Chapter 3

3: 3

3

I told myself I couldn't do it. A man like this wasn't worth it.

I tried to step around him, to go back to my room, pack my things, and leave this place for good.

But the instant we brushed past each other, that voice rose again, dripping with pure malice.

Light, almost careless, and yet enough to shatter the last of my restraint.

"Oh, right. Erica mentioned that dead mother of yours."

"Did she never teach you to know your place?"

"Guess not. That's why you turned out to be such an ungrateful dog—"

Crack!

A hard, ringing slap landed across Louis Morton's face.

I put nearly everything I had into it, enough that my own arm went numb from the shock, and the wound in my belly, only just healed, tore at me with a pain like ripping cloth.

He could humiliate me. I could take it.

But he humiliated my mother, and that I could not.

Louis's head snapped to the side, and five clear red finger marks bloomed across his pale face.

He clutched his cheek, staring at me in disbelief.

His shock curdled fast into something dark and venomous.

Right then, the front door of the villa swung open, and Erica Henson walked in carrying several shopping bags.

A faint smile still on her face as she came. "Louis, I got the sushi you like—"

Her voice cut off the moment she took in the scene in the living room.

The smile froze, then gave way to shock and a sudden, blazing fury.

Louis switched expressions almost in the same breath.

He pressed a hand to his face, his eyes reddening at once, and choked out in a voice thick with humiliation and hurt. "Ms. Henson, Marlin saw me wearing his pajamas and got really angry."

"I... I was just about to explain, and he hit me. The look in his eyes, it was like he wanted to kill me..."

Erica's glare cut into me like a blade. There wasn't a flicker of curiosity about how it had started, only a towering anger aimed at me.

"Marlin! I told Louis to change into those clothes. What right did you have to hit him?"

She screamed it, dropping the bags in her hands and rushing at me in a few strides.

I opened my mouth, meaning to tell her how Louis had insulted my dead mother.

But looking into those eyes, all but spitting fire, every word jammed in my throat.

"You lunatic!"

Beside herself, Erica shot out her arm and drove her hands into my chest with everything she had.

I'd been standing near the top of the stairs to begin with, my body already weak.

Caught off guard by the shove, I lost my balance in an instant and toppled backward.

My back and the base of my skull cracked hard against the cold, unforgiving marble steps, a string of dull, heavy thuds.

Pain shot through every limb, and the sharpest of it came from my belly.

I could feel it clearly, the knife wound that had only just closed splitting open again under the force and the pull.

Warm liquid soaked through my clothes fast, sticky and cold.

As the world spun, I suddenly remembered the first time I met Erica.

That night, a sharp screech of brakes and the huge crash of twisting metal tore through the quiet.

Her sports car had slammed into a barrier and crumpled.

She was pinned in the driver's seat, her face white, blood sliding from her temple.

I happened to be passing. Without a second's hesitation, I ran over and tried to pry open the warped door.

While I was pulling her free, a sharp shard of metal caught my belly and opened a deep gash.

Warm blood surged out at once, staining my shirt and the standing water beneath me.

The second I gritted my teeth and dragged her out, the near-wrecked car went up in a roar of flames, the heat rolling over us.

I'd lost a lot of blood, and my mind was starting to blur.

Erica held me, her hands shaking, her voice breaking.

Calling for help on one line and shouting at me on the other. "Don't sleep! Please, whatever you do, don't sleep! Look at me!"

Her tears fell on my face.

In that moment, I thought I was looking at an angel.

But now she couldn't be bothered to spare me a single glance.

She only rose on her toes, carefully inspecting the faint slap mark on Louis's face, the tenderness and anger in her eyes all but spilling over.

The next second, I passed out completely.

The dark went on for a long, long time.

When some blurred awareness came back, I felt my body being moved.

A jumble of voices, the smell of disinfectant, the cold touch of instruments.

Erica's voice reached me, edged with impatience. "...do what you can, cost isn't an issue... why does he have to be so much trouble..."

"Wait, have the doctor check Louis first. Marlin doesn't know his own strength. If it's a concussion, that would be terrible..."