The Villains Must Win-Chapter 202: No Second Chances 1 & 2

I gasped awake.

The smell hit me first—sterile, sharp, and cold. Antiseptic and iron. Then came the noise: the steady beeping of a heart monitor, the low hum of fluorescent lights, distant murmurs muffled by thick walls.

My head throbbed with dull pain, like a foghorn blaring underwater. I was lying in a hospital bed, wires snaking out from my arms, my body heavy, like I’d been asleep for years.

I tried to sit up.

Every movement felt wrong.

Not painful—just foreign.

I looked down at my hands, my arms. They weren’t mine.

Slimmer. Paler. A faint scar traced the back of the left hand, unfamiliar yet instinctively recognized. The room spun for a second, and my mind scrambled for orientation.

Where was I?

What world was this?

Who was I supposed to be?

The System usually gave me a rundown. A briefing. A splash screen with stats, character profiles, objectives—something. But this time? Nothing. No names. No villain. No allies. No goal. Just . . . emptiness.

Blank.

A terrifying, suffocating blank. Exciting nonetheless.

My eyes darted around the room, looking for a prompt, a sign—anything to anchor me. The monitors blinked steadily. A half-eaten fruit cup sat abandoned on the bedside table. A coat hung on a chair by the door, black and worn, like it belonged to someone who’d left in a hurry.

And still, no notification. No welcome message. No quirky bunny.

Only one thing stirred in my mind.

Memories.

But they weren’t mine.

I could feel the weight of them—sharp fragments cutting through the fog.

My name was Lina Ash—hidden girlfriend of Christian Rothmere, a man hailed in every society column as a brilliant entrepreneur and the heir to one of the wealthiest dynasties in the country.

On paper, our lives were perfect: the estates, the galas, the legacy.

But perfection was a lie.

I was here because of a miscarriage. The doctors said it was stress-induced. That my body had simply given up.

They didn’t know the truth behind that stress.

Christian had betrayed me. Not with a stranger, not with a fleeting scandal—but with his childhood sweetheart. His so-called "one true love." She had returned, smiling like she owned the past, present, and future. And perhaps she did.

Because the moment she stepped back into his life, I was erased from it.

And now here I was. Alone in a sterile hospital room, hollowed out in more ways than one, carrying not just the loss of a child—but the crumbling of everything I thought was real.

I didn’t know anything about this world.

Was Christian the male lead? Or the villain? Was I cannon fodder—destined to disappear after a single act of heartbreak? Or better yet . . . was I the villainess?

That was how it usually went in these kinds of stories.

The brooding male lead, waiting for his "one true love" while cycling through multiple women on the side, each one a placeholder for the ache in his hollow heart. Women who were never good enough, never her.

But it was too soon to make any assumptions. I only had access to this woman’s memories—Lina’s memories—and they gave me nothing about the rest of the cast. No grand exposition, no system messages, no flashing red signs pointing at the hero or the antagonist.

God, at times like this, I actually missed the data dumps from previous ARCs. Sure, they gave me migraines, but at least I didn’t have to play detective just to figure out who was who.

This time, the silence was suspicious.

Had the bunny forgotten to upload the information? Did something glitch when I was sent here? A part of me wanted to go back to the void and knock that smug rabbit on the head with his own cane.

But there was no time to dwell on that.

The door creaked open, and instinct took over—I closed my eyes and feigned sleep. Until I understood the rules of this game, I wasn’t ready to face anyone . . . not while this world was still a mystery.

"How is she, doctor?"

That voice.

I didn’t recognize it, not personally, but this body did. Lina did. Her heart stuttered at the sound. Her memories screamed it before her thoughts could catch up.

Christian Rothmere. Her love. Her mistake.

"She’s stable," the doctor replied. "We removed the fetus successfully, and she’s recovering well from the procedure."

I felt my breath catch.

Removed?

Procedure?

That didn’t sound like a miscarriage. My eyes stayed shut, but my mind was wide awake.

"Good," Christian said. "And . . . remember. She must never know it was an abortion."

A chill ran down my spine.

Abortion?

But Lina . . . she thought she’d miscarried.

I dove into the emotional haze of her memories, searching for answers. The last thing she remembered was calling Christian, telling him she was pregnant. His reaction had been cold, distant—he said he didn’t want the child.

They fought. He left, storming off to "clear his head." Probably straight to the arms of his precious childhood sweetheart. The one he always claimed he didn’t love anymore.

Left alone, Lina had spiraled—panic, tears, stress. Then the bleeding started. She tried to call Christian again. Once. Twice. A hundred times. No answer. In desperation, she called 911 herself.

The doctor told her it was a miscarriage.

She passed out from shock. From grief.

From betrayal.

And now I knew the truth.

Christian had taken the opportunity to get rid of the baby while she was unconscious—without her consent. Without her knowledge. And he planned to let her believe it was just a tragic accident.

Poor girl.

Lina had loved him with her whole heart. She’d believed in him. Trusted him. And he’d shattered her.

But now I was here.

And if this world wanted me to play Lina Ash, then so be it. But I wasn’t staying beside a man like that—not until I knew exactly who the villain was.

And something told me I was going to find out very, very soon.

I sighed inwardly, bitter amusement curling in my chest. Of course this would happen in the one world where the system forgot to overload me with vital information.

Great.

Just my luck.

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