He Punished Me For Her

Chapter 5

Several bodyguards swarmed forward, blocking my father outside.

"Robert Brooks, don't push your luck. Take Nora home and think about what you've done. I know how to handle Evelyn."

"Like hell you do!"

Nora rushed over again, clutching a medical report stained with blood.

"Dad, look at this! It's Mom's critical-care report from 3 days ago. She hid it from everyone. The past 3 years destroyed her organs. She held on this long only because of you and me!"

Adrian's fingers trembled as he took those pages.

The writing on them had already blurred from the blood, but the words "multiple organ failure" still stabbed into his eyes like nails.

"Impossible... Last week she was still standing fine, accompanying me to business dinners..."

Sabrina snatched the report away with a scoff.

"How much does it cost to buy a fake report from a private hospital these days? Any print shop could make a stack of them. Adrian, you run Prescott Group. Are you really going to fall for a trick this cheap?"

My mother was shaking all over with anxiety.

"Mr. Prescott! Evelyn can't hold on any longer. Please open the door. Let me see my daughter one last time!"

The men inside yanked me up from the floor by the hair.

"Scream. Come on, scream harder. Let your parents hear you."

I bit down hard, my mouth full of blood and foam.

But my ruined body no longer obeyed me. When the pain reached its limit, a ragged gasp tore from my throat.

My father finally snapped, roaring, "Break that door down!"

Hearing the fight break out outside, I stretched my hand desperately toward the door.

"Dad... save me..."

But the next second, several bodyguards whipped out batons in unison, blocking them all.

Adrian's voice turned cold. "Robert Brooks, are you really planning to fight me today?"

My father laughed, and the sound was uglier than a cry.

"If I'd wanted to fight you, I wouldn't have emptied my life savings to fund your company. I spent half my life with my head held high, never imagining that a young man I helped raise up would drive me to this.

"Right now I don't want anything else. I just want my daughter!"

Right then, someone suddenly let go of me and took two steps back.

"Why isn't she moving?

"Could it be... she's really not breathing?"

I lay sprawled on the ground. My vision slowly faded to grayish-white, my body feeling like it had been submerged in ice water.

All the surrounding sounds slowly receded.

I heard my mother sobbing like her heart would give out, heard my father shouting my name again and again from outside.

But I couldn't even lift a single finger.

It was just cold.

So cold it felt like I'd been frozen through, from the inside out.

*****

When I opened my eyes again, I was already standing.

But there was still a person lying on the ground.

Her hair was scattered across the floor, her face covered in blood, her clothes shredded beyond recognition... That was me.

I suddenly understood.

I was dead.

Those men realized something was wrong too, their faces going deathly pale.

"She's really dead!"

"Go! Now!"

They scrambled out through the back door, one of them losing a shoe, every man for himself.

This monstrous act could no longer be concealed.

The hallway was packed with people, everyone pointing their fingers in Adrian's face and cursing him.

"General Brooks gave you every cent of the retirement pay he earned, risking his life so you could build Prescott Group. In return, you threw his daughter into a place like this to be brutalized. Adrian Prescott, are you even human?"

"Stripping her clothes off in public at the annual meeting was already spitting in her face, but this time you sent your own wife straight to a brothel to be degraded by others—are you even a f*****g man!"

"Open the door right now, Mr. Prescott!"

I floated to the door and saw a dense, dark mass of people filling the hallway.

Adrian was overcome by a wave of immense fear—not because these people were cursing him, but because he suddenly realized... something terrible had really happened to me.

The silence behind the door was so terrifying it made his hair stand on end.

Adrian lunged for the door. If Evelyn was safe, he would send Sabrina away that very night and spend the rest of his life devoted to his wife alone. He would do anything.