Chapter 3

I lunged forward and shoved Sabrina away. She stumbled, her expression darkening instantly.

The men with her grabbed me at once and wrenched the phone out of my hand.

I tried to snatch it back, but they shoved me into the wall so hard that my forehead went numb from the impact.

Sabrina held my phone, glanced down at the screen, and let out a cold laugh.

"Thinking of calling the police? Who do you think they'd believe, me or you?"

She turned the phone over in her hand, pulled a check from her purse, and flicked it onto the floor in front of me.

"Walk away now, and you'll at least leave with something. But if you don't know what's good for you, you'll end up with nothing."

I looked down, and my fingers went still.

The figure written on it was more money than I'd ever let myself imagine.

In my senior year of high school, I got into Harwell University. Then, Nora fell ill, the debts piled up, and I couldn't even cover tuition. I had no choice but to give up my spot.

And now, the woman living my life was throwing that kind of money at my feet just to make me disappear.

I didn't reach for the check. I just wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth.

Sabrina looked down at me with open contempt. "If I hear you've gone near Chandler again, this ends one way for you—dead."

After she left with her men, the apartment went dead quiet again.

I crouched down to pick up the frame. A shard of glass bit into my finger, and blood welled up right away.

I barely registered the pain. I just stared at the cracked photo.

The crack ran right across Nora's face.

A laugh caught in my throat.

I hadn't fought for anything. I hadn't asked for anything. Yet someone still thought they had the right to walk all over me.

…

That night, there was another knock at the door. I thought Sabrina had come back, but it was Chandler standing outside.

I didn't open the door. Instead, I asked through it, "What are you doing here?"

Silence hung on the other side for a few seconds before he blurted out, "Why did you have to provoke her?"

I almost laughed out loud.

He was the one getting married while planning to keep me on the side. Sabrina was the one who'd brought men to tear my home apart.

Yet here Chandler was, asking why I'd provoked her.

I leaned against the door, my voice hoarse. "Chandler, don't you have this backward? I'm not the one who lost her mind, and I'm not the one who smashed everything."

He went quiet for a moment, then softened his tone. "I'll make up for what happened this afternoon. And I'll talk to Brina and tell her not to pull anything like that again.

"Lena, stop making this hard. It's not like I'm abandoning you."

The same lines.

Every word was designed to soothe me just enough to keep me waiting.

Exhaustion hit me all at once. "Just go."

He didn't budge. "Open the door first. Let's talk."

I remained silent and made no move.

Just then, his phone rang. He picked up quickly, answered in a low murmur, and left me with one line. "Wait for me. We'll talk when I get back."

His footsteps quickly faded away.

I stood behind the door with nothing left to say.

Chandler was always like this—promising he'd come back, only to be the first to turn away when the time came to choose.

He didn't come back for the next two days. His family had likely tied him down with wedding preparations.

I thought things might quiet down, at least for a while. But the day before the wedding, Sabrina returned.

This time, she didn't waste words.

The door had barely opened when several women rushed in and pinned me to the floor. They yanked my hair and slapped me across the face, their knees digging painfully into my back.

Somewhere in the chaos, some hard object smashed into my forehead, and blood ran down my face.

Sabrina stood off to the side, watching me curl up on the ground and tossing out a cold remark. "Touch what isn't yours, and you'll pay for it."

I gritted my teeth and didn't argue back because I suddenly remembered a break-in in our building a while back. I'd been worried about my safety, so I'd installed a security camera.

The indicator light was still on. Every single thing they were doing was being recorded.

Only after they left did I brace myself against the wall and slowly push myself up.

Blood was streaming down my forehead. When I pressed a hand to it, my palm came away red.

I grabbed my phone and ID and then headed to the hospital alone.

I had just walked out of the building when I saw Chandler.