20

Elena

“Mother,” Vivian said nervously. “What are you talking about?”

Eleanor snapped her head around, glaring at Vivian with cold, vicious hatred. It was the first time Eleanor had ever looked at her like that, and Vivian instinctively took a step back.

“Don’t you dare call me mother!” Eleanor hissed. “My son is sitting in a prison cell, and you think I’m going to let you and Adrian live happily ever after?”

“I am so sick of this!” Adrian shouted, throwing his hands up in the air. He ripped off his cap and ran a hand through his hair—a habit he always had when he was pushed to the edge.

“I told you last time!” Adrian yelled, glaring at Eleanor. “I gave you money to pay off his mess before. I told you if he screwed up again, I wouldn’t lift a finger to help him! You dragged me back here because of that useless loser!”

“That ‘loser’ is your brother!” Eleanor cried, her voice cracking. “Your younger brother!”

“So what? I can’t do anything for him!” Adrian snapped. “He was caught red-handed! There’s evidence against him!”

“No!” Eleanor sobbed hysterically. “You have to get Lucas out! He can’t stay in there!”

“Mother, stop being so selfish!” Adrian roared. “I’m your son, too!”

“And what about it?!” Eleanor screamed back. “Are you saying Lucas should just rot in that filthy cell?!”

“What else should happen to him?!” Adrian scoffed coldly. “Who raised him to be a spoiled idiot? You did, Mother. He’s nothing but trouble, and he brought this on himself. It’s time he learned the hard way.”

Eleanor collapsed onto the floor, crying her eyes out in deep despair.

“If you’re really this heartless, then I’ll drag you down with him!” Eleanor wept, looking up at him with bitter eyes. “We’ll all go down together! I wish I had never helped you drug Elena! I wish she were here right now to see you standing alive with your pregnant mistress!”

Adrian leaned down, sneering directly into his mother’s face.

“If you didn’t drug her, I would have put a bullet in her head myself,” Adrian said, his eyes pitch-black with malice. “I will kill anyone who gets in my way.”

He stared down at his sobbing mother without a trace of mercy. “And that includes you, Mom.”

“That’s enough!” John’s deep voice boomed across the room, finally stepping out of the shadows. “How dare you speak to your mother like that? How dare you threaten to kill her?”

Adrian turned slowly to face his father, a cold, mocking smirk on his lips.

“You taught me everything I know, Father,” Adrian replied smoothly. “And since Mother just proved she’s a threat to my freedom... I don’t have a soft spot for enemies.”

“Both of you, enough with this!” John thundered. “We should be figuring out how to save Lucas, not making empty threats.”

“What do you think we can even do, Father?” Adrian asked, his voice dripping with disgust.

“Your mother is right,” John said firmly. “We have to save Lucas.”

“I thought giving him control of the company would fix him,” Adrian scoffed. “He proved me wrong. I even gave him my own wife!”

Vivian gasped, her head snapping toward him. “What do you mean?”

“I gave Elena to him!” Adrian yelled, without a shred of shame. “I told him he could sleep with her whenever he wanted!”

My stomach turned. In my past life, Lucas had done this in secret, drugging me night after night, hiding it even from his own mother. Adrian had never known. None of them had—not until my deathbed confession forced it into the open.

This time, Adrian had handed me to him outright.

“But that idiot... he still went out looking for trouble! Now his victims are popping up one after another. Do you really expect me to fix this mess?”

“I know you can,” John insisted.

“Of course I can!” Adrian snapped. “But not while the entire world thinks I’m dead! How am I supposed to clear a serial rapist’s name from the shadows, Father?”

John stared at Adrian and let out a long, heavy sigh.

“If I had known it was this bad, I wouldn’t have flown back with Vivian,” Adrian muttered, pacing back and forth. “We flew overnight just because Mother sounded hysterical on the phone. I had no idea she was dragging me back into the mud for that loser.”

“He is your brother!” Eleanor cried out again.

“Stop saying that!” Adrian shouted, turning on her. “I know he’s my brother, but the fact that we share blood makes me sick. He could have any woman he wants! Why the hell did he have to rape them?!”

Eleanor looked down at the floor, a shameful expression on her face. “Because... he doesn’t enjoy it when they willingly surrender. He only likes it when they fight back.”

Adrian let out a dark, breathless laugh. “Unbelievable. Then he can rot in a cell and face the consequences. I’m leaving.”

He grabbed Vivian roughly by the wrist.

“Don’t call me unless I reach out first,” Adrian warned his parents, pointing a finger at them. “And do not disturb my peace with my wife ever again.”

No. No!

I hid in the shadows of the hallway, my heart pounding violently against my ribs. Adrian couldn’t leave—if he fled the country now, he would disappear forever.

I pulled out my phone again with shaking hands and typed a message to Roxy:

【Where are you?! He’s about to leave!】

I stared at the screen, waiting for the double checkmarks to turn blue, but no reply came.

My fingers trembled as I typed another message:

【Roxy, answer me! Where are you?! If he walks out that door right now, I will never see him again!】

For the first time since my rebirth, panic clawed through my carefully laid plans.