There were no windows in the attic. Only a dim yellow bulb hung overhead, its light catching countless specks of dust floating in the air.

I was thrown onto the floor. Dirt clung to the open wounds on my knees, and I curled in on myself in pain.

The door locked with a click. From outside, Helena’s voice drifted in, clear through the wooden panels. “Luca, don’t be too harsh on Eva. What if she starves?”

“She brought this on herself.” Luca’s voice was cold and flat, completely emotionless. “When she admits her mistake, she’ll get to eat.”

Their footsteps grew distant. The attic fell silent.

I pressed a hand against the wall, trying to push myself up. However, the moment I put weight on my legs, pain stabbed deep into my knees.

The skin had already been scraped raw when they dragged me earlier. Blood stuck to my torn pants, tearing painfully with every movement I made.

I had no idea how long had passed before the lock suddenly clicked again.

Helena wheeled herself inside, holding a steaming porcelain bowl of soup.

She set the bowl on the floor and smiled gently. “Eva, I sneaked some soup in for you. Go on, drink it.”

However, I didn’t move and kept my gaze fixed on her. “What’s your game this time?”

“I just want to make peace,” she sighed, reaching toward me as if to help. “Maybe I remembered what happened wrongly back then. Don’t hate Luca. He’s only worried about me.”

I turned my head away from her hand. Before I could process anything else, I heard a crash.

The bowl shattered on the floor, spattering my pant leg with soup remains.

Helena jerked back instantly, her face draining of color. “Eva! How could you push me…”

The door slammed open.

Luca stormed in, eyes blazing the moment he saw the broken pieces and Helena’s pale face.

He crossed the room in seconds and slapped me hard.

The sharp crack echoed through the attic.

Half my face went numb, and a metallic taste filled my mouth as blood seeped from the corner of my lips.

“You dare push her?” He grabbed my collar and yanked me off the ground, choking me.

“Helena brought this for you out of kindness, and this is how you treat her?”

“She dropped it herself!” I struggled. The pain in my face was nothing compared to the cold settling in my heart. “Look carefully! There’s nothing near her wheelchair that could support me to stand up! How could I have touched her?”

“I saw you dodge her hand!” Luca roared, then shouted toward the door, “Bring the whip!”

A guard appeared almost instantly, handing over a leather whip tipped with metal spikes. It glinted under the attic light.

Luca took it, eyes sharp with fury. “Since you refuse to admit your wrongs, then you’ll learn through pain what you can and cannot do.”

The first strike landed across my back. My clothes tore open, and searing pain shot through every nerve, burning its way down my spine.

My whole body trembled, but I forced my head up. “Luca! Are you blind? She’s been lying to you all this time!”

“Still arguing?”

The second whip hit harder. I felt warm blood spread across my torn nightdress.

I bit my lip, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing me cry out. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Helena sitting in her wheelchair, her mouth curled in a tiny, smug smile.

The moment she noticed my gaze, she quickly masked it with a worried expression. “Luca, stop! You’ll kill her if you keep going!”

“She won’t die.” Luca didn’t even pause to land a third strike across my arm. “Today she’s going to learn what happens when she upsets you!”

A broken laugh scraped out of my throat, flecked with blood. “Luca, you’ll never know the truth in this lifetime. You’ll stay fooled by her forever, living inside her lies!”

He hesitated for a split second.

Something flickered in his eyes before anger swallowed it whole again.

He tossed the whip to the guard. “Keep going. Stop only when she apologizes.”

The lashes kept falling until the pain blurred into fog, but I never said the words he wanted.

I wasn’t wrong. Why should I apologize?

Ice-cold water crashed over my head, shocking me awake.

My back stung as the water hit the open lashes, and a violent shiver ran through me. My teeth wouldn’t stop chattering.

Luca stood in front of me, face dark with anger. “Helena almost suffocated just now. The doctor says she was scared. What did you say to her?”

I coughed twice, more blood slipping from the corner of my mouth. The metallic taste clung to my throat.

“Luca, when are you going to wake up? She’s faking it.”

“Faking?” He crouched down, grabbing my chin. “She’s been in a hospital bed for ten years. She can’t even walk. What would she gain from pretending?”

“What she gains is watching you destroy me!”

I met his eyes, finally shouting the truth I’d buried for a decade. “During the shootout, Marcus saw her go into the danger zone with someone from a rival family! He was your trusted man. Ask him!”

Luca’s expression flickered, then twisted into a cold sneer. “Marcus defected three years ago. You expect me to believe a traitor?”

“He didn’t defect. You threw him out!”

I tried to sit up, panic bubbling in my chest, but Luca shoved me flat against the floor. The wound on my back scraped against the ground, and a sharp hiss escaped me.

“He tried to tell you the truth back then, but you refused to listen! You said I bribed him! Luca, you just don’t have the courage to face what really happened!”

Before he could reply, a voice called from outside the door. “Don Vittori, Miss Helena feels unwell again. She says she wants to see you.”

He released me instantly and got up to walk out the door, not wanting to stay even a second longer.

At the doorway, he paused only long enough to leave one more threat. “Mention Marcus again, and I’ll throw you into the rival family’s territory myself. You won’t survive a day.”

The door locked shut, and silence swallowed the attic once more.

Pain burned across my back, but the cold inside me hurt worse.

Luca would never believe me unless I found proof. However, Marcus had vanished the moment Luca drove him out. Where was I supposed to look?

I didn’t know how long I lay there before the lock clicked again.

Helena wheeled herself in, holding a stack of papers.

She tossed them onto the floor in front of me. “This is the termination agreement. Go ahead and sign.”

I stared at her, stunned. “You would be so kind?”

“It’s not me being kind. Luca told me to bring it.” She smirked, pride gleaming in her eyes.

“He said that as long as you sign and leave the Vittori family, he won’t hold your past crimes against you. But…”

She paused, then pulled a knife from the side of her wheelchair and let it clatter to the floor in front of me. “You’re going to write a statement first. Admit you pushed me into the danger zone on purpose and caused my ten-year coma.”

“I’m not signing that.” I shoved the papers back toward her, my fingers trembling with anger.

“I won’t write lies about something I didn’t do.”

“Oh, you’ll write it.” Her expression darkened, and she said viciously, “Either write it, or I’ll cut myself and tell Luca you tried to kill me. Who do you think he’ll believe? You or me?”

I stared at the knife, then at her smug face, and laughed.

“You really think that’ll work? Helena, you’re wrong. Even if I die, I won’t sign your statement.”

Her expression twisted. She lunged forward, reaching for the papers.

Instinctively, my hand closed around something on the floor, a shard from the broken soup bowl. Its edge was still sharp.

The moment she came close, I lifted it and pressed it to my throat. “Don’t come any closer! One more step and I’ll end it right here!”

Helena froze, startled. “You’re insane.”

“Driven insane by you and Luca!” My hand trembled. The shard had already sliced my skin, and blood trickled down my neck. “If you tell Luca, I’ll say you tried to force me into writing a false confession and tried to kill me! Let’s see who he believes, then!”

She stared at the blood streaking down my neck and let out a cold laugh.

“You think he’d believe you? Even if you die, he’ll say you killed yourself out of guilt.”

Before I realized what she meant to do, she suddenly shoved the armrest of her wheelchair.

The chair shot forward, slamming into me.

The shard flew from my hand. My body was knocked backward, and my skull cracked hard against the sharp corner of the wall. A burst of pain exploded behind my eyes, and everything went black.

Before consciousness slipped away completely, I heard her taking photos with her phone and her trembling voice on the phone.

“Luca… Eva tried to kill me… She cut her own neck and said she wanted to drag me down with her…”

When I woke up, I was on a hospital bed, wrists strapped tightly to the rails.

Luca sat beside the bed, staring at me with a grim expression.

“Awake?” he said coldly. “Helena said you tried to kill her and even hurt yourself to threaten her.”

My head still throbbed from where the wheelchair had slammed into me.

I looked at him, and suddenly I laughed, feeling pathetic. “You actually believe that?”

“She has proof.” He tossed his phone onto my lap. On the screen was a photo of my neck bleeding, taken from an angle that made it look exactly like self-harm.

“What else do you have to say?”

“That photo was taken by her. She pushed the wheelchair. I never even touched her!”

I tried to reach for the phone, but the restraints dug harder into my skin. “Luca, can’t you just check the security footage? There’s a camera right outside the attic!”

“It’s broken.” His tone didn’t waver one bit. “The nurse said Helena got so scared that she needs an emergency transfusion, and you two have the same blood type.”

My heart dropped, and a cold jolt shot through me. “What are you planning to do?”

“Give her your blood.” He stood and called toward the door, “Doctor, come in.”

Two doctors pushed in a medical cart, syringes and blood bags gleaming under the lights.

I stared at the needle and struggled to be released. “I’m not donating anything! She’s faking it. She doesn’t need a transfusion!”

“You don’t get to decide.” He shoved my shoulders down, pinning me with enough force to crush bone.

His stare turned vicious. “Either you behave and give the blood, or I’ll go get your brother. He’s still in school, right? It’d be real easy for the Vittori family to make a student disappear.”

My whole body froze; tears finally welled up.

This was the one threat that could break me.

After all, my brother was my only family, and he was using him against me.

I stared at Luca, voice trembling. “Luca, I’ve been with you for ten years. Even if I didn’t do much for you, I never betrayed you. How could you do this to me?”

“Do what?” He laughed coldly, eyes full of disdain. “You put Helena in a coma for ten years. Whatever you did for me would never measure.”

The doctor slid the needle into my vein. Blood flowed out immediately, filling the bag vivid red.

I stared at it, then said, “Luca, you’re going to regret this.”

“I won’t.”

He turned away, already done with me. “Once you’re finished, you go back to the attic. You’ll stay there until you’re ready to admit what you did.”

My blood kept draining out, and my face grew paler. My head spun so badly I thought I might pass out again.

I closed my eyes, and Marcus’s face suddenly flashed in my mind.

Three years ago, when Luca drove him away, he’d slipped me an address and said, “If you’re ever in danger, come find me. I’ve hidden something that can clear your name.”

The doctors finally left after the blood transfusion.

Luca was still sitting beside me, looking down at his phone. Helena had just messaged him, and his lips curved into a soft smile.

He had never once shown that gentle expression to me before.

As I stared at him, I found myself filled with determination. I had to escape and find the evidence.

Late at night, Luca fell asleep in his chair.

Quietly, I touched the shard I’d pocketed in my palm earlier, still sharp and dangerous.

I used it to saw through the rope on my wrists. Since the rope had cut deep, every movement sent a stab of pain up my arm.

Barefoot, I slipped off the bed, stepped onto the cold floor, and out of the room.

The streets outside were quiet under the streetlights.

Though my back burned and my knees throbbed, I didn’t dare stop. As long as I reached Marcus, I still had a chance to escape.

However, right when I reached an intersection, a few men in black stepped out from an alley with guns raised and pointed straight at me.

It was Helena’s men, here to finish what she had started.

…