you see this, saying sorry will no longer be enough.”

Flynn reached his hand toward the folder. And for the first time since the operation I felt fear slowly giving its place to something colder…

Flynn’s fingers touched the sealed folder, but the doctor stopped his hand.

“Not yet,” Marcus said. “Mrs. Vance must hear this.”

Flynn bent toward me.

“Mabel, I did not know. I swear, I did not know I would injure you so seriously.”

My voice barely passed through my throat.

“You did not ask even once whether it was true.”

“Selina came bleeding.”

“With a scratch.”

The monitor’s even beeping could be heard in the room. Its green light flickered on Flynn’s face.

Marcus opened the folder and took out several sheets.

“The police requested the recordings from your house’s cameras,” he said. “But that is not all. During the operation we discovered the reason why the bleeding would not stop.”

Flynn lost color.

“What reason?”

The doctor looked at me first, as if he were waiting for permission. I silently lowered my head.

“Your wife knew that she was pregnant,” Marcus said. “And two heartbeats were recorded.”

Flynn leaned against the wall.

“Two?”

I closed my eyes. A month earlier I had been holding a positive result near the door of his office. From inside I heard the words said to Selina: “You will always be the most important.”

Flynn searched for my hand.

“Mabel, forgive me.”

I pulled my hand away.

“I want a divorce.”

He raised his head, but this time the doctor handed me a second sheet.

There was no signature of mine on it.

Instead, it said: “If anything happens to me, hand this recording over to the police immediately.”

“Who left this for you?” Flynn asked.

Someone knocked on the door three times. Then a voice was heard:

“Mrs. Vance, it is time for you to know who opened the door of your house that day…”

The door opened and Detective Nora Haley entered the room. In her hand she held a small memory card placed in a transparent packet.

Flynn immediately turned toward her.

“This is a family matter.”

“No,” Nora replied calmly. “Now it is already a criminal case.”

Marcus closed the curtains. The room grew dark, and Nora turned on a small screen on the wall. The recording was from the entrance to my house. The timestamp showed the same day when Selina was brought into my house by my husband.

In the first frame I was visible. At ten in the morning I had not left the house. Then, at four twelve in the evening, Selina entered through the back door.

Flynn held his breath.

“This is impossible.”

Nora turned up the sound.

Selina’s crying disappeared. She stood straight and spoke to someone on the phone.

“Mabel is home,” she said in the recording. “Flynn will believe me soon. He only has to see that I seem afraid.”

I clenched my fingers on the bed. My nails dug into my skin, but I could hardly feel the pain.

The recording continued.

Selina struck her arm against the sharp edge of the table and made a superficial scratch herself. Then she chuckled quietly into the phone.

“When he blames Mabel, I will take the documents from the house too. Flynn will not realize that the company’s money transfers are already in my accounts.”

Flynn stared at the screen.

“That voice…”

“It is her voice,” I told him.

Nora opened a second file. There were messages between Selina and Victor Hale, Vance Global’s financial director. For six months they had been stealing money from the company accounts. They needed the search of my house because they thought I had kept copies of the financial reports in my office.

“That is why you came,” I said to Selina, although she was not in the room. “Not for love. For the documents.”

Flynn covered his face with both hands.

“I believed her.”

“You did not listen to me,” I answered.

Nora placed a sealed envelope on the table.

“Here are the court request, your husband’s messages, and the results of the genetic examination.”

Flynn froze.

“What other genetic examination?”

Marcus answered himself.

“The one confirming that your wife was carrying two children that day.”

Silence fell in the room.

“We lost both babies,” I said. “During the operation. Because of your knife.”

Flynn fell to his knees.

“Mabel, I did not know…”

“But Selina knew that your children were inside my body?” I asked.

Nora checked her phone and suddenly knitted her brows.

“Mrs. Vance, we have just received all this. Selina has left the city, but she left one message.”

Flynn stood up.

“What did she write?”

Nora looked at the screen.

“‘If I fall, Mabel will not fall alone. She still has not said where the third recording is…’”

And I immediately understood that Selina was not only trying to escape. She knew my greatest secret—and now she intended to use it…