Chapter 4

That night, I dragged my bleeding leg back to the apartment like a walking corpse.

Three days left until the engagement party.

I started packing. When I pulled open the drawer, the "unlimited" Black Card Julian had once forced on me lay there quietly, right next to the diamond engagement ring he’d given me.

Before, seeing these might have softened my heart. Now, remembering the cold look in his eyes on the yacht as he chose Seraphina, I just felt the irony.

I wasn't helpless. I had hands, and running the gallery over the years had allowed me to save up a decent nest egg. Even though Vance Industries had been swallowed by Julian's Thorne Group, my private accounts still held the trust fund my father had set up for me years ago, plus the proceeds from my paintings.

It was enough for Dad and me to get treatment in Zurich, live comfortably, and start over.

I didn't give a damn about Julian Thorne's money. From now on, we owed each other nothing.

Just as I zipped up my suitcase—*Buzz. Buzz.*

My phone vibrated violently in the silent room. The screen lit up with the emergency contact number for my father's nursing home.

A sickening feeling of dread instantly gripped my heart.

I picked up, and the voice on the other end was frantic.

"Miss Vance! Your father has had a sudden brain hemorrhage. It's critical!"

"We can't get his blood pressure down, and there's significant bleeding in the brainstem. He needs a craniotomy immediately! But..."

My mind went blank. My voice trembled. "But what?"

"But just now, when we tried to process the prepayment for the surgery, the system showed a zero balance in all your linked accounts! The hospital system has locked the surgery schedule. You need to come here immediately and pay the $50,000 deposit plus the ICU retainer. Otherwise, the anesthesiologist and surgical team cannot proceed."

Zero balance? Impossible!

That money was my private property. How could it just vanish into thin air?

I didn't even bother grabbing a coat. I ran downstairs like a madwoman, flagged a taxi, and sped straight to Mount Sinai Hospital.

When I burst into the ER, Dad was already on a ventilator. His face, once so commanding, was now paper-white and lifeless.

"Doctor! Save him! I'll pay right now!"

My hands shook as I dug my platinum debit card out of my bag and handed it to the nurse at the billing desk.

*Beep—* The machine let out a sharp tone of rejection.

"I'm sorry, Miss Vance. Insufficient funds."

"Impossible!" I snatched the POS machine, shaking so hard I nearly dropped it. "There's two million dollars in this account! I saved it bit by bit selling my art over the years!"

I immediately dialed my private banker.

The news from the other end plunged me into an ice bath.

"Miss Vance, I'm so sorry. Half an hour ago, Ms. Linda presented a 'Full Asset Custody Authorization' signed by your father. Claiming that the bankruptcy liquidation of Vance Industries required capital turnover, she transferred all funds from the Vance family trust accounts—and your linked sub-accounts—to an offshore account."

"What authorization? My father has been in a coma! How could he sign anything?! It's a forgery!"

"The paperwork is compliant and notarized by a lawyer. And... the legal team assisting with the freeze and transfer belonged to the Thorne Group."

I hung up, my blood running cold.

Linda! And Seraphina!

They didn't just want to steal Julian. They wanted to wipe us out completely. They wouldn't even spare my father's life-saving money! And Julian's company was their accomplice!

"Miss Vance..." The doctor checked his watch, his tone heavy. "Ten minutes. If the funds aren't in, the OR has to close. We can't violate protocol."

Ten minutes. Fifty thousand dollars.

Where was I going to find that kind of money?

My gaze fell on the familiar name in my contacts—Julian.

I bit my lip until I tasted blood. I had sworn I would never beg him again, never take another cent from him.

But now, looking at my dying father, my dignity wasn't worth a damn thing.

Trembling, I dialed the number.

Once... twice...

Finally, he picked up.

"Julian..." I started, my voice humble as dust. "Please, lend me fifty thousand. Dad had a brain hemorrhage, he's in the ER. Linda transferred all the money, I have no way out... It's a life or death situation..."

There was a suffocating silence on the other end.

After a long pause, Julian spoke. His voice wasn't cold like I expected, but filled with disappointment and the sarcasm of someone who thinks they've seen through a lie.

"A brain hemorrhage? Elara, have you really stooped so low that you'd curse your own father just to force me to unfreeze your accounts?"

I froze, tears bursting from my eyes. "I'm not lying! The doctor is right here! You can listen..."

"Elara, stop acting."

Julian cut me off, sounding deeply exhausted.

"Seraphina just told me she visited Oliver at the nursing home this morning. She said he was in high spirits, even ate an apple she peeled for him. He even told us to plan the engagement party well."

"So? Only a few hours later, and he suddenly has a brain hemorrhage? Conveniently right after I cut off your cards?"

My heart sank like a stone.

Seraphina!

She never went to the nursing home this morning! She was lying!

"Julian, Seraphina is lying! She was never there! I'm begging you, just believe me this one time... send someone to check, please..."

"I won't."

Julian's voice turned cold, dripping with the arrogance of someone who thinks they're smarter than the room. "Elara, I thought you were just a bit spoiled. I didn't realize that for money, you could become so hypocritical and greedy."

"Do you think this sob story will make me soft?"

"You want money? Fine."

"Come home. Right now. As long as you show up obediently, stop these boring lies, and promise to apologize to Seraphina at the engagement party..."

"I'll give you five million, let alone fifty thousand."

His demands sounded so reasonable to him.

He thought this was just a lover's power play about who would cave first.

He thought that as long as I didn't submit, I would eventually have to come crawling back to be his obedient canary.

But he didn't know I was in the ER at Mount Sinai, an hour's drive from his villa.

And my father's surgical window was closing in five minutes.

"I can't go back... I can't leave right now..." I sobbed uncontrollably. "Julian, please, just send the money first to save him? Please, it's his life..."

"Still lying?" Julian lost all patience, his voice turning icy. "Since you refuse to come back, the situation obviously isn't as urgent as you say."

"Elara, don't test my limits. Come find me when you've come to your senses and learned how to be an honest person."

*Beep— Beep— Beep—*

He hung up.

He didn't actually want to kill my father.

He was just too arrogant. He believed in Seraphina's "kindness," and he believed I was lying for money.

He thought that by holding the purse strings, he could force me to bow my head.

He didn't know that the price of his "lesson" and his "test" was my father's life.

"Miss Vance," the nurse said regretfully, putting away the billing form. "Time is up. I'm sorry."

I snapped my head up and wiped the tears from my face.

I wouldn't cry.

Dad was still waiting for me.

I dialed a number that had been gathering dust for years—a loan shark from the New York underground, the kind my father had warned me a thousand times never to touch.

"I need to borrow fifty thousand dollars. Right now. Immediately."

"Collateral?"

I looked toward the emergency room, my gaze steeling over.

"All the paintings my mother left me, and... my life."

The moment I hung up, I knew I had sold myself to the devil.

Julian, for the sake of your pride and your so-called "truth," you personally severed the very last thread between us.

I stared at the red light above the operating room.

*Hang on, Dad.*

*Julian, remember this: every second ticking by right now is a countdown to the knife I will eventually drive into your heart.*