Chapter 5

Not only did I not stop, I stomped on the back of his hand.

“I’m acting in self-defense. I’ve studied law, I know how to deal with you.”

As I pressed harder, Victor screamed in agony.

Serena quickly shoved me away with force.

“Enough! I know you’re angry at me, and you’re taking it out on him.”

“If you have any anger, direct it at me, don’t trouble him.”

Seeing that I wouldn’t release his foot, Serena grabbed a baseball bat and hit me on the head.

The pain made me release my foot.

When Serena saw the blood on my forehead, she froze, realizing she had hit me too hard.

As she was about to come check my injury, Victor started crying, clutching his hand.

“Is my hand broken?”

“I knew it. Poor orphans have no one to love them, much less lonely patients with mental illness.”

Those few words instantly stole all of Serena’s attention.

Her tension turned into frustrated anger, and she shoved me away.

“Serves you right! You started it!”

“Alright, so what if you bled a little? You won’t die.”

“But Victor is different! The doctor told me to watch him constantly, not to let him get agitated, or he might self-harm with a knife or even kill someone, then what?”

“And tell Mother Evelyn not to be angry. Once I’ve calmed Victor, I’ll buy her favorite pastries and visit her.”

“We are not breaking off the engagement. I won’t say it a second time.”

After delivering that ultimatum, Serena left, taking Victor with her.

As they passed me, Victor gave me the middle finger in contempt.

Feeling dizzy, I had no energy to deal with him.

After they left, I started clearing out everything related to Serena.

Once I finished, I contacted the landlord to terminate the lease.

But the next day, to my surprise, I was knocked out and taken away.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw Victor, a cigarette dangling from his lips, standing with several men behind him, all glaring at me menacingly.

It looked like a very dangerous situation.

Dragging my bruised body, I stood up and met Victor’s gaze.

I stared at him for a long time until he sneered.

“Looks like you’ve figured out I was faking my mental illness. But what can you do?”

“As long as Serena is involved, I’ll never admit I was faking it. You’ll never win against me.”

He blew a puff of smoke into my face, and I frowned, taking a step back.

“What exactly do you want?”

“I want you to disappear forever. Serena is mine, but she loves you, and she just won’t let you go.”

“You pathetic loser, you’re in my way. I can’t rest until you’re gone.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he signaled the men behind him to act.

“Throw him off the sixth floor. Kill him.”

I clenched my fists and began to fight them.

Victor seized an opportunity, lunged at me with a knife, and stabbed me in the chest.

Just then, Serena rushed in.

“Stop them!”

Victor quickly pulled out the knife and stabbed himself, faking that I was trying to kill him.

Seeing this, the other men quickly fled.

Victor suddenly clutched his self-inflicted wound and stumbled toward Serena, blocking her path, then collapsed into her arms.

His blood stained her clothes, terrifying Serena and sending her into a panic.

I painfully knelt on the ground, my vision blurring. All I heard was Serena screaming at me.

“Alex, you deserve to die! How could you kill Victor?!”

Victor began to fake a faint, and before “passing out,” he urged Serena to rush him to the hospital.

Serena glared at me ferociously, then hurried away with Victor.

Finally, I lost consciousness and collapsed to the floor.

Serena never once looked back at me.

At the hospital, Serena sat anxiously, her mind restless.

She didn’t know what was wrong with her, but my pale, bloodless face kept flashing through her mind.

*Had Alex been hurt too?* Just then, the doctor came out and told Serena that Victor was fine.

But her heart remained uneasy. After a hasty glance at Victor, she wanted to go find me.

However, Victor kept finding ways to delay her, preventing her from leaving or answering her phone.

It wasn’t until the fourth day, when Serena could no longer suppress her inner dread and was about to head out, that several police officers approached.

“Are you Mr. Victor Reed?”

“You are charged with two major crimes: deception and murder. You falsely claimed to be mentally ill and used a knife to kill two people, resulting in their deaths.”

“There were two deceased individuals: Ms. Evelyn Stone and her son, Alex Chen.”