“You hit him?” Olivia screamed first. “Oh my God, you’re a psycho! How dare you slap Mr. Hargrave?”
Lochlan’s head had snapped sideways from the blow. A red handprint bloomed across his cheek. He slowly turned back toward me, rage radiating off him like wildfire.
He seized my wrist in a crushing grip. “You think you can lay hands on me?”
Then he turned to the security guards and barked, voice like poisoned steel, “What are you waiting for? Blind her.”
The pain in my wrist was excruciating and with the injuries to my head and eye, the whole world spun around me. In the scuffle, my encrypted phone—my lifeline—slipped from my grasp and clattered to the floor.
Olivia spotted it.
She raised her stiletto heel and smashed it down.
As she ground her foot into the device, she looked at me with a mocking smile. “Oops. Wasn’t this your emergency phone? Weren’t you trying to call in your backup?”
“What now? Still want to act tough?”
My heart dropped.
That phone held sensitive data—contacts, encrypted networks, access to critical medical systems. National secrets. Strategic resources.
She had no idea what she was stepping on.
Fueled by sheer panic, I yanked myself from Lochlan’s grip and threw myself forward, shielding the broken phone with my body.
Olivia just laughed, then kicked me hard in the back. “Look at her. Clawing for scraps like a mutt. Disgusting.”
“She’s definitely not fit to marry into the Hargrave Family.”
Lochlan looked down at me in revulsion and kicked me again, this time square in the shoulder.
“If it weren’t for my grandfather’s lapse in judgment, I’d never even consider someone like you.”
“Look at yourself. You think you deserve the Hargrave name?”
He turned to Olivia, tone suddenly sweet. “Don’t worry. I won’t let someone like her get close to you again.”
Blood ran down my arm as I hugged the remains of my phone. I raised my head, eyes blazing through the pain. “Lochlan, if you so much as lay a finger on my eyes, I swear—you’ll regret it.”
He laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d heard all day. He bent down and whispered just for me, “Regret? That word doesn’t exist in my vocabulary. You think you matter? If I want you gone from Ardelis, you’ll disappear.”
Then he stomped on my wrist again, preventing me from reaching for my broken glasses. “Let’s start with your eyes.”
I screamed as pain exploded through me. Blood from my head and eye blurred my world. Olivia giggled beside him, resting her arm in his.
“She really thought she had power. Look at her now—what a joke.”
As the guards closed in, I summoned the last of my strength. My fingers, trembling, found the emergency switch on the side of my ruined phone.
I pressed it.
The call connected instantly.
My father’s voice came through, urgent and steady. “Ingrid, is everything okay? I saw your location’s been stuck at a hospital. I’ve called three times. None went through. What’s happening?”
I choked on my tears, my voice a broken whisper. “Dad… my eyes…it hurts so bad…”
“What?!” His calm shattered, replaced with unfiltered rage. “That eye is a national asset. It’s meant to save lives, to pioneer breakthroughs! Who hurt you?! Which hospital?! I’m on my way with a team!”
Lochlan heard his voice. He froze.
Then he laughed. “National treasure? You think this is a TV drama?”
He grabbed the phone from me and screamed into the receiver, “You’re her father? Good. If you really think you’ve got any authority, come and prove it. I’m at St. Armand’s. Ardelis branch.”
His voice dropped to a cold, razor-sharp growl.
“Let’s see whose security team walks out standing—yours or mine. But just a heads-up… if you do show up, I’ll make sure you don’t leave in one piece.”
And with that, he smashed the phone to the ground and crushed it beneath his heel until it was nothing but fragments.
“You like calling for backup, huh?” Lochlan sneered, his tone mocking. “Then I guess I’m not going anywhere today.”
He turned, speaking loud and clear for the terrified hospital staff huddled nearby.
“Now, the whole city will see—no one challenges Lochlan Hargrave and walks away.”
Olivia clapped beside him like he was a hero. “Bravo, Mr. Hargrave!” she chirped. Then she turned her scorn on me, smug and venomous.
“Look at her now. Some mutt thinking she mattered. Pathetic.”
My vision blurred, the darkness swallowing up the edges of the room. My body gave out completely. Blood trickled from the gash on the back of my head and poured from my injured eye, pooling beneath me in deep red streams.
I forced myself to lift my head one last time, my hand trembling as I reached out toward the cluster of nurses frozen by the wall. My voice was faint. Barely a breath.
“Please… help me… stop the bleeding…”
But the so-called angels in white stood rooted in place, eyes wide and terrified. None of them dared to move. Not under Lochlan’s cold, murderous gaze.
