Chapter 4

I didn't know how much time had passed before I woke up on the ground, the pain jolting me back to consciousness.

Owen was grinding his foot repeatedly against my wound.

"Tasha told you to take care of me before she left, so get the hell up!"

I looked up at him with reddened eyes and laughed coldly. "Even so, she still refuses to divorce me. As long as we're not divorced, you're nothing but a homewrecker who can't show his face in public."

"Why you!" Owen pressed his foot down harder, his face twisting with rage for a moment.

After a while, a vicious grin spread across his face. "It's fine if Tasha won't divorce you. As long as you die, the marriage will end on its own."

Before I could even react, someone behind me covered my mouth and drugged me into unconsciousness.

When I woke up again, I found myself on an abandoned rooftop.

My vision was still blurry. I had barely steadied myself on my feet when the door was kicked open with a violent bang.

"Keegan!"

Tasha's furious voice rang out.

Coming to my senses, I realized that I was clutching a scalpel.

Owen was huddled on the ground in a pathetic heap. "Dr. Miller, I'm sorry. Please let me go."

He clung to my pant leg, pleading over and over.

I shook my head, realizing that the drug he'd given me earlier had hallucinogenic components.

"Keegan, don't do anything rash!"

Owen and I were just a step away from the edge of the rooftop. From Tasha's line of sight, it looked exactly like I was threatening Owen with a knife.

Owen suddenly leaned in close and let out a few sinister, low laughs.

"Don't be in such a hurry. I've also prepared a big surprise for you."

As soon as he finished speaking, a swarm of reporters suddenly burst out from downstairs.

They pointed their cameras and microphones at me.

"Dr. Miller, is it true that before you married Ms. Snyder, you concealed the fact that you had been raped by other men?"

"Dr. Miller, is Ms. Snyder's years-long inability to have a child the result of lingering complications from what happened to you during the abduction case?"

The people downstairs held up their phones and played that humiliating video from back then.

The heartwrenching scream overlapped with the nightmares I'd suffered all these years. I felt as if every drop of blood in my body had frozen solid in an instant.

Tasha's expression also changed drastically. She grabbed the person beside her and shouted, "Who called them here?"

Amid the chaos, Owen suddenly seized my shaking hand, then turned the scalpel around and drove it straight into my stomach.

"Tasha, save me!" Owen screamed as he ran toward Tasha.

But no sooner had he taken a couple of steps than I grabbed him by the hair from behind and yanked him back.

Under Tasha's horrified gaze, I drove the scalpel straight into Owen's groin.

"Remember this—this is what real pain feels like!"

My eyes were bloodshot, tears streaming from the corners.

"If I can't have peace, neither of you will!"

The stab Owen had given me wasn't fatal, but I returned it with merciless force.

Blood pooled on the ground.

A wave of dizziness washed over me. And in that moment, Tasha lunged forward and grabbed Owen right out of my grasp.

Clutching my stomach, I collapsed to my knees.

Before I lost consciousness, the only thing I heard was Tasha saying coldly, "Keegan has gone mad. Lock him up in the asylum. Don't let him come out and hurt anyone ever again!"

"Ms. Snyder, committing someone to the asylum requires a family member's signature."

Tasha was in a hurry to get Owen treated, so she signed her name without even looking.

When Owen woke up and learned that his manhood had been severed, he completely broke down, screaming that he wanted to kill me.

"Tasha, the doctor said I'm a cripple now, and it's all Keegan's fault!"

Tasha tried her best to comfort him, though inwardly she was consumed by inexplicable restlessness.

I had lost a significant amount of blood, and she knew how stubborn I could be, so she couldn't help wondering whether I would refuse medical treatment.

At that thought, she finally couldn't restrain herself anymore. She stood and headed for the door, but it swung open before she could reach it.

"Mom?"

As Tasha stood there in stunned disbelief, Mrs. Snyder coldly spoke up. The words that came out of her mouth made Tasha's face turn deathly pale in an instant.