Chapter One

Ethan was covered in beads of sweat like a runner after a several days of marathon. Likely so, his breathing was so heavy that his nose alone couldn't handle the task. He had received a phone call about his daughter being involved in a ghastly car accident and had sprinted from his workplace to the hospital.

All the information Ethan had about the accident was from the phone call. When he arrived at the hospital, he found his wife, Isabella, already drenched in tears.

Immediately after he walked in, Isabella sighted him from a distance and hurriedly walked towards him. Suddenly, she raised her fingers, and what landed on Ethan’s face was a wide slap that resounded throughout the hospital.

"Where the hell have you been?" she yelled, tears streaming down her face like a waterfall and mucus escaping her nose like wisps of steam.

Still filled with anger, she threw a punch at Ethan's chest and pushed him so forcefully backwards that Ethan almost fell to the ground.

"Our daughter has been admitted for four hours, and you're just arriving now?"

"What kind of father are you? What were you doing that is so much more important than your own daughter?" she tearfully inquired.

"It's all my fault," Ethan muttered, falling to his knees as tears rolled down his face. "I should have never allowed her to go to school alone. I should have taken her there myself. Now she is here all because of me."

Ethan had always taken Sophia to school, but today he did not because his boss ordered him to deliver some goods to three of their customers as early as 6 a.m. And Isabella, on the other hand, was the daughter of one of HavenBrook's richest men; taking Sophia to school was not her responsibility but the responsibility of Ethan alone.

"You bastard, if my daughter dies, I will make sure you rot in jail for the rest of your life," she yelled, stabbing her eyes at Ethan as he was getting up to his feet slowly.

He did not say anything more, nor did he judge Isabella for her actions and words. He understood that the actions of a grieving mother can be so cruel, and he was ready to take all the hits that may come at this moment.

"You this inso..." Isabella's words were interrupted by three nurses in scrubs who walked by at this moment. Ethan did not wait a minute before rushing at them to inquire about his daughter. "Hello, my name is Ethan, and I am the father of the child who got admitted here four hours ago," he said. Nevertheless, Isabella, who widened her eyes in wonder at how rudely Ethan walked out of her sight when she was still talking, raised her words higher and spoke harshly at Ethan.

"You poor bastard! How dare you leave my front when I'm still talking?"

The nurses, who had heard Isabella, were prompt to double-check the person who looked like a housekeeper and claimed to be the father of the pretty child brought into their hospital four hours ago.

To them, the child was too pretty to have a father like Ethan, whose boots were ripped and his toes protruding out, someone whose clothes were obviously torn on his body, and someone whose hair was fried upon his head like a tangled mess.

They walked past him and only spoke gently to Isabella, who indeed looked like the mother of the pretty child.

"Wait for the doctor, ma'am; she will be with you soon," one of them said. The rest continued to eye Ethan badly as they walked away. "Did you see his shoes?" they mocked as they walked on.

Though Ethan saw how the nurses looked at him and heard how they mocked him, he cared less about this kind of treatment. This had not been his first time being treated this way, and it wasn't his tenth time being treated this way. It had become an everyday activity and a part of his lifestyle.

However, things were not always this way. Ethan was the son of Augustus Markwood, a popular, wealthy, and distinguished man alive in the country. But no one knew about this because Ethan had stormed out of the house and vowed never to return. His father treated his mother with abuse, both physically and emotionally, and as a result, his mother died. To Ethan, his own father killed his mother and had the news interpret it as her slipping in the bathroom and hitting her head on the tiles.

He would not forgive this lie until his father turned himself in and confessed his sin to the general public. As such, he left home in anger for a new city called HavenBrook to start a new life as a poor delivery vendor and vowed never to go back home.

While working as a vendor who delivered packages to the rich Rosewood mansion, he met Isabella, the only child of Alexander Rosewood. She was a 5.8-foot-tall lady with a curvy figure. She was the definition of absolute beauty, and he loved her at first sight. How things happened between them was strange to Ethan himself up until this moment.

Undoubtedly, Isabella was not always a nag and a hater. She was a sweet lady who treated Ethan with respect and loved him for who he was until her parents cut her off because she defied them by loving a pauper who was obviously with her because of her family’s riches.

Her parents vowed to discipline her until she would obey them by marrying someone in the same rich class as them, but it didn't happen. Isabella married Ethan and had a daughter with him. Now, she suffers along with him and hates him because of the hardships she was going through with him.

"I should have listened to my parents. You are never going to amount to anything in life. You are just a good-for-nothing bastard who will die poor and have everybody around him suffer along with him," Isabella yelled. But Ethan paid little or no attention to her words. He only looked at the woman in scrubs who was coming out of the preoperative room, where Sophia seemed to be.

"Doctor!" he called. But the doctor did not say anything immediately. Neither did she wait in front of Ethan, as she could not recognize him as the father of the child. She walked toward Isabella and handed her a file.

First, she sighed before she said, "She has internal injuries, fractures, and broken bones. She needs surgery as soon as possible. Please sign this document and pay half the bills to the financial department before the surgery begins."

"Half the bills?" Isabella inquired again, as if she had not heard it the first time. "Yes," the doctor answered, walking away from their faces.

Quickly, Isabella turned, opened the document, and scanned her eyes for the bills. "100,000 dollars?" she screamed, knowing they had no hope of seeing that kind of huge amount of money. Her parents, who wouldn't help her. And as for her useless husband, he was so poor that he couldn't afford to pay for a pin.

"100,000 dollars for just half the payment?" Ethan expressed shock. Even if he decided to sell everything that he has, it wouldn't be worth this huge amount of money.