Watching me through the window, drenched in blood, Joy let the corners of her lips curl upward. “What was that? I can't quite hear you~”

She turned to Maxwell with a wounded look. “I didn't ask for anything unreasonable. I almost ended up in the ICU, and Mrs. Farley won't even apologize.”

The sight of Joy's teary, pitiful expression dissolved whatever sliver of hesitation Maxwell had left.

He rubbed the top of her head, his voice dripping with tenderness.

“You little troublemaker. So what do you want to do about it?”

His tone was light, casual, as if he were discussing something that barely mattered. “Hmm, how about we loosen the chains another four inches? Let her get scared enough to cry, so you can blow off some steam. Sound good?”

The moment those words left his mouth, the maids in the house shuffled forward, one after another, pleading on my behalf.

“Sir, a pregnant woman can't handle that kind of fright. Please, spare her just this once. She's seven months along. That's your child too. And those are Tibetan Mastiffs in there. If they actually bite her……”

Maxwell's brow furrowed. He was silent for several seconds.

He seemed to think the screaming from inside the dark room was too raw, too agonized, and was about to agree when Joy let out a quiet, self-deprecating laugh.

“Oh, right……I almost forgot. This is the Farley house. The woman in there is Mrs. Farley. You're the real family. What am I, then……In the end, I'm the only villain here.”

She rubbed her reddened eyes and looked up at Maxwell. “But I just feel so wronged. Two months ago, if she hadn't faked a stomachache and called you home, I wouldn't have lost the baby. We had a child too, you know.”

Joy's voice carried clearly to my ears, and a sharp ringing filled my head.

My entire body went rigid. One phrase kept echoing through my skull: ‘We had a child too’. And then Maxwell's reply, soaked in aching tenderness: “We'll have another.”

No wonder Maxwell didn't care about this baby he'd spent five years waiting for.

No wonder he kept saying Joy deserved to vent.

The fainting, the ICU scare, it was all a pretext. They were pouring the grief of losing their child onto me.

But what had I done wrong?

The word "fine" caught in Maxwell's throat never made it out. He kissed Joy's forehead, his voice gentle.

“You're not an outsider.”

“Go adjust the chains. Vent however you want. I'm here. No one gets to say a word.”

A few of the maids, listening to the shrieks and the carnage coming from the dark room, tried to plead again. Maxwell silenced them with a single cold look.

“This house bears the Farley name. If any of you want to keep begging, you can pack your things and leave.”

He paused, then added, “Have the family doctor wait in the front courtyard.”

After that, none of the maids dared say another word.

Joy walked back to the control panel. The instant she released her grip, the Tibetan Mastiffs rushed me in a frenzy, knocking me flat.

She had unlatched every single collar.

The violence of that first surge of bites sent every vein in my body straining against my skin.

I fought to drag myself into a corner, using whatever strength I had left to shield my belly. But my hands, my arms, my legs were already torn beyond recognition.

Teeth kept ripping into me. Every inch I moved cost another strip of flesh wrenched away.

Blood seeped from everywhere at once, and every nerve screamed with a pain that went straight to the bone.

To keep them away from my stomach, I stopped fighting the rest of it, letting them have my body.

By the time I finally curled into a ball, there wasn't a single patch of skin left untouched. I looked like I had been washed in blood.

And my baby, inside me, had gone completely still.

Feeling the life drain out of my child, I screamed until my throat tore. “Maxwell Farley! My baby is dead! You killed him! You all deserve to die! When I get out, I will kill you with my own hands! I will make you suffer the way I'm suffering!”

My scream was so raw, so guttural, that Maxwell's face changed in an instant.

In the dead silence that followed, he walked toward the small window, seemingly wanting to check on my condition.

But the moment he opened it, Joy let out a sharp cry and collapsed to the floor.

Maxwell rushed to scoop her into his arms. “Joy, what's wrong? Where does it hurt?”

Joy pointed a trembling finger toward the dark room, her whole body so weak she looked on the verge of passing out. “Blood……I saw blood through the window just now. The mastiffs can't reach her, so why is there blood……”

“She hurt herself on purpose to make herself bleed, just to get to me. She knows I can't stand the sight of blood.”

“Maxwell, I feel so faint. Please, carry me somewhere to rest.”

Maxwell set Joy down on the chaise, but for once, he didn't stay beside her.

His brow furrowed. He pulled free of her grip and walked back toward the window.

When he saw me drenched in blood, my ruined body still being torn at by a pack of Tibetan Mastiffs, his pupils contracted to pinpoints.

This man who never let emotion show on his face nearly roared the order to open the door.

But just as someone moved to unlock it, Joy cried out again.

Maxwell turned back, irritation sharp on his face, and heard her say, “Maxwell, the company's stock has been in freefall for the past hour.”

“And……we've received termination notices on several major contracts……”

Maxwell went rigid.

He took the phone, and after reviewing the situation, his expression turned so dark it could have swallowed light.

He thought of what I'd said. ‘Someone's hurting me.’

He'd dismissed it as another ploy to win him back. But now……

“Doris, did you do this?”

“You don't have a brother. Who is that man?”

At those words, Joy perked up instantly.

“Maxwell, you felt guilty being with me, but maybe your dear wife already had someone on the side. Why else would a man go this far for her, even daring to cross Farley Group? You know she's an orphan. Where exactly did this 'brother' come from?”

She was getting more animated by the second. “Hm, come to think of it, maybe the baby isn't even yours. Five years with nothing, but the moment she's hiding some mystery 'brother,' she turns up pregnant?”

I looked at Maxwell through fading vision. The pathetic part was that he believed it. Every clumsy word of it.

He stopped the person reaching for the door and demanded in a cold voice, “Who is that man?”

I tried to speak, but blood surged up my throat instead.

The mastiffs were still tearing into me without restraint.

I couldn't hold on anymore. My hand dropped to the floor.

The instant my arms fell away from my stomach, several sets of fangs drove straight into my abdomen, and blood poured from my lower belly.

It seeped along the dark room floor and out through the gap beneath the door, blindingly red.

When I realized they would devour my child too, a sound ripped out of me that didn't feel human.

Outside, people screamed, “She's going to die in there!”

Maxwell had still been seething, but when that scream made him look down and he saw the blood pooling out from under the door, he froze.

He grabbed the nearest person in a panic, shouting, “Open it! Open the door!”

The maid scrambled to punch in the passcode, but halfway through, her fingers stopped.

She was shaking. “Mr. Farley, it won't open. The passcode isn't working.”

“The system's locked us out now. It can only be opened with a key, but……the key to the dark room is with the dog handler……”

“Get the dog handler to open it!”

No one moved behind him. Maxwell turned around and realized the dog handler was already gone.

Rage consumed him. “Where is the dog handler?”

“Who gave them permission to leave without my order?!”

Joy flinched and blurted out, “I thought they weren't needed here anymore, so I sent them to wait in the front hall. I'll go get them right now!”

Before she left, Joy glanced at me through the small window.

That glance held an undisguised, vicious grin and pure malice.

After she walked away, Maxwell stood with his brow furrowed tight, glancing again and again toward the dark room where I lay barely clinging to life.

I didn't know how long he waited before his patience snapped. Joy still hadn't returned. He erupted, “Where is she?! Go find out why the dog handler isn't here yet!”

Looking at me through the dark room window, drenched in blood, something like pain flickered across Maxwell's eyes.

Before long, Joy came running back in a breathless panic, tears already spilling down her cheeks. “The dog handler……the dog handler already left. He took the keys with him……”

The color drained from Maxwell's face.

He nearly lost his footing, his voice turning to ice. “Why would he leave?”

“Was it you? What did you do?!”

Joy's voice quavered with wounded innocence. “Maxwell, you don't trust me? Something this serious, how could I possibly interfere?”

She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with a stubborn little gesture.

Maxwell studied her for a long moment. And, laughably, he believed her.

He sent someone to track down the dog handler while pressing himself against the window to look at me. “Doris, just hold on a little longer. The key is coming. Just hang in there.”

Watching the ache written across his features, Joy spoke up. “It'll still be a while before the dog handler can get here. If this goes on much longer, Mrs. Farley will lose the will to survive……”

“The only thing we can do now is provoke her survival instinct, make her fight to hold on……”

Maxwell looked at Joy, then back at me, barely struggling anymore. “How do we provoke her?”

From an angle Maxwell couldn't see, Joy's lips curled. She stepped closer to the dark room. “Mrs. Farley, do you know why not a single person at the company dared to announce you when you visited last time?”

“Because I was in there.”

“When you pushed the door open, I was crouched under the desk.”

“That's why he seemed so distracted when he was chatting with you.”

“My favorite thing to wear is that red negligee from your closet. Every time I put it on, Maxwell can barely keep his hands off me. He calls me shameless, but he can't get enough.”

“And that nursery you decorated with your own hands? That's where Maxwell and I conceived our first child.”

“The window seat was too hard, so I used that little cotton jacket you stitched to cushion it. So that mystery stain on it,” she let out a soft laugh, “I think you know what that was.”

She asked me, “Does it hurt?”

Yes.

I wanted to kill them both.

That little cotton jacket, stitched over countless sleepless nights. I never even got to dress my baby in it.

Never even got to see his face, to tell him how much I loved him.

And now he was gone from me forever.

Tears blurred my vision. I dragged myself up from the pool of blood, fueled by nothing but hatred, and screamed with everything I had left. “Kill you! I'll have my brother kill every last one of you!”

The sound was raw, inhuman, like a vengeful ghost shrieking for blood.

Pain flashed through Maxwell's eyes. “Doris, don't say things you don't mean. Just hold on a little longer.”

The tearing at my body and the massive blood loss had already dragged my consciousness to the edge. I kept repeating it, barely aware of my own voice: ‘Kill you all.’

Maxwell pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose, his tone caught between pity and exasperation.

“Easy now. Stop talking. No one in the capital can touch me.”

The instant the words left his mouth, a single “bang” split the air and a bullet tore straight toward him.

A mist of blood erupted.

Over the sharp ringing that followed, a cold voice cut through from the doorway.

“That so?”