Chapter 4

Stella's POV

Julian's venomous insults echoed through the empty courtyard of the orphanage, like poisoned daggers plunging straight into my heart.

Cradled in Julian's arms, Gemma had tears streaming down her swollen face. Yet, at an angle hidden from his sight, the corners of her mouth curled up into a smug, malicious sneer directed right at me.

I didn't explain, nor did I defend myself. I knew that in Julian's eyes, Gemma was sacred. Even if I ripped my heart out and offered it to him, he would only find it repulsive and stained with blood.

"Are you finished?" My voice was as cold as a Siberian winter wind. "If you're done, take your precious darling and get the hell out. You're not welcome here."

I turned and walked out of the orphanage, my back held rigidly straight, leaving Julian's furious roars far behind me.

The sky gradually darkened as heavy storm clouds gathered overhead. A downpour was imminent.

I didn't hail a cab; I wanted to walk alone. But as I reached the entrance of a secluded alley, an unmarked black van screeched to a halt beside me. The sliding door flew open, and two masked, muscular men rushed out, clamping a hand over my mouth and dragging me into the vehicle.

"Mph—" I struggled with all my might, but it was futile.

The van sped off into the night, eventually pulling up inside an abandoned warehouse.

I was thrown brutally onto the rough concrete floor, scraping a large patch of skin off my elbow. Just as I tried to push myself up, a sharp, heavy slap landed squarely across my face.

*Slap!*

The blow was so forceful that my head snapped to the side. My ears rang, and the metallic taste of blood instantly flooded my mouth.

"Bitch, how dare you touch our master's sweetheart. We're going to teach you a lesson today!" the leader of the men spat viciously.

What followed was a relentless storm of slaps.

*Slap! Slap! Slap!*

My left cheek, then my right—slaps rained down alternately. The corner of my mouth tore open, and blood dripped down my chin onto the filthy floor. I clenched my teeth and didn't make a sound, staring back at them with bloodshot, defiant eyes.

"Quite the high pain tolerance, huh?" Scarface sneered. "Keep hitting her! The master ordered ninety-nine slaps. Not one less!"

Ninety-nine slaps.

By the time the final slap landed, my face was so swollen it was barely recognizable. My cheeks were a bruised mess of purple and blue, my eyes were swollen shut into mere slits, and my body lay limp on the floor like a discarded rag doll.

Scarface pulled out his phone and dialed a number, his tone instantly shifting to one of absolute subservience. "Mr. Vance, we have taught her a lesson. Ninety-nine slaps, not a single one short."

From the other end of the line came a voice so cold and detached it sounded completely devoid of humanity. "Dump her by the roadside. Let her learn the consequences of hurting Gemma."

*Beep... beep... beep...*

The dial tone echoed hollowly through the empty warehouse.

Lying prone on the ground, the agonizing physical pain seemed to fade in that moment, replaced by a bone-chilling numbness.

Mr. Vance. Julian Vance.

So it was him. For the sake of Gemma's clumsy lie, he had taken the law into his own hands and ordered ninety-nine slaps to be rained upon me.

I didn't know how I ended up being dumped by the road, nor how I dragged my battered, broken body back to the Mercer residence.

When I pushed open the front door of the Mercer villa, Catherine Mercer, who was sitting in the living room wearing a face mask, shrieked in horror. Her shock instantly turned to white-hot rage. "Stella Mercer! Where the hell have you been, you bitch?! You are about to marry into the Sterlings in Gemma's place! Now that you've ruined your face like this, do you want the Sterlings to think we are insulting them? Are you trying to ruin us on purpose?!"

No concern, no questions asked—only a torrent of venomous accusations.

I turned my back on them and numbly walked away. My face was burning with an agonizing heat, as if engulfed in flames. I had to buy some medicine.

I staggered into a pharmacy on the corner, forcing the words out of my throat with great difficulty. "Give me... some pain-relieving ointment."

The clerk took one look at me, their expression shifting. They quickly checked the computer system and then said coldly, "Sorry, we don't have any."

I went to another store, and then another.

"Not selling."

"Out of stock."

"Just leave. Our shop won't sell you anything."

At the fourth pharmacy, the kind-hearted owner looked at my pitiful state, sighed, and whispered, "Don't waste your breath. Every pharmacy in New York received an order from Mr. Vance. If anyone dares sell you so much as a cotton swab, they'll vanish from New York by tomorrow. What on earth did you do to cross him?"

I stood on the neon-lit street as the rain finally began to pour. The freezing water hit my burning, swollen face, sending sharp, agonizing jolts of pain through my skin.

I tilted my head back, staring up at the pitch-black sky, and suddenly burst out laughing.

I laughed so loudly, my tears mixing with the blood and rain running down my face.

What did I do?

The biggest mistake I ever made was three years ago on that snowy mountain, when I chose not to abandon a boy with a head injury who had lost his sight. I fed him the last of my rations, cut my own wrist to let him drink my blood to quench his thirst, and repeated to him over and over in his moments of despair: "Don't be afraid. I'll get you out of here, and I'll stay with you forever."

That boy had held my hand, his voice trembling yet firm: "When I get out of here, I will find you. I will use everything I have to love you."

But now, that boy was the powerful, high-and-mighty Mr. Vance of the Vance family. He was using his supreme authority to blacklist me across the entire city, forbidding me from buying even a five-dollar tube of ointment, all to appease another woman.