Chapter 4

The exact instant the sharp point of the blade was about to puncture my skin under her weight, I violently whipped my head to the side.

"Ah!"

With a burst of desperate strength, I clamped my teeth down hard onto Victoria's hand.

She let out a piercing shriek, using her free hand to deliver a savage slap that sent me crashing hard against the floor.

The security guards instantly lunged down, pinning my body firmly against the tiles once more.

"You actually dare to bite me?" she hissed, clutching her hand as a dark stream of blood began to seep through her fingers.

Victoria's expression turned completely ominous, the absolute fury in her eyes threatening to manifest into something lethal.

She raised the paring knife back into the air, driving the sharp metallic tip straight down into my cheek.

Slash after slash. I bit my lower lip raw, the agonizing pain making it entirely impossible to breathe.

"Take a good look," she sneered, thrusting her smartphone screen directly in front of my eyes. The glass display reflected a woman whose face was entirely covered in smears of dark red blood, with the word SLUT crudely and unevenly carved into her skin. "With you looking exactly like this, let's see how much sleeping around you can do now!"

I stared back at her, my vision completely bloodshot. "Victoria Vane... I will make sure you pay for this."

"Make me pay?" She ground her teeth together, letting out a sharp chuckle as she slammed the flat back of the blade directly against my open wounds. The shocking burst of agony caused my entire body to shudder violently. "With what exactly? Who the hell do you honestly think you are?"

"Break her limbs for me," she ordered, turning a cold gaze to the guards. "I want to see exactly how a complete cripple is supposed to make me pay for anything."

I was pinned ruthlessly against the floor, my face pressed flat against the freezing ceramic tiles.

A sharp, sickening crack echoed through the room, immediately followed by a wave of white-hot, blinding agony.

My limbs were completely shattered. My teeth bit straight through my bottom lip as blood and tears mingled into a chaotic mess on the floor.

I lay there completely paralyzed like a heap of broken flesh, lacking even a single shred of strength left to struggle.

Victoria used the tip of her designer shoe to contemptuously kick my face. "Still want to run your mouth?"

I parted my lips, a heavy stream of blood pooling out across my chin. Panting heavily to catch a pocket of air, I fought through the suffocating pain to whisper, "You... are completely finished."

Victoria let out a cold sneer, crouching down to my level.

Her eyes suddenly drifted over to my neckline.

My necklace had slipped out from beneath the collar of my shirt.

The heart-shaped locket carried my late mother Eleanor's ashes inside. It was a piece I never, ever removed from my body. On the day my mother passed away, Uncle Logan’s hands were shaking violently as he personally sealed the ashes inside it.

Victoria reached down, violently ripping the chain from my neck with a sharp click. "Why are you still wearing a piece of junk this ancient? Which one of your little boyfriends threw this at you?"

The color drained from my face, a desperate roar ripping from my throat. "Give it back to me!"

Victoria laughed mockingly, tossing the broken locket onto the floor a few feet ahead of me. "If you want it so badly, go ahead and crawl for it!"

That was my mother. I absolutely could not lose her.

I pressed my chin firmly against the floor, using the raw strength of my core and stomach muscles to slowly drag my torso forward, inch by inch.

With every single fraction of an inch I moved, the jagged edges of my broken bones stabbed violently into the surrounding muscle, causing a freezing sweat to instantly break out across my skin.

Victoria watched the display, bursting into a fit of pure, ecstatic laughter.

"Look at this, girls," she said, pointing a finger down at me as she turned to her friends, Chloe and Harper. "Doesn't she look exactly like a pathetic little maggot?"

Her circle of friends immediately chimed in, roaring with hysterical laughter.

I ignored their noise entirely.

I kept dragging myself forward, bit by bit, until my face was finally close enough to reach the necklace.

"Disgusting," Victoria grumbled, her brow furrowing in deep annoyance. She lifted her leg and slammed her stiletto heel squarely down onto the locket, repeatedly grinding her weight into the metal until it completely shattered beneath her shoe.

"No!" a desperate scream tore from my chest, my heart aching so intensely that I couldn't breathe.

Victoria clapped her hands together to dust them off. "Alright, drag her under the dining table and tape her mouth shut. Let's leave her there to give Logan a wonderful surprise when he gets back."

Fearing they would throw the remnants away, I quickly used my teeth to scoop the broken locket securely inside my mouth before the security guards violently slapped heavy duct tape over my lips, stuffing my broken body into the dark cavity beneath the dining table.

The overwhelming pain eventually caused my consciousness to fade into absolute blackness.

The next time my eyes fluttered open, the deep, resonant voice of my uncle filtered into the room.

"Victoria, my niece Maisie is the absolute most important person in my entire life. When you meet her tonight, you need to make sure you treat her wonderfully."

I desperately wanted to call out to him, to tell him I was right here.

But the thick tape sealed my lips completely shut. I didn't even dare to breathe too heavily, terrified that the mere expansion of my chest cavity would cause the broken bones to puncture my lungs.

"Don't you worry about a thing, darling," her voice echoed, sounding incredibly soft and gentle. "You're my husband. I will look after your niece exactly as if she were my very own daughter."

Logan let out a confused hum. "Why on earth is this kid still not answering her phone? By the way, what exactly is this surprise you mentioned you had waiting for me?"

Victoria let out a sweet chuckle. "A random woman was out here running her mouth and defaming your niece. I couldn't bear to listen to a single word of it, so I decided to handle the discipline on your behalf."

Martha stepped forward, roughly dragging my limp body out from beneath the table and violently ripping the heavy adhesive tape off my mouth.

My hair was completely matted with sweat and blood, clinging to my face in a tangled mess. Logan cast a casual, passing glance in my direction, his mind entirely occupied as he failed to register my identity in the dim light.

I parted my lips, and the crushed, ruined heart-shaped locket slid out from my mouth, hitting the floorboards with a dull metallic click.

Logan’s eyes drifted down to the shattered locket on the floor.

In a fraction of a second, his pupils violently constricted into sharp pinpricks.

He snapped his head up, his entire body launching forward as he threw himself desperately toward me.