22

Elena

“What do you mean?” Adrian stammered from the floor. “Why are you sitting next to him? Get up!”

I tilted my head back and laughed. It started as a soft chuckle, then burst into full, hysterical laughter until tears welled in the corners of my eyes. I clutched my stomach, savoring every second of their complete bewilderment.

“What the hell is so funny?!” Vivian shrieked, her voice cracking. “You bitch!”

My laughter died instantly. I turned a gaze colder than ice onto her. “Bitch? You’re referring to yourself, right?”

“How dare you!” she screamed, taking a step back.

“Mother,” I called out, my tone dripping with bitter irony. “Didn’t you tell me Vivian was just your distant cousin? How on earth did she end up as Adrian’s mistress?”

“I am not a mistress!” Vivian cut in sharply, clutching Adrian’s arm. “I am his wife!”

“Then what does that make me?” I asked smoothly.

“The unloved one is always the mistress,” she spat back.

“I suppose you’re right,” I said casually, inspecting my fingernails. “In that case, thank you for picking up the trash I threw away.”

Adrian’s bloody face contorted with rage. “You dare call me trash?!”

I raised my eyes, meeting his glare with indifference. “What else are you?”

He trembled with fury, clutching his ribs. “Elena, stop this sick joke right now and obediently follow Kane to be his whore!”

“Is that what you think I am?” I asked, turning to Kane.

“Not at all,” Kane replied, his tone surprisingly polite. He glanced down at Adrian with pure disgust. “I would never treat a lady that way. But as for the rest of you...” He gestured to his armed men. “You’re all coming with me.”

John, Eleanor, and Vivian shrank back in horror.

“Elena is the one who took out the loan!” John blurted out, finally dropping his act as the noble father-in-law. “If anyone goes with you, it’s her! Why are you dragging us into this?! We are innocent!”

I looked around the foyer at the monsters surrounding me. How? How had I been so blind in my past life? I had given up everything to care for them, only to be betrayed, drugged, used, and left to die to the rhythm of a heart monitor’s final beep.

My fists clenched so tightly my knuckles turned white. My blood boiled.

“Innocent my ass!” I snapped, rising to my feet.

I marched up to John. Before he could react, I drew my hand back and delivered a ringing slap straight across his face.

“You—” Eleanor gasped.

I whirled around and struck Eleanor next. One. Two. Three times. The force of my palm sent her stumbling back. Vivian screamed and hid behind Adrian.

“She’s lost her mind!” Eleanor wailed, clutching her swollen cheek. “Help me!”

I grabbed Eleanor by the collar of her dress, my strength fueled by days of buried agony. “I have wanted to hit you since the day I woke up back in this life,” I growled, landing another blow to her mouth. “I hate the sight of you!”

I spat directly in her face, letting out every ounce of hatred I had kept locked away. “I will ruin you!”

“Get off my mother!” Adrian tried to shove himself up to grab me.

I threw Eleanor aside—leaving her sprawled on the cold marble like a corpse—and turned my attention to Adrian. Thanks to Kane’s earlier beating, he was easy picking.

I grabbed him by his shirt collar, hauling him up just enough to look me in the eye.

“You monster,” I screamed, raining punches down on his broken nose and jaw with everything I had. “You deserve to rot! Die!”

“S-She’s going to kill him!” Vivian whimpered from the floor.

Blood splattered across my arms, but I didn’t care. The fire in my chest burned out every trace of mercy.

“Boss, he’s gonna die before we even harvest him,” one of Kane’s thugs muttered in awe. “She’s more brutal than we are.”

None of them knew what these parasites did to me. If they knew the terror of lying helpless in a hospital bed while your husband and his mistress discuss your death, they’d hit him harder.

Satisfied, I shoved Adrian back down. He hit the floor with a wet thud.

I turned toward Vivian. She scrambled backward, trembling violently—and then I noticed the puddle forming beneath her. She had peed herself in sheer terror.

“D-Don’t come near me!” she sobbed. “I’m pregnant!”

I dragged her up by her hair. “Pregnant my ass. You deserve hell just like the rest of them.”

I landed a heavy strike across her face, sending her crashing beside Adrian.

Kane quietly stepped forward and handed me a clean silk handkerchief. I took it, methodically wiping their filthy blood off my knuckles.

“Did that hurt your hand?” Kane asked softly.

“No,” I replied quietly. What really hurt was my death in my past life.

John stared at me, his voice trembling with unadulterated terror. “You’ve completely lost your mind...”

“Oh! I almost forgot about you,” I smirked, taking a step toward John.

“Don’t exhaust yourself,” Kane interjected, placing a hand on my shoulder to gently guide me back to the armchair. “Sit down. I’ll make sure you’re satisfied.”

“You better keep that promise,” I said, crossing my legs.

Kane gestured to two of his largest thugs. “Break his legs.”

John’s eyes went wide. “No! Please! Let her hit me! Elena, please, hit me yourself!” He scrambled forward on his knees, begging like a beaten stray dog. “Just don’t break them!”

“Break them,” I ordered coldly.

CRACK.

A sickening snap echoed through the room, followed by John’s blood-curdling scream. Eleanor screamed in horror, covering her ears. I took a deep breath, inhaling the crisp air and savoring every drop of their agony. The snapping bones, the desperate weeping—it was divine music to my ears.

“Are you satisfied?” Kane asked, looking down at the carnage.

“Not quite yet.”

I stood up and walked over to where Adrian lay bleeding out. I crouched beside him, leaning down to whisper into his ear.

“You thought everything was going according to your brilliant little plan, didn’t you? I knew about your fake death from the very beginning.”

Adrian’s bloodshot eyes widened. “Y-You knew...?”

I pulled out my phone, unlocked it, and pulled up the video footage of their secret meetings. “I knew about every dirty secret. The loan, the fake death, your mistress...” I turned my head to glare at Eleanor, who was frantically clutching her husband’s trembling body. “...And how you planned to poison me once the debt was settled.”

Eleanor’s face drained of all color. “I... I didn’t mean it!” she stammered hysterically. “I was just joking!”

“Of course,” I said, rising back to my feet. “You were just joking about my life.”

I ignored her pathetic pleas and turned back to Adrian. “I knew about the vitamins. And I knew you handed me over to your twisted brother like a piece of property.”

Kane gasped, shaking his head. “Damn. This family is rotten to the core.”

I turned my gaze onto Vivian. “And I knew you were his mistress the second you walked into this house.”

Vivian sobbed, clutching her bruised cheek. “You knew... and you said nothing?!”

“Of course,” I grinned, letting my dark satisfaction show. “Where’s the fun in catching a rat if you don’t let it run into the trap first?”

“You’re a monster!” she shrieked.

“You’re wrong. All of you,” I said, my voice echoing in the dead silent room. “You created this monster.”