The Wife He Treated Like a Dog

Chapter 2 Live Your Own Life

Naomi didn't even wait for Felix to answer. She planted the heel of her shoe against Jade's face.

She deliberately smeared the dirt and mud all over Jade's head and face. Every now and then, the sharp edge of her heel scraped down the side of Jade's face or neck, leaving behind thin, burning lines that soon welled with blood.

"Jade won't be mad at Naomi, right?"

Naomi wiped the soles of both her high heels clean, then hypocritically put on a fragile, wounded smile.

Felix leaned down and kissed Naomi with affection. "She wouldn't dare." Then he looked at Jade, still kneeling on the ground in filth and blood. "This time, the snakes had their fangs removed. If there's a next time, I won't bother wasting the effort."

He tossed the key onto the floor. Then he turned and walked away, Naomi still in his arms.

Jade frantically picked up the key and opened the glass door with trembling hands. Fighting back the fear and nausea churning in her stomach, she stepped over the venomous snakes and struggled to reach her grandmother's side.

She knelt and carefully tried to lift her grandmother, then froze. There, on the back of her grandmother's hand, was a clear bite mark. The entire arm had already turned a dark, sickly purple-black!

Felix had lied. The snakes had not been defanged!

In that moment, nothing else mattered. Jade hauled her grandmother onto her back and staggered out into the night.

They were deep in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but black sky, frozen ground, and the remnants of a recent snowstorm. Every step was agony.

Her shoes slipped constantly over the ice. More than once, she dropped to her knees, skin splitting beneath the impact. Blood soaked through her pants and stained the snow beneath her, bright red against white. Still, she kept going.

"Hang on, Grandma," Jade whispered over and over, her voice shaking so hard. "The hospital's close. We're almost there. You're going to be okay. You have to be okay!"

Then she stepped wrong. Her ankle twisted at a grotesque angle, and she went down hard, her grandmother falling with her.

This time, she couldn't get back up anymore.

"Jade... I know... I know you've suffered so much all these years because of me. You don't have to suffer anymore. Leave him... Live your own life..."

Her grandmother's weak voice abruptly stopped. The hand that had reached out to touch Jade's cheek suddenly dropped, hitting the snow heavily.

Jade stared in disbelief at her grandmother, who had breathed her last in her arms. Then, immense pain ripped through and completely engulfed her.

She opened her mouth, wanting to scream, wanting to cry for help. But in the end, she merely spat out a mouthful of blood, collapsed face-first onto the ground, and passed out beside her grandmother.

Jade woke in a hospital. A stranger passing by had found them in the snow and brought them both in. But it was too late. Her grandmother was gone.

Jade limped out of the hospital and returned home carrying her grandmother's ashes, because she simply couldn't afford a cemetery plot.

Although she was officially the CEO of the Garza Group, her annual salary was only one dollar. Even basic living expenses had to be filed, reviewed, and approved. Anything over fifty dollars required Felix's personal sign-off.

The one hundred thousand dollars Jade had requested from Felix the day before yesterday still hadn't been approved.

And now, everything in her bank account combined still wasn't enough to buy the cheapest cemetery plot in the city.