Chapter 3

Ethan’s fake, affectionate smile froze instantly. "Elena, what are you doing?"

"I just want my mother's heirlooms back."

He forced a gentle smile and braced himself to explain. "So you noticed? It's just a coincidence. The good Samaritan who helped me tonight just happens to be the private collector who bought your mother's jewelry."

He stepped closer. "Elena, she helped me. She practically paid for my surgery. Selling her the necklace as a thank you was the least I could do. You demanding it back right now... isn't that biting the hand that feeds us?"

I still reached out to take the necklace back.

But before my fingers even brushed her trench coat, Sloane threw herself backward. She hit the pavement with a loud thud. Muddy rainwater splashed all over her custom dress, and a small bruise immediately formed on her forehead.

"Why did you push me?!" she cried out.

I looked at Ethan. In his usually cold eyes, a flash of genuine heartache appeared as he looked at Sloane.

He furrowed his brows and glared at me. "Elena, apologize right now!"

I stared at him in disbelief. I actually laughed. "You want me to apologize?"

"You're dreaming."

Losing face in front of the cronies who had just stepped out of the Maybach made Ethan furious.

"Elena, these people are powerful and rich! If you offend them, we're both screwed! Apologize!"

Right. Powerful and rich. Wasn't the man standing in front of me exactly the same?

The life-saving money I had worked myself to the bone to save, he could blink and toss it away as a tip to someone else.

"Absolutely not," I said flatly.

Seeing my firm attitude, Ethan’s military buddies and cronies started jeering from the sidelines.

"Hey Major, are you scared of your girlfriend? You can't even keep your own woman in line?"

"If she won't apologize, just make her pay up."

"Miss Bennett's dress is a limited global edition. It's worth at least two hundred dollars grand."

I closed my eyes. "I have no money."

Ethan was completely enraged. He grabbed my shoulders and violently forced me to my knees in the mud. "If you have no money, then kneel and kowtow! Then this will be over!"

"You kneel every single day! What's the big deal? Is it so hard to bow your head just once for me?!"

Every single word was like a sharp carving knife, slicing into my heart one by one, heavy and cruel.

To earn the money to "treat" his nerve gas poisoning, my knees had long developed thick calluses. But I had never complained once. Now, over a completely fabricated incident, he was trampling my dignity into the dirt.

Just to vent his mistress's anger.

The sneers and sarcastic remarks from the crowd pierced my chest like actual blades, destroying the last shred of my pride.

I reached up and started unbuttoning my shirt.

"You guys want money, right? I don't have any. Can I pay with my body?"

Ethan looked at me like I was a monster. "Elena, do you know what you're saying? Are you crazy?!"

My eyes focused on him. "Didn't you tell your boys you'd record me in bed for a laugh? Well... who wants to go first?"

His pupils shrank. His face went dead white. "You... you heard?"

Ethan’s voice started to shake. "It's not like that, Elena. Listen to me, let me explain..."

I cut him off with a mocking sneer, going toe-to-toe with him. "Explain what? Explain that you aren't sick? Explain that the nerve gas damage was a fake?"

"Watching me kneel for you every day, earning money by washing corpses, just so you could squander my blood money... did it feel good? Was it all just because I stole Sloane's spotlight at the Harvard thesis defense five years ago?"

"It's fine. It's just seventy-two thousand dollars I saved over five years. Let your brothers spend it."

I gritted my teeth and said every word clearly. "Ethan, I really wish your illness was real."

It turns out that extreme hatred is just what happens when love is completely shattered. Fighting back my humiliation, I continued to pull off my clothes.

Ethan lunged forward and stopped me.

He frantically wrapped his coat around my shoulders, begging anxiously. "Sorry, Elena, I'm begging you, stop stripping!"

"What? You don't want your brothers to see?" I laughed. "Ethan, you're so selfish. I actually feel bad for the friends who played along with your act for five years!"

His panic instantly turned into rage. "Elena Voss, I already apologized! What the hell else do you want?!"

I didn't hesitate for a second. "We're breaking up. And give me back my mother's heirlooms."

"I know my status as a mortician is bad luck and lowly. I know I don't deserve a high-and-mighty National Guard Major."

"I know my place. You don't have to wait until you're bored to kick me to the curb. I'll walk away myself!"

Those heirlooms were all my mother left me. She told me to use them as my dowry when I found the man I loved most.

I only pawned them because I was desperate to save Ethan’s life.

I never imagined that from the very beginning, this was all a trap set by Ethan. He had played me like a monkey for five entire years.

My nails dug deep into my palms. I hated myself for being so blind. I had failed my parents' expectations.

"Elena, listen to me. At the beginning, I really was..."

"I don't want to hear anything! You played me for five years. I'm begging you to just let me go, okay?!"

Ethan finally lost control of his temper. "What is a lowly mortician so arrogant about?! So what if I lied to you?"

"Your status is garbage. I could never marry you. But as long as you're obedient, I can keep you comfortable for the rest of your life. Think about it carefully!"

"I have thought about it," I repeated, word by word. "I. Want. My. Mother's. Heirlooms."

A crack finally appeared in Ethan’s arrogant expression. "You're completely unreasonable!"

Sloane stepped forward haughtily. "You want them back? Fine. I spent a hundred grand on these back then. I've worn them for years, so their value has gone up. Two hundred thousand dollars. Buy them back. How about it?"

She paused and pointed at my knees. "Oh, I almost forgot. You make your living on your knees. How about this: you kneel here for three days, and I'll give them back to you."

The crowd immediately erupted into harsh laughter.

"With her broke ass? Three days for two hundred grand? Miss Bennett is way too generous!"

"She works with dead bodies. She couldn't cry out that much money in a lifetime."

"Maybe she could hook a sugar daddy, she's got an okay face. She's just lucky Major Hale kept her around this long."

Ethan put on a hypocritical face of concern. "Baby, just hold on. Kneel for three days to let Sloane cool off, and it'll be fine."

Hearing this, Sloane looked even more smug. She playfully tossed the two heirlooms in her hand.

"When Ethan gave these to me, I thought they were some rare treasure. Turns out they're just your dead mother's things. What bad luck."

Saying that, she flicked her wrist. The jewelry traced a beautiful arc through the rain and flew straight toward the storm drain by the curb. In a split second, the rushing water swallowed them.