Chapter 4

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

"Wait... I'm coming right now," I breathed, scrambling blindly across the floor.

I didn't even make it a single step before Caspian blocked my path. His hand clamped down on my shoulder with iron force, pinning me in place.

"Where do you think you're going?" his voice was a low, unyielding whip.

"You don't walk through those doors until you finish your penance. One hundred strikes, Liora. Now."

I was on the brink of total collapse, my vocal cords tearing violently as I screamed at him.

"My mother is dying! I have to see her!"

Not a single muscle in Caspian's statuesque face twitched. His eyes were void of empathy, locked into an absolute, authoritarian command.

"Are you deaf? Do it."

Around me, the rabid digital mob surged forward, emboldened by the Dr. Thorne's endorsement.

"She really is a psycho. Always using her dying mother as a shield!" a vlogger jeered.

"Block the exits! Don't let the crazy bitch leave until she pays up!"

I threw myself against the doors, my fingernails scraping until blood pooled under the beds of my nails. Time was draining away. Every ticking second carved a hollow, rotting crater into my chest.

There was no way out. He had trapped me.

I turned around. I surrendered.

I raised my palm and brought it down across my own torn cheek. The sharp crack echoed over the camera shutters.

Then I hit myself again. And again.

Each strike was accompanied by the mechanical count of my own humiliation. Blood trickled from my split lip, staining my blouse. My face swelled, throbbing with blinding agony, but I didn't stop until my vision blurred with a mix of tears and crimson.

"...Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine."

On the hundredth slap, physiological tears broke past my lashes, mixing with the blood on my chin.

A complex, microscopic shift crossed Caspian's face.

For a fractured second, the devastation of my bruised face seemed to register, but his ego swiftly crushed it.

"You missed the apology," he demanded coldly.

Grinding my teeth until I tasted bone, I forced myself to look into Seren's triumphant, glowing face. I bowed my head so low it practically touched her stilettos.

"I am... sorry."

Caspian finally exhaled, satisfied with his total conquest.

"Fine. I will perform your mother's graft surgery tomorrow morning."

Before I could even open my mouth to beg him to just let me go upstairs, my shattered phone screen lit up on the floor.

It was an automated push notification from the medical center's VIP palliative care portal.

[Patient: Hester Marlow. Status: Deceased. Condolences to the family.]

In that split second, my soul flatlined.

The frantic pounding in my chest abruptly stopped. The deafening noise of the flashing cameras, the cruel jeers of the crowd, the sterile smell of the hospital—it all faded into a static, white void.

I collapsed, a lifeless husk.

Seeing me drop, Caspian took a step forward, his hand reaching out to catch me.

But Seren instantly hooked her arm through his, anchoring him.

"Caspian," she chimed.

"We have a major consultation this afternoon. We should go prep in your office."

The hesitation in Caspian's eyes vanished. He didn't spare me another glance. He wrapped his arm around her waist and turned away, walking out of my life without looking back.

Numb, I dragged my battered body, needing to get to the morgue. I needed to see my mother.

But a heavy loafer slammed down on my ankle, pinning me to the ground.

"You think a forced apology is enough for ruining her reputation?" a rabid fan spat.

"Dr. Veyra is too kind, but we're not letting you off that easy!"

Before I could brace myself, a swift, brutal kick connected squarely with my pregnant abdomen.

The world exploded in white-hot agony. My breath left me in a sickening rush. Within seconds, a thick, terrifying warmth cascaded down my thighs, pooling onto the floor in dark, crimson ribbons.

"No..." I gasped weakly, clutching my stomach in feral panic. "My baby... please don't hurt my baby..."

My pleas only fueled their disgust in my supposed "insanity." The kicks reigned down harder, aimed at my ribs, my back, my stomach.

I was battered until I was nothing but a broken doll, eventually dragged by hospital security and thrown out onto the rain-slicked pavement of the loading dock.

As I lay in the rain, my blood washing away into the storm drains, I caught one final glimpse of Caspian's silhouette, walking away with Seren.

"Never see you again, " I whispered. "Never again, Caspian."

Refusing to die on their doorstep, I dragged my mangled, bleeding body down the coastal road toward the violent, churning waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Through trembling, blood-soaked fingers, I dialed a number I had memorized by heart.

I reached the edge of the coastal cliffs. Below me, the freezing, black waters of the bay crashed against the jagged rocks. I didn't hesitate. I closed my eyes and let gravity take me.

The freezing Pacific swallowed me whole, silencing the agony of my shattered life.

Just as the darkness began to claim my consciousness, a faint, chaotic scream echoed from the cliffs high above me:

"Dr. Thorne, look! The woman who just jumped into the bay... I think it's your wife!"