Serena looked between Dad, who was fuming mad, and me, who was barely breathing.

In the end, she still walked toward me and said, "Your hand… I'll take you to the hospital first to get it treated."

The moment she finished speaking, Cody immediately bent over, clutching his stomach, his voice weak and strained as he cried out, "Serena… my stomach hurts."

"What? Don't be scared, Cody. I'll take you to the hospital right away!"

Serena carefully helped him up without sparing me another glance.

In a vicious, hostile voice, Dad instructed his bodyguards, "Deal with this. Don't let a certain monster get another chance to hurt Cody!"

With that, he and Mom quickly left, rushing to escort Cody to the hospital. In the blink of an eye, I was the only one left in this chaotic spectacle.

"See that? Who would ever care about a rapist?" The man from earlier crouched down, his fingernails digging into the wound on the back of my hand. "You did a pretty good job dodging earlier, didn't you? Why aren't you dodging now?"

Another man spat on my face. "A rapist like you should be hung up and lynched!"

They tied me to a wooden post in a splayed-out position before pulling out some needles and thread.

"Since he likes slandering people with that filthy mouth of his, we'll sew it shut for him! As for those hands, we'll crush every bone and destroy them completely!"

I resisted with all my might, only for them to slap me repeatedly in the face—at least 100 times.

One of the bodyguards felt so bad for me that he made a call to Dad.

"Sir, the civilians are currently assaulting Mr. Hector. Should we—"

"Why are you even calling me over something as unimportant as that?" Dad interrupted impatiently.

Serena and Mom's concerned voices came through the speaker. They were both fussing over Cody.

After a long pause, Dad added coldly, "I don't want to see a single article that damages Cody's reputation being released today. Let them do whatever they want to that monster. Just make sure he remains alive."

The thugs burst into laughter when they heard what Dad said.

"You heard that right, guys? We can do whatever we want!"

When the needle pierced through my lips, the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. Stitch by stitch, the thread dragged through my flesh, forcing my screams back down my throat. The steel needle moved back and forth across my upper and lower lips. In just a few passes, my mouth was filled with blood.

Then they raised a hammer again. Up and down it went until all the bones in my wrists and ankles were shattered.

But I couldn't even scream now. The only sounds that escaped were broken, muffled groans.

I don't know how long the torture lasted before they finally got bored and threw me into the freezing river. The rain was pouring, and the cold seeped deep into my bones.

I gritted my teeth until my molars cracked, pressed my chin against the riverbank, and dragged my body upward, inch by inch.

The phone screen glowed faintly in the rain. As I pressed the numbers to make a call, my stitched-up lips split open again, and blood dripped onto the screen.

One day, when I was in prison, that phone number appeared on my bed seemingly out of nowhere. It belonged to a man who said that as long as I agreed to work with him, I could clear my name.

"Hello?" I opened my mouth, letting blood and rain flow down my throat together. "I'm taking your offer."

My voice was so hoarse it no longer sounded like it came from a human.

"Name your terms. I want to send them straight to hell."