Chapter 4

I was dragged into a room in the security department.

Director Thompson and Scarlett pushed a stack of fabricated account statements and "testimonies" they had coerced from colleagues in front of me.

“Amelia, do you plead guilty?”

My face was numb, my mouth full of the taste of blood.

I looked up, my voice hoarse: “I want a lawyer. Notify my family.”

Scarlett shrieked as if she’d heard the funniest joke. “Are you crazy? You want your parents from the farm to sell their blood to hire you a lawyer? Amelia, how can you be so heartless!”

Director Thompson folded his arms, surveying me contemptuously. “Stop bluffing. What can your farmer parents do when they get here? Kneel down and beg us?”

I ignored him, my gaze fixed on Scarlett’s face.

“I really don’t have the heart to.”

“But I’m even more afraid that your leech of a brother won’t find another host to latch onto.”

Scarlett’s face instantly contorted.

She snatched an electric stun baton that a security guard had temporarily placed on a nearby table.

“I’ll teach you to run your mouth! I’ll kill you! Die!”

The room instantly descended into chaos.

The security guards rushed forward, pinning the completely out-of-control Scarlett to the ground.

“Don’t do anything rash!”

I was taken to a windowless storage room.

The door slammed shut behind me.

Darkness instantly swallowed me.

The air grew thin, and the walls seemed to press in on me.

My claustrophobia immediately flared. I couldn’t breathe, my body trembled violently, and cold sweat soaked my back.

I curled up in a corner, my mouth opening futilely, but not a single breath of air entered my lungs.

Memories flooded back from college, when Scarlett had locked me in the art room and I was almost sexually assaulted by a group of thugs.

Liam Sterling had saved me then.

I had always thought it was just an accident.

Scarlett’s unintentional mistake.

Now, in this same darkness, it all clicked into place.

It wasn't an accident. It was premeditated.

She probably knew my identity all along.

My consciousness began to fade.

“BANG!”

With a thunderous crash, the storage room door was kicked open from the outside by a powerful force!

Light surged in, blinding me.

A tall figure stood in the doorway, dusty from travel, silhouetted against the light.

Behind him were a dozen bodyguards in black suits with grim expressions, and the pale-faced head of the security department.

Liam Sterling’s gaze cut through the dust and light, landing precisely on me.

He walked towards me, step by step.

“Honey, I’m back.”

Liam Sterling took off his suit jacket and wrapped it tightly around me.

He ignored everyone else in the room, cradling my face, his voice trembling.