All I did was call the police. How was that going too far?

Where exactly had I gone too far?

I hurled my phone hard against the wall. The screen shattered instantly and it never made another sound.

When I got back to the apartment, Damien and Vanessa were already waiting at the door.

He froze for a second when he saw me, the anger in his eyes momentarily replaced by surprise.

"Where did you go? Why do you look like this?"

I had no intention of speaking to either of them.

I pulled out my key and went straight to unlock the door.

He frowned and yanked my shoulder roughly.

"Elena, what’s the point of blowing things out of proportion like this? I’m here to ask you, do you really want to make such a fuss? Are you saying you don’t want to be with me anymore?"

Hearing that, I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.

Was there even a 'we' left to go on with?

Because of my stubbornness, this relationship had cost my entire family their lives.

How could we possibly continue?

I tilted my head, letting tears fill my eyes. I didn’t know how to express what I was feeling,

So I just flailed my hands randomly to try to communicate.

But Damien didn’t understand. He grew more impatient and slapped my arm.

“Stop the gesturing! Are you mute or what? Enough with the nonsense, okay?”

His strength was heavy and after two days of no food and no sleep, my body was weak.

Caught off guard, I was spun around by the force and my forehead slammed against the wall nearby.

Stars flashed in my vision as I steadied myself against the wall, slowly sliding down to the floor.

When I lifted my hand from my forehead, I saw blood on my palm.

His voice suddenly cut off.

As he moved forward to help me, Vanessa grabbed him from behind.

“Damien, Elena’s emotions aren’t stable right now. You two probably can’t communicate well. Let me handle this. You go wait downstairs first.”

Damien hesitated, glanced at me twice, then obediently went downstairs.

Vanessa squatted down to meet my gaze, brushing aside the hair from my forehead with a finger, her voice dripping with mocking laughter.

“Elena, do you really think putting on this act to gain sympathy is worth it? You don’t actually believe Damien loves you, do you?”

“Let me tell you a little secret! Damien’s family never went bankrupt. The so-called bankruptcy back then was just them moving all their assets overseas. All these years, you’ve just been someone Damien amuses himself with when he’s bored!”

I stared at her in disbelief, unable to guess what was true or false in her words.

All these years, my whole family believed Damien’s family was truly bankrupt. We were afraid to upset him and always catered to his feelings, not even daring to mention the word “bankruptcy” during family conversations.

He kept testing my family with illness and accidents and we just thought he was insecure and lacked a sense of security.

Even though he scared me half to death every time, I never once complained about him.

But now, Vanessa told me that the Cole Family never went bankrupt from the start. So what was all my family’s accommodation and patience over the past six years worth?

I leaned against the wall and got up, numb, wanting to go back inside.

Vanessa grabbed me. “Elena, I advise you to break up with Damien as soon as possible. I know you only had the wedding ceremony. You never got the marriage certificate.”

“The whole ‘520 proposals’ thing is just an excuse for him to mess with you. Do you really think Damien would propose to you 520 times? How many has he done so far? If he really proposed 520 times, you’d be an old woman by then. Who do you think would want you then?”

I had no energy to argue with her, so I raised my hand to brush her off. But she suddenly gasped and fell backward onto the floor.

In less than a minute, Damien rushed up from downstairs.

Vanessa quickly got up from the floor and stood firmly between me and Damien, tears streaming down her face.

"Damien, don’t be impulsive. Elena’s just too angry. She didn’t mean to hit me."

At this point, I no longer had the energy to explain anything to Damien. How he saw me no longer mattered.

I turned and inserted the key into the lock.

The moment the door opened, Damien suppressed his anger and called my name.

“Elena, apologize!”

I didn’t stop walking. I went inside and firmly shut the door, cutting them both off outside.

Inside the cramped bedroom, my parents’ black-and-white photos were placed side by side on the makeshift bedside table.

I knelt in front of their portraits and slapped myself hard twice. It was my fault. I had poor judgment to fall for a man like him.

Now, the Hart Family’s company was ruined, my family was destroyed and only then did I realize I was nothing but a joke from beginning to end.

I didn’t know when I fell asleep. I was awakened by knocking at the door and it was already bright outside.

As soon as the door opened, the two policemen visibly relaxed.

They told me that out of the four suspects, only one had been caught so far. The other three had fled abroad early on and were in hiding.

When I followed them to identify the suspects, I saw Damien being brought in.

His hands were handcuffed and as he passed by me, his eyes were bloodshot.

“Elena, your love is nothing more than this!”

I didn’t look back and followed the officers into the interrogation observation room.

Through the glass, I saw the shortest of the four men.

The officers told me he claimed Damien had no idea my sister had ever been to the old warehouse.

At first, they cooperated with Damien just for the money. But when they saw how high the ransom Damien demanded from me was, greed took hold of them.

They thought, anyway, Damien wouldn’t dare report to the police—rich people play all sorts of games, but if he reported it, he’d be going down with them.

So that day, behind Damien’s back, they called me.

When my sister arrived at the old warehouse, those men had been drinking a bit. Seeing my pure and beautiful girl, they lost control.

Later, things went too far; when they saw my sister bleeding heavily, they panicked.

But before they could even tighten the belt, Damien arrived. They didn’t dare let Damien find out, so they left my sister lying alone in the old warehouse.

Afterwards, Damien asked them to help set up a proposal scene, saying that when I went to deliver the ransom, he would give me this surprise.

They were very nervous; at one point, they thought the person in the warehouse was me.

Until Damien finished and fell asleep in the car, they went to the old warehouse to look for my sister, but only saw blood everywhere.

The person was gone. Whether she was dead or had escaped, it terrified them deeply.

So they all agreed to split the money and fled abroad.

Only Damien, because he had family, left a bit later and was caught.

After leaving the interrogation room, I tremblingly wrote on a paper to ask the officers, “May I watch Damien’s interrogation?”

Normally, the answer would be no. But considering my special relationship with Damien and the fact that he didn’t know about my sister, they agreed.

In the interrogation room, Damien looked ashamed, his chest rising and falling repeatedly as if silently seething with anger.

It wasn’t until the police officers entered that he finally put on a very impatient, stern face and spoke, “I’ve said it many times already, I just wanted to give my wife a surprise. We didn’t do anything wrong. Can’t you understand human language?”

The officer slammed a folder onto the table, almost laughing out of anger. “A surprise? Do you even know someone died?”

Damien’s face stiffened, “Died… someone died?”

“Nonsense! How could I not know someone died? Besides, what does a dead person have to do with us?”

The officer raised an eyebrow at him and flipped open the file in front of him. “The deceased is Lily. She was raped and killed by your four accomplices when she went to deliver the ransom money to you. Do you still think this has nothing to do with you?”

Damien suddenly stood up, his face turning pale as white as a sheet. “What did you say? Who did you say died? Lily? That’s impossible! You’re lying to me, you must be lying…”