Chapter 4

"What's going on?!"

Milton spun around to face Prudence.

"Fifteen minutes ago the medical affairs office started pulling every diagnostic record you've filed since you began practicing. My friend in that office told me it was triggered by a tip-off call fifteen minutes before that."

As she spoke, Prudence turned her eyes toward me.

Milton understood at once.

He glanced at the time.

From the moment I'd made that call,

it had been exactly fifteen minutes.

The flicker of panic in Milton's eyes was replaced in an instant by disgust.

"Priscilla…"

He let out a cold sigh, looking at me.

"Ten years of marriage, and you scheme against me like this. Clearly you still don't see what you've done wrong."

"Our business can wait. But apologizing to Pru today, that you don't get out of!"

He crouched down,

eyes bloodshot, and drove a fist into the glass in front of me.

The inch-thick glass split open along a crack.

My blood on the glass seeped through the crack and stained Milton's palm red,

but he acted as if he didn't see it, his voice cold.

"Priscilla, kneel. Apologize to Pru."

I clutched my convulsing belly and forced the words out through my teeth.

"Milton, a tip-off is a filthy tactic. I'd never lower myself to it."

"But I'm warning you, let me out right now, or you'll face consequences far worse than a medical affairs investigation!"

"Ha…"

Milton's mouth curled into a scornful sneer.

"Professor Cox, I'm terrified."

The next second, that sneer vanished.

His mouth twisting, Milton drew back his fist again and smashed the glass in front of me to pieces.

Through the jagged shards,

he reached his hand into the elevator car and seized me by the throat,

his voice going hoarse, like a devil straight out of hell.

"Today I'm going to see exactly how my good wife means to push me down into hell!"

Milton's warm blood ran down his forearm to the corner of my mouth, dripping to the floor one drop at a time,

mingling with my own blood.

I fought wildly to break free of his grip,

but his hand only clamped tighter around my throat.

The suffocation rose up in me,

everything went black in an instant,

my body slowly went limp, and the spasms in my belly grew faint.

"Priscilla, quit pretending!"

Milton grabbed a fistful of my hair and wrenched my head up,

putting so much force into it

that my head slammed against the shattered glass in front of me with a crack.

Countless shards drove into my face,

the sudden, splitting pain jolting me awake again.

Milton's twisted face was right in front of me.

"Priscilla, kneel! Apologize to Pru! Or you don't leave here today!"

"No one but me can save you today!"

Seeing this, Prudence walked over with one hand on her hip, swaying as she came,

and bent down, looking at me with pure contempt.

"That's right, Mrs. Hughes, hurry up and kneel, apologize to me, and this will all blow over."

"No one but the professor is coming to help you today…"

"What's the point of always putting on that pitiful little act…"

Under Prudence's jeering laughter,

I felt an overwhelming, tearing pain in my belly,

my whole body curling in on itself against it,

everything going black again.

As my consciousness slipped, I heard a cry of alarm from outside the glass door.

"Professor, something terrible's happened! Mrs. Hughes's baby has come out of her body…!"

In the middle of the chaos,

another piercing shout rang out.

"Professor, the Cox family of the Black Dragon syndicate, the ones who vanished overnight eight years ago, they've got over a hundred mercenaries blocking the door!"