Chapter 2 - The Betrayal I Walked Into

RUYI WYNTER ❦

“Jace ?” A low almost lifeless sound escaped my lips, unshed tears welled my eyes, The woman scrambled the moment she saw me.

Her legs shook as she tugged her skirt down, hair wild, lipstick smeared across her jaw.

“Jace… Jace, who the hell is she?” she hissed, eyes wide with disbelief. “You told me you lived with family. Are you… are you married?”

Jace didn’t even look at me.

He ran a hand through his messy hair and muttered, “She’s… she’s just a family member, okay? Calm down.”

A family member. The word punched straight through my ribs.

I swayed where I stood, my breath tangled somewhere too far behind my tongue to reach.

The girl’s face crumpled…

“You lying bastard.” She hit his chest with both fists, crying hard. “You said you weren’t taken! My father will kill me if he finds out I was with a married man!” She shoved him again, sobbing. “You live with a woman?! A wife?!”

Jace tried to grab her wrist. She jerked away from him,

Then she turned and saw me properly for the first time from head to toe. I was a woman dressed in common blue jeans and a white shirt and a cheap long leather coat to keep warmth, my flowing silk hair cascading down my shoulders, the woman who worked four jobs.

A woman who didn’t even look like she belonged in the same world as her… dressed in Chanel clothes, shiny jewelries… She ran out crying… her heels clacking against the concrete.

Then it was just me and Jace….

“Ruyi,” he snapped, like I was the problem. He grabbed my arm so hard my bones stung. “I told you never to come to my office! If you had listened, you wouldn’t have seen that.”

I stared at him. Words should’ve come. Anger should’ve come.

But all I had was numbness thick and choking me, my mind couldn’t catch up to the explosion in my chest.

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m doing this for us.”

“For us?” My voice cracked, finally waking. “You were fucking her for us?”

He scoffed. “She’s a millionaire’s daughter, Ruyi. I can always get extra money from her. Maybe even enough to help pay off the debt. You should be grateful I’m trying to support you—”

“Support me?”

My voice rose, broken and disbelieving. “Or support your debt, Jace?”

Before I could finish my words he snapped,

“You think love is just crying and working yourself to death? Love is sacrifice. And if I have to sleep with a few women to get us out of this mess, then that’s what I’ll do.”

He sneered. “God, look at you… smelling like pork grease, cold, whining about loyalty. You expect me to stay faithful when you come home looking like this?” My vision blurred.

This isn’t the woman I married. The Ruyi I married was grateful. She was supportive. She loved me even when I was nothing… when I was the delinquent every parent warned their kids about. She stood by me. She never shamed me!” He leaned in, and his hands caressed my cheek as he whispered. “But look at you now? You’ve Changed”

“If you hadn’t shown up like some desperate little wife, you wouldn’t have seen anything and our anniversary would have been smooth, So really, this is on you.”

Tears welled my vision as a broken noise tore out of my throat, I ran, I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, clutching my tote bag; out of his workplace.

I didn’t see where I was going. I slammed straight into a stranger’s chest.

Strong arms caught me before I could hit the ground. His grip was firm… iron-hard…but not cruel.

His face was half masked, his dark eyes shadowed, unreadable. For a split second, I registered the scent of him… clean, masculine, unsettlingly intoxicating, panic snapped me back into myself.

“I—I’m sorry,” I choked, wrenching myself free. “I’m really sorry…” My words came out soaked in tears. I didn’t wait for a response.

I ran until my lungs burned, until my sobs broke into ugly, breathless gasps that clawed at my chest. I didn’t know how far I went. Streets blurred.

Alleyways swallowed me whole. My legs shook beneath me, weak and trembling, but I kept moving… because stopping felt like dying.

Somehow, I found my way back to the cheapest street in the city…. That’s where I and jace live, Rows of old, towering apartment buildings loomed overhead…

The air was icy cold, this neighborhood never had electricity long enough to even use the old heater in our room… if it even worked at all.

By the time I reached our building, my hands were numb.

I climbed the narrow staircase until I reached our balcony. And then—

My heart dropped so violently it felt like it shattered. Our door was broken.

And as I walked inside, our one-room self-contained was completely ransacked… my drawers emptied, mattress flipped, shelves destroyed. Everything reduced to ruin.

My tote bag slipped from my shoulder and hit the floor. The mafia debt collectors. They had been here.

Or worse— They were still here. Because they never really leave, They always find you.

And when I turned back, a resounding slap landed across my face.

My vision blurred for a moment, white flashing behind my eyes, and before I could even understand what had happened, another hand yanked my hair from behind… so hard my scalp burned; forcing my face up.

Five shadows stood over me. Men dressed in black.

“Do you have our five million dollars cash debt now, Mrs… Jace?”

The debt collector growled the words as he twisted my hair tighter, pain burning straight into my skull. My eyes watered instantly, my breath coming apart.

“P-please,” I sobbed. “Give me more time… my husband and I—we’ll pay it back—”

I didn’t finish.

His hand closed around my throat, crushing, mercilessly, air vanished. I clawed uselessly at his wrist as my body jerked, panic ripping through me. The other man yanked my hair even harder, pain lancing through my scalp until everything blurred again.

I cried. Gods, it was unbearable. Where is Jace? Where is the boy I fell in love with, the boy who protected me from high school bullies who had a crush on him?

“Don’t you dare,” the man snarled, squeezing tighter. “This is yours. You signed the debt to yourself. We don’t have business with that scumbag Jace anymore.”

He laughed… low and cruel.

“That jackass is useless. If he were standing here right now still owing, we’d have blown his head clean off.”

His grip loosened just enough for me to gasp, my lungs burning.

“But you?” His eyes dragged over me slowly. “You’re useful. Now tied to the most ruthless Mafia lord in this country” My stomach dropped.

“You have a cunt,” he said coldly. “You’ll work at the strip club.” They dragged me by my hair down the stairs, “let me go please! We’d pay.. I’m begging”

“Let me go—please!” I sobbed, my voice breaking into nothing. They didn’t slow down.

They dragged me down the cold, dangerous steps like I weighed nothing, my shoulder slamming into the rail, pain blooming everywhere at once. My vision swam, tears blinding me, breath coming in sharp, panicked gasps.

By the time we reached the street, my body was shaking so hard I could barely stand, I saw two exotic black cars parked on the street, sleek and silent.

Two men stood beside it, dressed in sharp black suits, their arms crossed and faces unreadable.

The debt collectors dragging me stopped midsteps, Their grips loosened just enough for me to feel that they were scared,

And then I saw him. In the backseat of the black car, the window lowered just enough to reveal a man leaning back in the shadows, a cigarette burning between his fingers. Smoke curled lazily around his face, softening sharp, devastatingly handsome features.

My chest collapsed inward. I knew. I didn’t need a name. I didn’t need confirmation. That was him.

Their mafia lord.

My heart dropped straight into my stomach. He didn’t look at me.

“My lord… we failed to execute your orders, we failed to kill them, we lied and stole from you. We deserve death!” The terrifying debt collectors roughing me just now all fell to their knees, they had orders to kill me and Jace?

But there was silence from that predator in the car. He lifted two fingers and made a small, careless gesture, a wave — toward the men in suits.

No words. The men slipped hands into their suits and pulled out a glinting metal that caught my breath,

It was Guns. They raised them. At me. My breath stopped. This is it…. I’m dying for Jace’s debt, I’m dying for the man who betrayed me, I’m dying in-stead of the only man I’ve ever loved.