Marian's entire body seized with shock. She stared at Herman, disbelief carved into every line of her face.

He pretended not to see the plea in her eyes. He turned his head away, and that silence was answer enough.

She opened her mouth to speak, but a slap cracked across her face and snapped her head to the side.

Brenda's shrill, contemptuous voice filled her ears.

“What kind of trash are you? You actually think you deserve to be Mrs. James? Take a good look in the mirror before you dream that big!”

“Get over here! Beat her!”

The words had barely left her mouth before several heavyset women rolled up their sleeves and closed in.

Before Marian could beg for mercy, the blows came down like hail.

Her back, her stomach, her shoulders. Every hit was savage and deliberate.

The pain tore through her limbs and spread to every nerve. Marian doubled over, biting down on her lip so hard she tasted copper, choking back the scream clawing up her throat.

Her strength drained away drop by drop. Her consciousness peeled loose from her body.

When Marian came to, she was lying on the floor of an abandoned warehouse.

A wrenching cramp rolled through her lower abdomen, followed by a hollow, sinking weight. Something warm and wet seeped down her inner thighs in a steady, terrible stream.

One of the women had stomped on her stomach over and over, grinding her heel in.

Marian knew what was happening. She just watched in silence.

Her chest felt ice-cold. She curled forward slowly, pressing her fist against her breastbone as hard as she could, and the pain spread inch by suffocating inch until it filled every part of her.

Once again, she had failed to protect her child.

Voices drifted in from outside the door. The same women.

“Did we……go too far just now? The way she looked, I think she might have miscarried……”

“Good riddance! Even if she'd carried it to term, it'd be nothing but a bastard. The James family would never claim it. A shameless homewrecker like her doesn't deserve to carry James blood.”

“Mr. James said it himself. Only Miss Fox is the rightful Mrs. James. That Marian Pruitt is just some mistress he kept on the side.”

The moment their voices fell away, the sky exploded with fireworks, enormous blooms of color bursting one after another.

Two envious gasps followed.

“So the rumors were true. Mr. James really is devoted to Miss Fox. Apparently he's setting off fireworks over the harbor tonight after the proposal.”

“No kidding. Yesterday he dropped eighty million dollars to donate a massive gold Buddha statue to a temple in Miss Fox's name. Said he wanted to build up her karma and have it blessed by thousands of worshippers.”

“And here we are, stuck babysitting the side piece. Just our luck.”

One of them spat in Marian's direction. “Disgusting.”

Marian's fingers curled inward. The blood between her legs pooled wider.

The fireworks kept erupting across the sky, massive clusters trailing white-hot embers that drifted down like burning snow.

The dry straw beside the warehouse caught first, a few licking flames that leapt and spread in seconds, devouring everything around them.

“Fire! It's on fire! Run!”

“What about her?”

“Forget her! If she dies, she dies. Mr. James won't blame us!”

The building crumbled in on itself with a chorus of snapping wood and roaring flame. Smoke filled Marian's lungs, dragging her under, and the edges of everything went soft and dark.

Survival instinct moved her hand before her mind could. She fumbled for her phone and dialed Herman's number.

It didn't go through. She called again. And again. On the fifth try, the line connected.

What she heard on the other end shocked her fully awake.

Sandra was pinned beneath someone, her voice breathy and petulant, half moaning and half indignant.

“You bastard……don't touch me!”

She let out a cold laugh. ：“I heard you had someone rough up Marian Pruitt. What new trick is this to win me over? After what her family did to mine back then, I bet you enjoyed every second of it.”

“I'm telling you right now, I will never bear your children. Not even if I die first.”

Herman's voice was languid, thick with desire.

“Why do you think I was ever with her? It was all for you. For your revenge. A piece of trash like that doesn't deserve to stand next to me.” He scoffed. “I had people beat her for a full year. Every time, they stopped just short of killing her. I kept her breathing so you could take your time with her later.”

He paused. When he spoke again, his tone dropped, heavy with possessive displeasure. “If you won't have my children, then whose will you have? If you let another man so much as touch you, I'll lock you away and I won't stop until you give me what I want.”

Before she could answer, he crushed his mouth over hers. “The only woman who will carry my children is you.”

The warehouse was swallowed whole by fire now, the blaze climbing higher and higher, but Marian felt nothing but cold. Cold all the way through, down to the marrow.

Enough, she told herself.

Why had she ever expected anything from him?

She hung up. She curled into herself and let the flames roll over her, burning until even her soul was ash.

Panicked screams and the wail of fire trucks shattered the stillness over Victoria Harbor.

When Marian opened her eyes, she was staring at the stark white ceiling of a hospital room. Deep in her throat, the raw, scorched ache of smoke still lingered. She realized the firefighters had pulled her out.

The door to her room slammed open.

Herman strode in. His gaze swept over her lying safely in bed, only a few strands of hair singed into slight curls by the fire.

There was no concern on his face. Only the look of a man whose suspicions had been confirmed.

His lips curled into a mocking arc, and his voice came out cold.

“Last night's fire. That was your little stunt, wasn't it? Playing the victim?”

Marian stared at him, genuinely baffled.

“The media out there is tearing Sandra apart. Dragging her name through the mud, saying she insisted on watching the fireworks and that's what caused the fire.”

He let out a derisive laugh, disgust plain in his eyes.

“Marian, you're as despicable as ever. Wasn't it enough, what you did to Sandra back then? You fabricated evidence to destroy the Fox family just to climb the ranks, and now you're pulling this?”

“All of this is just to get my attention, isn't it? Is there anything you won't stoop to?!”

Marian froze mid-step as she was getting out of bed. Something glacial settled behind her eyes.

The phone call from last night echoed through her mind. She let out a low, quiet laugh and tore away the last shred of civility between them.

“Me? Stage a fire? Herman, you're losing your mind.”

“The Fox family was trafficking human organs. The evidence was airtight. Ironclad. Do you have any idea how many organs they harvested? How many people died? And you still think they're innocent? You're nothing but a blind, heartless animal!”

She looked at him, and the light in her eyes dimmed inch by inch until nothing remained but barren indifference.

“And what would I gain from starting a fire? You? Sorry. I stopped loving you a long time ago.”

Her total indifference hit Herman like a blade between the ribs. A nameless agitation and fury churned inside him.

He couldn't tell if it was because she'd called him an animal, or because she said she didn't love him anymore.

He seized her wrist, teeth clenched so hard the words ground out.

“Good. Very good. Still talking back.”

“Today I'm giving Sandra the grandest wedding she deserves, and you will be there. You'll apologize to her. You'll be her bridesmaid.”

Without waiting for a response, he hauled her out of the hospital and dragged her, half-healed and stumbling, to the wedding venue.

His assistant came running up, face white with panic.

“Sir, Miss Fox has been taken hostage. Someone has a knife to her throat.”

Up on the wedding stage, Sandra stood in her bridal gown with a blade pressed against her neck by a one-eyed man.

The man was Sandra's former fiancé.

His single remaining eye burned with hatred.

“Herman James! You stole my woman, bankrupted me, and took my eye! Did you ever think this day would come?!”

“I'm here to take back everything that belongs to me!”

Herman's expression was ice. A cold smile cut across his face：“You want money? Fine.”

Without flinching, he ordered his assistant to tally every asset under his name.

The Hillside mansion, commercial properties across Harbor City, core holdings of the company. He kept raising the offer, and finally threw in half the shares of Sterling Enterprises itself, essentially handing over control of the entire empire.

Vincent Hale didn't budge.

Sandra broke down in tears. “Stop! Herman, stop!”

She choked out：“Forget about me! Let me pay for what we've done! Getting to be your bride for even one day was enough……”

Vincent threw his head back in a wild, unhinged laugh. “This filthy whore actually fell in love with you?!”

The blade dug deeper into Sandra's neck. Beads of blood welled up and slid down her skin.

Herman's face went white. He closed his eyes.

“Fine. Then I'll give you a woman in return.”

He raised his hand and pointed at Marian, who had been standing silently in the corner the entire time.

“My woman for yours. Is that enough?”

Vincent's single eye locked onto Marian, and a gleam of hunger lit up in it. He ran his tongue over his lips.

“You sure you can part with her, Mr. James?”

Herman shoved Marian forward. Not a second of hesitation.

“She's nobody.”

Vincent released Sandra without a fuss.

“Deal.”

Vincent wrenched Marian toward the car. She twisted around to look at Herman, disbelief etched across her face.

All she saw was him rushing forward, pulling Sandra into his arms, pressing his lips to her cheeks to kiss away her tears.

“Let go of me! Herman James! How could you do this to me!”

Marian fought with everything she had, but she was no match for Vincent's brute strength.

Her struggling earned her a savage backhand across the face.

“Shut the hell up, or I'll have my way with you right here in this car!”

In that instant, Marian went perfectly still. Her mind cleared like a switch had been thrown. She watched the scenery outside the window without a word, measuring every detail.

When the car wound along a cliffside road, she found her opening. She threw the door wide and hurled herself out, rolling down the slope and vanishing into the dense brush below.

Vincent cursed and searched for her, raging and swearing, combing the hillside until darkness swallowed the landscape. Finally, he gave up and drove away.

Marian stayed curled in the underbrush. When the night turned pitch black, she felt her way down the mountain road.

She flagged down a passing car, went straight to the airport, and boarded a red-eye flight out of Harbor City.

The plane climbed slowly into the sky. She gazed through the window at the neon glow of Harbor City shrinking below, reached up to smooth her tangled hair. Filthy and battered as she was, a smile finally broke across her face. A real one.

She was finally stepping into a new life.

Herman rushed Sandra to the hospital. She had fainted from shock, and the medical staff swarmed around her the moment they arrived.

But Herman's mind wasn't on Sandra. Not even close. A nameless agitation clawed at him, and no matter how hard he tried to shake it, the same image kept replaying behind his eyes: the look on Marian's face as that one-eyed man dragged her into the car. The last look she'd given him before the door slammed shut.

Cold. Hopeless. And a stillness so vast it swallowed everything……

His chest seized without warning, as though an invisible fist had closed around his heart and was squeezing the air from his lungs.

“Get the car.”

Herman wrenched his tie loose, gasping for breath.

“Send everyone. Every last person we have. Turn all of Harbor City upside down if you have to, but find Marian Pruitt and bring her back to me!”

His assistant flinched and scrambled to respond.

“Yes, Mr. James. I'll arrange it right away!”

He stole a glance at Herman before hurrying out.

In all the years he'd worked for the man, he had never seen Herman James lose his composure like this. Not even when Sandra was held at knifepoint had the man looked so unraveled.

Herman stood by the window, his fingertips pressed white against the sill.

He told himself he simply didn't want Marian to die so easily. She owed him. She owed Sandra. Those debts hadn't been paid.

But the dread rising in his chest, thick and suffocating, wasn't something logic could explain away.

Hours crawled past. The sky turned black.

His assistant burst through the door, face drained of color, voice shaking.

“Mr.……Mr. James……we found it”the vehicle. Only the vehicle!”

Herman spun around. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Where is she?!”

“In……in an abandoned warehouse at the bottom of the cliff”

Herman didn't stop for his coat. He was out the door before the sentence ended.

The car screamed up the mountain road, tires shrieking around every bend.

The warehouse was a wreck. Vincent lay crumpled on the floor in the middle of it, beaten to a pulp, barely breathing, ringed by bodyguards.

Herman kicked the door open and swept the room with his gaze. No sign of Marian anywhere.

The violence rolling off him thickened.

“Where is she?!”

Vincent lifted his head, slow and deliberate. He split his bloody mouth into a grin, his one good eye glinting with malice.

“Why does the young Master James still care about that woman?”

He coughed up a mouthful of blood, and his grin turned vicious.

“She really was something, though. Your woman. Finest piece I've ever had in my life.”

“I asked you where she is!”

Herman seized him by the collar and hauled him up, fist cocked back, trembling. One swing and the man's skull would cave in.

Vincent wheezed under the chokehold, but the deranged laughter wouldn't stop.

“Ha ha ha Haha! Dead……she's been dead for hours!”

“Ungrateful little thing tried to fight back, so I put her down right then and there! The body? Dumped it in the ocean. By now……there probably isn't even bone left!”

“You're lying!”

Herman's vision flooded red. His fist connected with Vincent's face full force, the impact flipping the man across the concrete.

“She's not dead! She can't be dead!”

The words tore out of him raw.

But his heart felt like it was being ripped in two with bare hands, blood rushing through the wound, and the pain drove tremors through every muscle in his body.

She hadn't finished paying for what she'd done. How dare she die.

How dare she just die like that.

Vincent lay facedown on the ground, coughing blood, twisting the knife on purpose.

“Why would I lie……? Didn't you say she meant nothing to you? That she was nobody? So what's with the heartbroken act now?”

“Right before she died, she was still calling your name. Too bad you were busy holding your precious little beauty. Couldn't hear a thing. Ha ha ha Haha! ”

Every word landed like a poisoned blade, buried to the hilt in Herman's chest.

Herman staggered back a step, slammed his palm against the wall to keep from falling, and tasted copper rising in his throat. A mouthful of blood spilled past his lips.

His assistant went white and rushed forward to steady him.

“Mr. James! Are you all right?!”

“Search……”

Herman's voice was wrecked, barely a rasp.

“Search everywhere……tear apart every inch of this city if you have to. I want her found. Alive or dead, I need proof!”

He refused to believe it.

He refused to believe that Marian Pruitt was gone.