Chapter 3

3: 3

The dozen bodyguards in black tightened their circle at once.

I knew there was no dodging this beating today.

To shield my organs and my head, I quickly wrapped my arms around my skull and curled myself tight into the corner.

"Crack!"

The first blow came down hard on my right shin.

A solid hardened-steel baseball bat.

An unbearable, tearing pain ripped through every nerve in an instant.

I heard it clearly, the teeth-grinding snap of bone.

"Ah——!"

I couldn't hold it in. The scream tore out of me.

For twenty years, if I so much as scraped my skin, Mortimer Sanchez would dig out the first-aid kit in a panic to treat it.

It had been so long, so very long, since I'd felt the pain of a bone breaking.

"Beat her! Beat her until she can't stand up!"

Marie Fox stood off to the side, a twisted excitement flickering in her eyes.

She even pulled out her phone, turned on the camera, and aimed it at my convulsing, agonized body.

"Naomi Swanson, didn't you always brag that you were the kept mistress Mortimer doted on most?"

"I'm going to film this, and when Mortimer gets back, I'll give it to him as a welcome-home gift."

"I'm going to let him see with his own eyes what a wretch you are, sprawled on the ground begging like a stray dog!"

"Crack!"

Another blow, this one straight onto my kneecap.

My body jerked violently, and darkness swam in front of my eyes in waves.

The bone in my lower leg had already split.

Pain.

A pain that bored straight through me.

But sharper than the pain was the tremor deep in my soul.

The other half of my soul, across the ocean, was enduring the exact same agony!

Mortimer Sanchez.

You bastard.

If you don't come back now, the two of us are going to end up walking hand in hand straight back to report to the Hall of the Underworld today!

At this very moment.

Wall Street. The Nasdaq trading center.

This was the most glorious moment in the history of Sanchez Group.

Mortimer Sanchez, in a custom-tailored black suit,

stood there, that habitual coldness in his eyes.