I'd barely sat up when the door opened, and a woman in a bathrobe walked in.

[Just accept it, man. There's no way out now. Might as well relax and enjoy it. By the way, do we have to pay to watch what's about to happen?]

I took a slow breath. Then, following the lead the messages had given me, I reached out and started undoing her robe myself.

Seeing my resigned expression, the old woman burst into laughter, the fats on her body shaking.

"I'm going to enjoy every second of Yvette's husband."

The words had barely left her mouth when I moved. I pulled the fruit knife I'd hidden earlier from behind my back and drove it into her stomach.

She screamed and grabbed a fistful of my hair, then slammed my head against the wall.

"You monster! You want to die that badly?"

I bit down on the tip of my tongue. The sharp taste of blood cut through the fog in my head just enough. I jammed my fingers straight at her eyes with everything I had.

She stumbled back, and I ran for the door.

"Get him! Somebody get in here and beat him to death if you have to!"

The woman's furious screams echoed behind me, and my consciousness began to fade. I hadn't even managed to take two steps before I collapsed into a soft, fragrant embrace.

At the same time, a few gunshots rang out behind me.

In the blink of an eye, all the people chasing me had already been taken out.

I forced my eyes open and tried to make out the woman holding me, but the heat crawling through my body kept dragging my mind under. All I could do was fist my hand in her collar and rasp out the only words I had left.

"Help me. Please."

-

When I came back to myself, I was home.

My mother's palm cracked across my face before I could say a word. She slapped the table hard, again and again.

"You worthless boy. You let someone steal you away on your own wedding day. You could've at least had the decency to die out there. Instead, you crawl back here and expect me to look the Sinclair family in the eye? You've destroyed every shred of dignity this family had!"

Frederick rubbed my mother's back and shook his head at me with a look of quiet disappointment.

"Jonathan, if you didn't want to marry Yvette, you should've said so from the beginning. How could you let someone just take you like that? Now the whole city's talking about us. We're a joke."

Elaine stood off to the side and said nothing. She knew exactly what had happened, and she just stood there like it had nothing to do with her.

I pulled in a slow breath and kept my voice steady.

"I didn't do anything. I was set up."

"Set up?"

My mother hurled a cup at my head. "Look at yourself. Look at what's all over your neck and chest. And you want to stand there and tell me you were set up?"

I looked down. Red marks trailed from my collar all the way down to my chest, which made it impossible to pretend nothing had happened.

It wasn't a dream.

My mind went blank. The messages were already racing past.

[The more you explain right now, the worse it looks. Just point the finger at Frederick. Tell them this whole thing was his plan! You saw Elaine take that check, didn't you? Say it. Tell them she's been sleeping with Frederick behind everyone's backs. Tell them they're working together to take the family's money and they framed you to get you out of the way!]

My eyes went wide.

Because those were exactly the words I'd said last time. I'd come home broken and furious, and I'd said all of it.

I had hated them to the bone, but those words had utterly enraged Elaine. She locked me away in solitary confinement and later burned me alive.

My nails dug into my palms as I glared at them.

Frederick sighed and stepped forward, reaching down to help me up.

"Jonathan, I understand you're upset. But we're family. If you just tell us the truth, we can figure out how to help you."

"Tell you the truth about what?"

I shoved his hand away. "About how you married my mother while chasing after Yvette behind her back? Or about how I almost got killed taking the fall for you?"

"Enough!"

My mother kicked me hard in the shoulder. "You can't control yourself, and now you're pointing fingers at your own stepfather? You're disgusting."

Frederick pressed a hand to his chest and let out a long, wounded sigh. "I know Jonathan has never liked me. But if he's going to destroy my reputation like this, I don't see the point in going on."

That was all my mother needed to hear. She completely lost it. "Bring me my whip."

The Smith family had a punishment tradition—ninety-nine lashes. My father had once been beaten to death under that same rule. And now my mother was ready to use it on me, all for a man she'd picked up from a nightclub.

My heart sank completely. When I looked at my mother, all I felt was disappointment.

Elaine walked over and placed the barbed whip in my mother's hand without a word.

I forced myself off the floor through the pain. "If you won't believe me, pull the hotel security footage. See who deliberately sent the groomsmen away before I walked out. Go check whose account received a large deposit today. And then tell me whether I was set up!"

Elaine threw her phone down in front of me.

"I was trying to spare you some dignity, but you keep pushing. Fine. Open your eyes and take a good look. That's the security footage from the hotel room. Go ahead and tell me the person in that video isn't you."

The video played.

The sounds that came out of that phone filled the whole room. And the man pinned beneath the woman, face slack with pleasure, was me.

"No. That video is fake!"

I screamed it and hurled the phone at the wall. The sounds stopped.

Elaine let out a short, cold laugh. "The hotel staff said you used three condoms. We have physical evidence and witnesses. You still want to keep lying?"

My mother brought the whip down across my shoulder. "You shameless, disgusting boy. I won't stop until you're dead. That's a promise!"

The messages dropped all pretense as Frederick's real thoughts were right there on the screen.

[Idiot. You should've died a long time ago. If you'd just run as I told you to, none of this would've happened. You never had a chance against me.]

The whip had been soaked in salt water, and every lash felt like fire. I bit through my tongue trying not to make a sound, and the taste of blood spread thick and metallic across my mouth. I was on my hands and knees, and my shirt was soaked through with blood.

The room was full of people, and not one of them said a word in my defense. The only sound was the whip hitting my back.

But no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn't remember who that woman was.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Frederick's triumphant smile.

I hated it. I hated the fact that even after being reborn, I was still going to die at his hands.

I couldn't accept it.

But it was already too late.

My mother raised her whip high. Just as it was about to strike my face, a gunshot rang out from the doorway.

"Who gave you the right to lay a hand on my man?"