Chapter 4

I was back in the hospital again.

While I was out, I dreamed of so many things from before.

There was ten years ago, when I broke every rule of our world and begged my brother to save Tom Barnes, who was being hunted down.

There was eight years ago, when I gave up everything I had abroad and stayed with him in Harbor City without a second thought, the two of us fighting our way up together.

There was six years ago, when we got cornered in an abandoned warehouse at the docks after someone set us up.

With our lives hanging by a thread, we held each other's hands and swore we'd be together again in the next life.

One thing after another, all of it so good.

Then the picture changed.

I saw Tom holding another woman's hand.

Watching me, cold-faced, as a crowd of men closed in around me.

I lay in a pool of blood, cradling my pregnant belly, begging him for help.

But he took the woman and her two children and walked away without looking back.

And after that came the part of the nightmare I least wanted to touch.

I woke up screaming, gulping down air.

Freda Walker stood at the head of my bed with dozens of bodyguards.

Seeing that I was awake, she spoke first.

"Tom didn't want me coming to see you. He was afraid you'd lose control and hurt me."

I gave a cold laugh of my own and asked her.

"And you still dared to come? You're not afraid I'll kill you?"

Freda smiled.

"You won't."

"Because you hate Tom more than you hate me."

She was right.

That didn't mean I'd let her go.

Whenever I thought of losing my children, of hating myself so much in my grief that I wanted to die,

Tom had been somewhere I knew nothing about.

By the side of the woman who killed our children, seeing her through her delivery, caring for her and the child, even trying for a second one.

I wanted to cut them both to pieces!

Freda saw the hatred in my eyes too.

She bent down and murmured close to my ear.

"By the way, you must be curious what Tom and I are to each other."

"Let me remind you. Ten years ago, when Tom was being hunted, it was because of me."

"From beginning to end, you were nothing but a tool he used to climb up, to bring down the people holding me, to get me out."

"I just never expected he'd be reluctant to let this particular tool go."

"So it seems I'll have to send you off myself."

A tool...

So the love I thought I had was that worthless.

And I spent ten whole years never seeing through it.

Losing my youth, my resources, even the lives of my two children...

Blood surged up and I spat it out.

I grabbed the fruit knife off the table and drove it at Freda.

But she moved faster than me.

She tore at her own clothes and hair and started screaming.

The next second, Tom kicked the door open.

Freda threw herself into his arms at once, crying and accusing me to him.

"Tom, I came in good faith to explain things to Miss Gilbert, and she got someone to attack me."

"You know I just gave birth. The doctor said the postpartum bleeding hasn't even cleared yet. How could she do this to me!"

Tom's eyes on me were cold as ice.

"I already told you this has nothing to do with Freda. Why won't you let her go?"

"Since you like these vile little tricks so much, then feel what they're like yourself!"

Tom locked me up with those men.

When they stripped me bare and pinned me down,

I saw the same skull tattoo on the inside of Tom's forearm as the ones on theirs.

My heart was already dead. I drew up my knee and rammed it into the man on top of me.

The moment he flinched from the pain, I wrapped my arms around him and threw myself off the cliff outside the window without a second thought.

...

Back at the villa, Tom had finally soothed the shaken Freda to sleep.

But I never came back to make trouble for him.

Agitated, he dialed my number, and no one ever picked up.

Amos Clayton watched his restless face, hesitated a long while, then spoke.

"Tom, why don't you just tell Maddie the truth?"

But Tom snapped at him.

"Shut up! I will never let that filthy past dirty Maddie's ears."

"No one is allowed to mention any of it to her. One more word and I'll put a bullet in you on the spot!"

Still, he couldn't stop worrying whether I was safe.

He went downstairs and drove through the night to the hospital.

The moment he stepped into the ward, a thick smell of blood hit him.

But I was nowhere to be seen.

A bad feeling cut through him.

He instinctively ran toward the window, and a gun pressed into the back of his head.

My brother's face was dark as he questioned him, word by word.

"Tom Barnes, who gave you the nerve to climb up over the bones of my sister and my two nephews?"