I Was Only His Substitute

Chapter 4

"The mole's gone. Are you happy?" Gloria asked with a smile.

"Who gave you permission?" Vincent gritted his teeth, his voice strained.

"Don't I look better now?" Ignoring his question, Gloria stepped forward and familiarly linked arms with Dora. "I think it makes me just as beautiful as Miss Stevens now, wouldn't you agree?"

"Ugh! You're disgusting! Don't touch me!" Dora shrieked, slapping Gloria's hand away and recoiling as if from contagion. "Who said we're alike? You're not even fit to stand beside me!"

A vein throbbed at Vincent's temple as he dragged Gloria face-to-face, his voice seething. "What are you playing at?"

"Learning to be a perfect stand-in!" Gloria said. Before Vincent could react, Gloria clung to his arm, her pinky tracing his palm lines.

Then she turned to Dora with a provocative grin—a perfect replica of Dora's signature smile.

The imitation was surgically precise, painfully glaring.

Dora felt unprecedented humiliation. Blind with rage, she snatched a gun from a bodyguard and aimed at Gloria.

"Go to hell!" she shrieked.

Instinctively, Vincent shifted to shield Gloria.

The protection only amplified Dora's fury. "You'd shield her? You'd actually shield her?!" Eyes bloodshot, Dora fired until the clip emptied into the floor at Vincent's feet.

"Fine! Spend your life with this mimic then!" Dora roared, hurling the gun at him.

The gun struck his forehead, blood immediately welling.

"I'm sorry, Dora. I'm sorry," Vincent whispered, ignoring the wound as he pulled her close. "Never again. No one is more important than you."

Gloria watched their struggle impassively, then smoothed her expression with both hands before approaching. "I forgot my place. How could I ever measure up to Miss Stevens? Vincent only..."

"Get out!" Seeing her own mannerisms mirrored on Gloria's face, the pampered princess broke into hysterical sobs. "I can't stand her! Make her disappear! Now!"

Vincent embraced Dora protectively, his gaze toward Gloria cutting like a scalpel. "Confine her to Lakeside Villa," he ordered the guards icily. "Shut off all utilities. No releases without my authorization."

"Understood!" The guards complied, hauling Gloria away.

"You really know how to punish me," Gloria remarked calmly as she passed them.

Vincent stiffened momentarily, unsettled by her pallid yet eerily composed face. But the unease vanished instantly. "You made your bed," he spat coldly.

*****

For the next month, Gloria was imprisoned in the pitch-black, cavernous villa, haunted day and night by childhood nightmares. She withered away at an alarming rate, her face turned ghostly pale, and her eyes grew clouded and vacant.

When Vincent saw Gloria again, her condition stunned him. The rose he'd painstakingly cultivated had ultimately withered in his hands, and this realization sent an inexplicable pang through his chest.

Gloria, as if clutching at a lifeline, threw herself at Vincent and wrapped her arms around his legs. A dangerous glint flickered through her eyes for just an instant as she pleaded in a trembling voice, "I'm sorry, Mr. Stevens. I was wrong. Please forgive me. Have Miss Stevens shoot me if she wants. Just don't lock me up anymore..."

Dora laughed at Gloria's pitiful state, using the tip of her shoe to lift Gloria's chin. Her sweet voice oozed with honeyed malice.

"Gloria, we're here to take you out. Are you prepared?"

Behind Gloria's terrified gaze lurked a glacial, fathomless cold.

'Now, are you prepared?'