Chapter 4

"Get her in the car," Harrison barked at his men.

"Harrison, listen to me..." I choked out, my voice raw and broken. "I didn't do anything. I was with you!"

He didn't even look back. He just slammed the door.

The drive to Nancy's apartment was a blur of high-speed turns and Harrison's deadly silence.

When the car finally screeched to a halt, Harrison practically ripped me out of the backseat.

He kicked Nancy's door open.

The place was a total wreck. Lamps were shattered across the hardwood floor. Sofa cushions were torn apart. And there, lying motionless on the oversized bed, was Nancy. Her face was deathly pale, her eyes closed tight.

Next to the nightstand, were three empty syringes. A crumpled piece of paper sat on the glass coffee table.

Harrison rushed to the bed. "Nancy? Baby, wake up!" His voice cracked. It was the most tender, desperate tone I had ever heard him use. He checked her pulse, his hands actually shaking.

Then he saw the note. He snatched it up, his eyes scanning the handwritten words.

He turned slowly. The tenderness vanished from his face, replaced by a pure, unadulterated murderous rage.

"You fucking bitch," he spat.

Before I could even brace myself, he closed the distance between us. Smack.

The backhand caught me right across the cheekbone. The sheer force threw me to the floor.

"Harrison!" I screamed, spitting warm blood onto the rug. "Look at me! I was at the hospital, then I went straight to you! How could I possibly do this?"

He grabbed me by the collar, hauling me up until my toes barely touched the ground. "The black market transfer was traced to your name. The phone pinged to your exact location. And this note... she wrote that you threatened to permanently paralyze her if she didn't leave me!"

"She's faking it!" I cried out. I looked past his shoulder at Nancy on the bed. I swore I saw her eyelids flutter, just for a split second. "She set this whole thing up! Look at the room, it's staged!"

"Shut up!" His fingers dug back into my windpipe, cutting off my air.

I struggled, my hands clawing desperately at his chest. My fingers brushed against the cold metal hanging from his suit vest. The pocket watch. My father's watch.

I grabbed it instinctively, desperate for a lifeline. "Harrison... please. For my dad's sake. Just think about this logically."

That was the wrong move.

Harrison looked down at my hand clutching the silver watch. A look of absolute, sickening disgust crossed his face. He yanked my hand away so hard my shoulder popped. Then, with a violent jerk, he ripped the chain right off his vest.

"You want this?" he roared, his spit hitting my face.

He threw the watch onto the hard marble tile.

Crack.

My heart completely stopped.

Harrison lifted his heavy leather boot and stomped down. The sound of crunching metal and shattering glass echoed perfectly in the silent room. He twisted his heel, grinding it into the floor.

"No!" I shrieked, dropping to my knees. I pushed his leg away, but it was too late.

The silver casing was flattened. The glass face was pulverized into white dust. Tiny gears and springs spilled across the floor, dead and useless.

My father's last piece of existence in this world. Gone. Destroyed by the man he died to save.

I stared at the ruins, my hands shaking as they hovered over the broken glass.

"I am so fucking sick of it," Harrison sneered, looking down at me like I was vermin. "Ten years, Stella. Ten years of this suffocating debt. Every time I look at you, I'm reminded of that bloody dock. I'm reminded that I owe my life to two dead person."

He leaned down, grabbing a fistful of my hair, forcing my tear-stained face to look up at him.

"You think I'm grateful? I hate them. And I hate you. If I knew this damn engagement was the price for my life, I would have taken the bullet myself that night. I'd rather rot at the bottom of the ocean than be tied to a pathetic, manipulative psycho like you."

The words hit me harder than the slap. The eighty-eight 'accidents'. The constant humiliation. It all made perfect sense now. He didn't just want out of the contract. He despised my very existence.

"Stella," his voice cold and incredibly final. "I'll have my mother cancel our engagement. I was wrong. I should have chosen Nancy."

He stood up, casually adjusting his expensive cuffs. "Take her to the Manor," he ordered the bodyguards. "Throw her in the ice cellar."

The bodyguards hesitated, exchanging a nervous glance. "Boss... the temperature down there is below zero.She looks sick..."

"Did I stutter?" Harrison barked, his voice echoing off the walls. "She likes using muscle relaxants? Let's see how her muscles feel when they're frozen solid. She doesn't come out until Nancy wakes up."

They grabbed me under the arms and dragged me out. I didn't fight back anymore. My eyes remained fixed on the crushed gears on the floor until the heavy wooden door slammed shut, cutting off my view forever.

The ride to Churchill Manor was a blank void. By the time they dragged me down the stone steps and threw me into the underground ice cellar, my body was already shutting down.

The heavy steel door locked behind me with a deafening thud.

The cold was instant and biting. Thick frost coated the stone walls. In my thin, flimsy hospital clothes, the chill pierced straight through my skin and into my bones. The leukemia had completely wiped out my immune system; being in here was a guaranteed death sentence.

I curled into a tight ball on the freezing concrete floor, shivering violently as the temperature plummeted.

"Father..."My vision darkened at the edges. The violent shivering stopped, replaced by a heavy, terrifying numbness. And then, there was nothing but black.