Chapter 3

"Angel, can't you just behave for once? Think about your parents..."

Mason's voice pulled me back to reality.

I stared at him, my voice completely flat and hollow.

"There's no need, Mason. If you want me dead so badly, I’ll just die."

I turned and walked straight toward the black dog. Everyone in the yard gasped in shock.

But I didn’t die. Mason grabbed my arm and yanked me back.

"You’d go this far just to avoid saving Windsor? You think this threat works on me?"

"Let me tell you, if you dare to die, I’ll make sure your parents die first!"

Faced with his threat, I said softly, "My parents are already dead."

"Angel, how can you be so evil? Just to get out of giving me blood, you’re actually cursing your own parents?"

Windsor looked at me with a heartbroken expression.

Her words instantly turned Mason’s brief panic into absolute rage.

"Angel, I really underestimated how vile you are."

"Fine. You want to see your parents die? I’ll make it happen."

Mason gritted his teeth and dialed his assistant’s number on speakerphone.

"Cut off all medical treatments for Angel’s parents right now. Inform the hospital that no one is allowed to sell them VIP life-support medication."

On the other end of the line, the assistant hesitated. "But, Mr. Bryant, about that..."

"What? Did Angel buy you off too?" Mason snapped, cutting him off.

I knew why the assistant was hesitating. He wanted to tell Mason that my parents were already dead.

But with Mason’s paranoid temper, the assistant didn’t dare to say another word.

So, after Mason hung up, the assistant immediately sent me a message on Snapchat.

[Miss Angel, does Mr. Bryant really not know that your parents passed away?]

How hilarious. He was Mason’s top assistant, yet he was asking me—the family's "human blood bag"—for details.

If I actually mattered to Mason, would I have been tortured like this?

Hanging up the phone, Mason smirked at me. "Still want to play tough?"

"Mason, let's get a divorce."

"Angel, you're getting bold. Now you’re trying to threaten me with divorce?"

"You think a divorce absolves you of your sins?"

"I'm telling you, you owe Windsor. You can't pay that debt back even if you spend the rest of your life trying."

Mason grabbed my collar tightly, his eyes looking like he wanted to tear me apart.

But I only repeated quietly, "I told you, it wasn't me."

I had said those words a thousand times over the years.

From screaming it hysterically in the beginning, to now speaking it with absolute indifference.

"Angel, if it wasn't you, are you saying I staged my own assault?"

Windsor stood there, looking as fragile as a leaf in the wind.

Her single sentence fueled Mason’s hatred for me even more.

Even though Windsor didn't actually need a transfusion today, Mason still ordered his men to drain 800cc of my blood.

Already physically exhausted, my vision went dark, and I collapsed.

Before I blacked out, I was still pleading with him. "Help... my parents..."

I wanted to tell him that my parents’ bodies were still lying outside the hound yard.

I didn't want them to be left out there like trash.

But Mason thought I was begging him to resume their medical care. He just sneered.

"When you sincerely apologize to Windsor, that’s when I’ll let your parents back into the hospital."