Chapter 3

This torment continued for over a month.

By the time Julian took me golfing again, I’d lost a ton of weight.

I actually looked like a frail, delicate little thing.

Julian’s friends formed their own clique, laughing amongst themselves, their occasional glances at me filled with unconcealed mockery and disdain.

I stood beside them, holding Julian’s golf club, feeling like nothing more than the golf ball being hit back and forth.

One of them, Brett, casually tucked his left hand into his pocket, tossed a ball with his right, then lifted his hand and pointed at me, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Kian, my man, fetch the ball, will you?”

The surrounding chatter instantly died, and all eyes turned to me.

A perverse pleasure, the thrill of watching a spectacle, silently swelled between them.

I didn't move.

Looking at their young faces, all brimming with superiority, I thought vaguely, *What would the old Kian have done?*

He would have charged at them, kicked each one until they begged for mercy.

No, back then, in Rosewood, no one would have dared to mock me like this.

My dad, my brother—they were my solid, broad umbrella, shielding me from all the crap life could throw at me.

My world was smooth sailing, full of flattery, and “Kian, my man” was a byword for reckless glory.

But now, that umbrella had been cruelly shattered, and raging storms swept over me.

Even those lowlifes who wouldn’t have dared to approach me before now found amusement in tormenting me.

“Go fetch it, or I’ll tell Julian. I hear Mr. Thorne has quite the ways of dealing with people.” Brett’s eyes lingered on me in an unreadable way, then drifted to the little white dot on the distant grass.

“One moment.” I said, my voice so calm it even surprised me.

I placed Julian’s club back in the bag, then, enduring the excruciating pain in my left knee, walked step by painful step towards that humiliatingly white ball.

Julian was currently in the VIP lounge, handling an urgent business call.

Before that, he’d already made me his caddy, fetching balls for him over a dozen times.

He wouldn't let me use a cane.

He just wanted to torment my useless leg.

It was effective. I was limping especially badly now.

I’d only taken a few steps, but I was already sweating from the pain.

But when I finally retrieved the ball, and could already see Brett’s magnified smirk.

He threw another one.

Even further.

Brett called out, mimicking a pleading tone: “Kian, please—!”

I gripped the ball tightly in my hand, fighting the urge to throw it at his arrogant face.

I turned to fetch the next ball.

Behind me, a wave of laughter erupted—their triumphant celebration of my humiliation.

By the time I returned the second time, my left leg could barely lift.

As I neared Brett, my foot caught on the turf, and I went down on my knees.

The retrieved ball slipped from my grasp and rolled away.

Julian, who had just returned, stepped on it, then another, neatly stopping all the scattered balls.

Brett suppressed a laugh: “Mr. Thorne, look at Kian here, bowing so deeply on an ordinary day.”

Julian ignored him, walking over and extending a hand to me.

I looked up at his emotionless face, unsure whether to take his hand.

“Do you like kneeling?” Julian’s voice was sharp.

So I took his well-defined hand.

Julian pulled me up, didn't let go, and led me slowly past them.

Then he commanded: “Hand me the club.”

As soon as the club was in his hand, I saw a flash of silver.

“Ah—!” Brett clutched his knee, screaming as he crumpled to the ground, howling in agony, “Ah—! Ah—!”

Julian casually tossed the golf club, its head dented, and stepped on the writhing Brett.

“Mr. Thorne!” Someone tried to interject.

Julian’s fierce gaze swept over them, and no one dared to speak again.

“Even if Kian is just a plaything, he’s *my* plaything. You think you’re worthy of humiliating him?!”

“Mr. Th-Thorne, I’m sorry—!” Brett sobbed, snot and tears streaming.

“Crawl over and apologize.”

Brett crawled, a pathetic snake, to my feet: “Kian, I’m so sorry, I’ll never dare to do it again, please forgive me…”

The others looked at me with a newfound hint of fear.

But it only made me feel like nothing more than Julian’s pet.

It was pathetic.

I took a step back: “Don’t do this. Get up.”

“Whack—!” Julian stepped forward and slapped me across the face.

My ears rang for a long time.

Eventually, the stinging heat faded.

Julian’s voice was sharp: “His apology to you is a courtesy *I’m* extending. You will accept it.”

That moment of bittersweet warmth I’d felt when he extended his hand to me had been brutally distorted by that slap.

It morphed into profound self-loathing.

God, I was so utterly pathetic, falling for a monster like Julian.