“Too bad I have an even simpler solution!”
I snatched the gun back, pulled Tabitha forward and pressed the barrel against her temple. “Release my brother.”
“You bitch! How dare you treat me like this?”
Tabitha cursed viciously, then instantly switched to a pitiful expression as she looked at Stephen.
“Stephen, save me!”
“Don’t move!”
I slammed the gun butt hard against her skull. “Release him! Or I’ll kill her!”
Seeing Stephen about to grab Xavier as a hostage, I took decisive action—firing a shot straight into Tabitha’s abdomen.
She collapsed like a pile of rotten mud. The splattering blood even landed in my eyes. I didn’t need to guess how horrifying I must feel.
“Will you release her or not?”
Stephen finally relented. His eyes bloodshot, he rushed forward and scooped Tabitha into his arms.
“Valerie, this is a fight to the death!”
To the death? What an unfamiliar phrase. From husband and wife to sworn enemies and it only took three years.
“Oke, fine! I’ll see it through to the end!”
Once Stephen and his men left, I immediately ordered my men to take Xavier abroad.
“I won’t go. What will you do without me?”
“Don’t be afraid. As long as you leave, they can’t use you to threaten me.”
Just as I’d anticipated, a week later, dozens of venomous snakes were released into Xavier’s hospital room. When Stephen brought Tabitha to witness the outcome, the final snake met its end beneath my blade.
Both of them wore expressions of disgust.
“Why? Why are you still here?”
Tabitha’s emotions were overwhelming, forcing Stephen to press her head against his chest and whisper soothingly.
“There, there. Don’t be afraid. I’ll protect you.”
She shouted, “Stephen, please kill her!”
“No!” Stephen refused instantly.
Disappointment washed over Tabitha, but she broke into a smile at his following words.
“She’s a shareholder in the company. It’ll be hard to explain if she dies, so let’s make her worthless first.”
Stephen’s revenge began. He brought Tabitha onto a talk show. Through his narrative, everything that had happened between him and me was pinned onto Tabitha.
He claimed Tabitha was the first person he’d ever fallen for at first sight. He spoke of past Christmases, of that year’s proposal.
As for me, I became the scapegoat, branded as the mistress everyone despised, all while wearing Tabitha’s persona.
When public outrage reached its peak, he targeted the subsidiary company registered in my name. He accused me of substandard materials, employee exploitation and gender discrimination.
My attempts to clarify were repeatedly suppressed, while the number of employees claiming to have been mistreated by me kept growing.
Within three days, the bank froze my assets, dragging the parent company’s stock price to rock bottom.
Stephen convened an emergency shareholders’ meeting overnight, demanding I sell my shares at a fire-sale price.
“I refuse.”
“Refuse?” Stephen’s index finger slid across the keyboard, pulling up multiple transaction records.
“Then what about your parents’ reputation?”
My parents were journalists. They died after exposing a child trafficking ring, killed in retaliation by the traffickers.
But in Stephen’s transactions, they were slandered as accomplices to the traffickers, responsible for the deaths of countless children.
“You don’t want them to be reviled even after death, do you?”
I snapped my head up to stare at him. The victim in that trafficking case had been Stephen himself.
As a child, he’d knelt before his parents’ graves and sworn to become an upright person. Why had he become this?
“As long as you hand over the shares, I’ll forgive and forget.”
“Don’t you remember them?”
“Who? Your parents?” He scoffed dismissively.
“Two small-time reporters who only exposed celebrity scandals? What’s there for me to care about?”
A violent buzzing echoed in my mind, the world before my eyes shattering like glass. What was there left to hold onto?
I asked myself, “What was there left to hold onto?”
“I’ll sign.”
The pen pierced the white paper, tearing apart everything between us.
“We’re done.”
“Done?” Stephen’s expression was a mocking smile.
“I told you before that you’re mine! Unless I’m dead, you won’t be free.”
“His property?”
Carrying my suitcase, I smiled contemptuously at the memories, then turned and boarded the flight abroad.
“I’m sorry, I belong only to myself.”
