4
The pain from my broken ribs made me convulse in my unconscious state. As Zack’s shoe tip ground into my tailbone, an extreme pain simultaneously shot through my abdomen.
He dragged me up the stairs by my hair. The blood flowing from my lower body left a winding red trail on the steps, like a skinned snake.
4:04 PM
<
Vanessa sat primly on the leather sofa, her freshly done almond–colored nails tapping lightly on a wine glass.
Six men stood in front of her. The shortest one had a snake tattoo on his arm –
It was the same hand that had pressed down on the back of my neck in the video of the thugs violating me.
“Zack…” I crawled over and grabbed his pant leg. Blood foam seeped from the corner of my mouth.
“We’ve been together for five years. You said you would protect me forever…”
His pupils behind the gold–rimmed glasses constricted slightly, but after Vanessa’s light laugh, he violently kicked me away.
I crashed into the coffee table. Shards of glass pierced my palms, the pain making my vision go black.
“Remember this lesson. Zack sat down next to Vanessa.
“Next time you dare disrespect Vanessa, I’ll have them take you out in public to humiliate you.”
The men laughed lecherously as they surrounded me. Rough hands reeking of cigarettes tore open my collar.
I looked at Zack. He was lowering his head to fix a strand of Vanessa’s hair, as if our five years of love had been nothing but an absurd dream.
“Stop!”
The sound of an explosion shattered the floor–to–ceiling windows. My brother burst in with a SWAT team just as I was being pinned to the blood–stained carpet.
“Take them all away!” The police handcuffed Zack. He struggled to turn back and look at me in disbelief, his glasses askew revealing bloodshot eyes underneath: “When did you call the police?”
My brother’s suit jacket wrapped around my shaking body. He pressed my head to his chest, not letting me look back: “Don’t look at him. He’s filth.”
Three days later in a VIP hospital room in the capital, the news was reporting that Zack had paid an enormous bail and was released on bail pending trial.
He stood on the steps of the detention center, his eyes sinister as he faced the media cameras. I flinched reflexively.
My brother turned off the TV and pushed a sedative into my IV drip.
“Aria, don’t be afraid,” he wiped away the cold tears from the corner of my eye. “No one can find you here.”
When Zack kicked open the front door of his house, the lingering smell of my blood still hung in the foyer.
He looked at the empty home, his hand pausing as he loosened his tie. Like a suddenly abandoned wolf dog, his nostrils flared as he tried to catch my last scent.
The sound of Vanessa’s high heels approached from behind: “I told you so. She ran off with some man long ago…”
“Shut up!”
A crystal vase shattered against the wall. Three days ago, this was where he had pinned me by the throat, demanding to know how I dared hurt Vanessa.
He frantically dialed his private investigator, shouting, “Find out who the man was that took Aria away!”
Vanessa threw the framed wedding photo of me and Zack from the coffee table into the trash, venting her anger.
“That man looked so intimate with Aria. Who knows how long she’s been cheating on you behind your back…
Zack suddenly flipped over the entire coffee table, startling Vanessa into silence,
A week later, a haggard Zack began throwing money at accessing all the city’s traffic camera footage.
4:04 PM
<
He stared intently at the last image of me on the city’s surveillance
In the footage, I was wearing a mask, being carried into a black Maybach by a tall man.
“Enhance the license plate!”
When the license plate “A–88888” came into clear view, Vanessa’s coffee cup suddenly crashed to the floor beside him.
This license plate belonged to someone extremely we
Afterwards, Zack barged into my best friend Rachel’s bridal
and
d powerful.
shop,
dengt
know when I had seduced the Maybach’s owner.
need to seduce anyone.”
Rachel calmly trimmed a veil with scissors, “The princess of the Jiang Group does
“All these years Aria pretended to be poor, and you actually believed it?” She chuckled lightly.
“Your family’s assets aren’t even a tenth of the Jiang Group’s. Yet you thought she was after your money and status, how little you thought of
her!”
Rachel’s expression suddenly changed. She hurled the scissors at Zack’s face, cutting a bloody gash.
“You even dared to have people violate her?! Prepare to die! Adrian won’t let you
