Chapter 4

"Arlene!" Nicky, already sent up to safety by me, saw me swallowed by the sand and jumped down after me without a second thought.

Using her one remaining arm, she dug me out of the sand and forced me upright so I wouldn't suffocate.

I knew this couldn't go on. I no longer had the strength to climb back to that slope.

"Nicky, I'm definitely not going to make it. Use me as your shield. You survive this and go find Drake, understand?"

Drake Preston was the true power behind the Preston family. With him around, he would surely clear my name.

Nicky wrapped her one arm tightly around me.

"No, Arlene. If we die, we die together. I never want to see that animal Scott again!"

Even injured, I was still stronger than a pampered heiress who had grown up in luxury and now had a severed arm. Ignoring her struggles, I bound her tightly with rope.

If it came down to just one of making it out alive, then I was going to make sure it was her!

Seeing the desperation in my eyes, Nicky stopped fighting back.

"Arlene, it's okay. I still have one arm. I don't feel the pain anymore. If Scott makes another move, I'll block it with this arm."

I didn't bother refuting her naive remark. All I could feel was a bitter, mocking sense of how absurd my own situation was.

After marrying into the Preston family, I had worked tirelessly for them, only to end up killed by my own husband.

Just as I thought my body was about to be riddled with knives, Scott suddenly appeared directly above us.

The blade hovered over Nicky's head.

I had no strength left to act and could think of no better plan. All I could do was turn the camera around to face Nicky and shout frantically, "Scott, I'm begging you—please just believe me this one time! This really is Nicky! I'm not lying to you! She really is your sister!"

On the video call, Scott rolled his eyes impatiently.

"Arlene, death is staring you in the face, and you're still being this stubborn?"

Tricia's simpering voice chimed in as well.

"Scott, she's just betting on you going soft. Nicky's the little princess of your family, so how could she possibly look like some ragged, dirt-poor beggar in torn-up clothes?"

"That's right. Last night, I personally picked out the princess dress Nicky would wear to Happyland today. As for your sister, Lola Maxwell, you can go to hell together with her!"

"No!" I shouted.

The blades rained down from above, and Nicky threw herself over me to shield me.

"Arlene, live for the both of us, okay?"

Over a dozen knives stabbed into her, cutting from her head down to her legs. Her warm blood streamed down onto me.

When I met Nicky's eyes, all I saw was worry for me. Even at the moment of her death, she was still thinking of me.

Tricia laughed uproariously.

"Oh my, such touching sisterly devotion. With a whore for a company in death, you won't be lonely. When Jimmy died, he was all alone!"

The bodyguards, now awake again, resumed shoveling sand into the pit.

I stared blankly up at Scott, the man who once vowed we would be together forever and also the demon who had killed Nicky.

He looked down at me from above. "Kneel and beg me, and I might leave you an intact corpse and bury the two of you together."

Tricia tugged at his hand coyly. "Scott, go help with the shoveling. I can't even look at her without being reminded of the gruesome way Jimmy died."

I watched the sand rise rapidly, gradually burying past my chest, soon about to swallow my neck.

Nicky's body lay before me, her one arm still embracing me tightly.

"Scott, even if I die, I will turn into a vengeful ghost and tear you to pieces!" I spat out.

Scott applauded and said mockingly, "That's my wife for you—such a badass. Now do me a favor and just die already."

Just as the quicksand was about to engulf me, the roar of dozens of off-road vehicles echoed from all around.

Scott's voice trembled as he addressed the man stepping out of the vehicle.

"Drake, what are you doing here?"