Hell Hath no fury like a billionaire's Ex

Chapter 136: A Painful Loss

Diane’s POV

"Where is she?" I whispered, terror clawing at my throat. "Where’s Danielle?"

"Diane." Noah’s voice was strange, hollow. "Diane, don’t turn around."

But I was already turning, already seeing what had been blocking the door from the inside.

Sophie.

My sister lay lifeless on the floor in a spreading pool of blood, her body positioned protectively in front of where the bassinets sat. And in her arms, clutched against her chest as if she’d died trying to shield her, was Danielle.

My baby girl was alive...I could see her tiny chest rising and falling...but Sophie...

Sophie’s eyes were open but seeing nothing. A bullet hole marked the center of her chest, and the wall behind her was splattered with blood and worse things. But even in death, her arms remained curved around my daughter, her body a shield between the bassinet and whoever had done this.

The scream that tore from my throat didn’t sound human. It was the sound of something breaking, something irreparable shattering inside my chest. I collapsed to my knees beside her, Dylan still in my arms as Noah took him from me, and reached for Danielle with trembling hands.

"Sophie," I sobbed, carefully extracting my daughter from my sister’s lifeless embrace. "Oh God, Sophie, what did you do? What did you do?"

Danielle was weak but breathing, her cries reduced to tiny, exhausted whimpers. She was covered in blood—Sophie’s blood—but appeared unharmed. My sister had saved her. Had died protecting my children.

Noah was beside me now, helping me with the babies, his face streaked with tears he wasn’t bothering to hide. "We need to get them out of here," he said, his voice breaking. "This isn’t safe."

But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t leave Sophie lying there in her own blood, couldn’t bear to abandon the sister who’d given her life for my children.

That’s when I heard it—Dad screaming from somewhere else in the house. A sound of such raw anguish that it cut through even my own grief.

"Helena!" His voice was broken, desperate. "Oh God, Helena!"

Leaving Noah with the babies, I stumbled back downstairs, my legs barely supporting me. I found Dad in the living room, kneeling beside Mom’s motionless form. He had obviously placed her on the couch, her face pale and still, while one of Dad’s security guards performed CPR with mechanical precision.

"She’s not responding," the guard said grimly, not pausing in his compressions. "I’ve called 911. They’re on their way."

Dad looked up at me with eyes I’d never seen before—the eyes of a man watching his world collapse in real time.

I sank down beside him, reaching for Mom’s hand. It was cold, so cold, and I couldn’t find a pulse in her wrist. "Mom," I whispered. "Mom, please. Please don’t leave us."

"Where’s Sophie?" Dad asked suddenly, as if just remembering. "Is she—is she okay?"

The question broke something inside me all over again. I looked into his hopeful, desperate eyes and felt my heart shatter completely.

"Dad," I whispered, barely able to form the words. "Dad, you need to come with me."

Something in my tone must have warned him. His face went white, but he followed me back upstairs to the nursery where Noah was trying to soothe both babies while standing guard over Sophie’s body. noveldrama

When Dad saw her—his younger daughter, his baby girl, lying dead in her own blood—the sound he made shook the whole house. He dropped to his knees beside her just as I had, his hands hovering over her face as if afraid to touch her and make it real.

"No," he whispered, then louder: "NO! Not Sophie. Not my baby girl."

He began to cry then, great heaving sobs that shook his entire body. The man who’d rebuilt his life, who’d fought his way back from addiction and abandonment to find his family again, was watching it all crumble to dust in a single afternoon.

"This is my fault," he said between sobs. "This is my punishment for leaving you. For not being here to protect you."

I reached over and gently closed Sophie’s eyes, my tears falling onto her face as I leaned down to kiss her forehead. "I’m so sorry," I whispered to her. "I’m so sorry for all the terrible things I said to you. I’m sorry you had to die protecting my babies. I’m sorry you’ll never see them grow up."

I stroked her hair, the same way I used to when we were children and she’d had nightmares. "You were the best aunt they could have asked for. You saved them, Sophie. You saved my babies."

The sound of sirens in the distance cut through our grief. Dad stood up slowly, looking lost and broken. "I need to go to your mother," he said quietly. "I need to be with Helena."

He left us there—me and Joan and Noah and the babies and Sophie’s still form. I continued stroking my sister’s hair, telling her everything I should have said while she was alive to hear it.

"The custody hearing went well," I told her through my tears. "I won. Dylan and Danielle are safe now. You would have been so proud of how I handled it. You always said I was stronger than I knew."

Joan knelt beside me, her own face streaked with tears. "Diane," she said softly. "The paramedics are here. We need to let them—"

"I know," I whispered. "I know."

But I couldn’t seem to let go of Sophie’s hand. Couldn’t bear the thought of strangers touching her, moving her, taking her away from me forever.

Footsteps thundered up the stairs, and suddenly the room was full of people—paramedics, police officers, crime scene technicians. They worked with efficient professionalism, but I could see the horror in their eyes as they took in the scene.

"Ma’am, we need you to step back," one of the paramedics said gently. "Let us take care of her."

I stood on shaking legs, while Noah cradled Danielle and Dylan. We watched as they covered Sophie with a white sheet, preparing to take her away from us forever.

"The babies need to be checked by a doctor," one of the paramedics said. "They seem okay, but given what they’ve been through..."

I nodded numbly, following them downstairs where more paramedics were working frantically over Mom. Dad was holding her hand, talking to her in a low, desperate voice, begging her to stay with us.

They loaded her onto a stretcher, and Dad looked like he wanted to climb onto it with her. "I can’t lose her too," he said to me, his voice breaking. "Diane, I can’t lose them both."

"You won’t," I promised, though I had no idea if that was true. "She’s strong. She’s going to fight."

As they carried Mom out to the ambulance, Dad walking beside the stretcher like a man in a trance, I looked around at what remained of my beautiful home. Police tape was going up, photographers were documenting everything, and my safe haven had become a crime scene.

"Who would do this?" I asked Joan, who was standing beside me with tears streaming down her face. "Who would kill Sophie? What did we ever do to deserve this?"

But even as I asked the question, a terrible suspicion was forming in the back of my mind. Today had been Liam’s sentencing. Today he’d lost everything...his freedom, his children, his future. Today he’d begged me for one last mercy and walked away to begin serving his sentence.

But what if he hadn’t gone quietly? What if this was his final, devastating revenge against the woman who’d destroyed his life?

The thought made me sick, but I couldn’t push it away. The timing was too perfect, the violence too personal. This wasn’t a random home invasion. This was someone sending a message.

As they brought Sophie’s body down the stairs, covered by that horrible white sheet, I felt something inside me die along with her. Not just grief—I’d expected grief. But something deeper. Some fundamental belief that good things happened to good people, that love could conquer all, that there was justice in the world.

Sophie had died protecting my children. Mom was fighting for her life in an ambulance. And somewhere, in a prison cell, Liam was probably sleeping peacefully, unaware that his final act of vengeance had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

The babies were quiet now, exhausted from crying, clinging to Noah with the desperate grip of children who’d witnessed horrors they were too young to understand but would carry with them forever.

I looked around at the wreckage of my life—the blood on my walls, the police officers in my living room, the empty space where Sophie should have been—and realized that winning the custody battle had been meaningless.

Because now I had to raise Dylan and Danielle in a world where their aunt was dead, their grandmother might be dying, and their father’s shadow would haunt us forever.

The victory I’d celebrated just hours ago tasted like ashes in my mouth. I’d won everything and lost everything in the same day.

And as they loaded Sophie’s body into the coroner’s van and drove away with my sister for the last time, I wondered if any of us would ever feel safe again.