Chapter 4

Caleb froze, unable to believe what he was seeing. By the time he came to his senses, they had already started digging up the grave.

"Stop! All of you, stop!" he screamed, but no one paid him any attention. He tried to rush forward and stop them, only for Jake to block his path.

"Jake, what the hell are you doing?" Caleb kept his voice low as he struggled to understand the boy standing before him.

Jake kept both hands in his pockets. His sharp eyes were half-lidded, and a lazy, carefree smile played across his face. "Nothing. I just got back from overseas, and I'm a little bored. Figured I'd find something to kill some time, hehe."

Bored? Kill some time?

He said it so casually, yet every word felt like a stomp straight onto Caleb's heart.

"You're fucking insane!" Caleb's chest heaved with rage as he raised his hand, ready to teach Jake a lesson.

Before his hand could reach Jake's face, someone grabbed his wrist.

He turned and met Elena's cold, unreadable eyes.

"Touch him again. I dare you." Her voice was soft.

There wasn't the slightest fluctuation in her tone, but the viciousness in her eyes sent a shiver down Caleb's spine.

She was very angry.

Once, Caleb had been mocked at a gala. Elena had worn this exact same expression then. She had appeared calm and indifferent on the surface, only to secretly drive every person who had insulted him into bankruptcy.

Now, he was the target of that same anger.

Caleb's eyes reddened with indignation and resentment. "He smashed my dad's gravestone. Was I supposed to just stand there and watch?"

At his words, Elena glanced at the shattered stones scattered across the ground.

A complicated look crossed her face for a moment, but her expression quickly turned cold again. "If you dared to do it, don't blame others for doing the same to you."

"What do you mean?!" Caleb was completely confused until Elena dragged him over to the grave of Jake's parents.

A line had been scrawled across their gravestone in what looked like some kind of blood.

[Dumped with relatives, climbed the social ladder, then set his sights on the aunt who raised him. Shameless, the whole family!]

The cemetery caretaker bent forward nervously and pointed at Caleb. "Mr. Wallace came here first thing this morning. He even asked me to show him where Mr. Lawson's parents were buried. I thought he was here on your behalf to pay his respects. I never expected..."

He tactfully stopped there, but he'd said enough for Caleb to understand.

Elena released Caleb, her face filled with disappointment. "What else do you have to say? You've really gone too far this time."

"It wasn't me—"

Before Caleb could finish defending himself, Jake punched him hard in the face. "Get on yout knees and apologize to my parents. Then clean those words off the gravestone. Otherwise, I'll scatter your dad's ashes right here."

Caleb was furious. "In your dreams!"

The whole thing was absurd. He tried to snatch back Keith's ashes, but the bodyguards restrained him before he could reach them.

"You have no right to touch my dad's ashes!"

"We don't. But your mother does." Elena's face remained cold. She didn't believe a word he said and went straight for the one thing she knew could break him. "If you don't apologize, I'll call your mother right now and have her come take them away. I mean it."

Caleb's entire body went rigid. It felt as though he'd been plunged into an icy pit, and he couldn't stop himself from trembling.

After Keith died by suicide, Caleb's mother, Mandy Sullivan, had been terrified that his restless spirit would come back to haunt her.

She had followed the advice of some so-called spiritual master and kept his ashes sealed away at a funeral home, preventing him from being laid to rest. She had even forbidden Caleb from paying his respects.

It wasn't until Caleb married Elena that she helped him seek justice and finally had Keith buried there. Every year since then, she had accompanied Caleb to visit his father's grave and pay his respects.

And now she was using that very same thing to threaten him.

Caleb stood there in silence for several minutes, his eyes red. Yet he couldn't find even the slightest trace of softness in Elena's gaze.

He couldn't take the risk. He couldn't afford to.

In the end, he could only lower his head and give in. "Fine. I'll do it."

With a clatter, he dropped to his knees and slammed his forehead against the ground.

Humiliated, he stuck out his tongue and obediently licked the words off the gravestone like a dog.

The foul, bloody taste filled his mouth, but Caleb didn't dare stop.

The greatest regret of his life was telling Keith the truth and leaving him unable to rest even in death.

This time, he had to protect him.

The sight of Caleb in such a miserable state made Elena's heart clench as though an invisible hand had seized it and squeezed hard. The pain was sharp, but it also left her strangely irritated.

Even the universe seemed unable to bear the sight any longer. Thunder rumbled overhead, and heavy rain suddenly began to pour.

"That's enough!" Elena could no longer stand it. She stepped forward and pulled Caleb to his feet, then turned to Jake. "This ends here."

Jake had been enjoying the spectacle, but his expression darkened the moment Elena relented.

The next second, however, he readily agreed. He turned, picked up Keith's urn, and held it out to Caleb. "Here. Take it."

Caleb was drenched from head to toe. He reached for the urn, but the moment his hand touched it, the ceramic container suddenly slipped from Jake's grasp.

The urn shattered into pieces. His father's ashes spilled across the ground and were quickly swept away by the torrential rain.

"Oh!" Jake feigned surprise, but the corners of his lips curled upward. "I'm really sorry. My hand slipped."