“Do you realize the police recovered part of the crime scene footage? I saw the back of the woman who bribed the kidnappers and had Aina killed! It was her!” I shouted.
Zofia immediately shook her head like a rattling drum, tears streaming down her face. “It wasn’t me!”
Dominic could never stand to see Zofia getting harassed. In a single stride, he grabbed a wooden stool from beside him and smashed it over my head.
“Aah!”
I screamed as hot blood ran down the back of my neck. He seized me by the throat with one hand, lifted me off the ground and hurled me onto the shattered glass.
Then he pulled out his phone and called his assistant. “Bennie, go to the hospital and record a video of Aina. Send it to me.”
Hanging up, he narrowed his eyes, stepped over and stepping on my neck, grinding hard.
“Still want to run your mouth? Wonder if you'll keep going once I got the actual video.”
The pain had turned my whole body numb, my consciousness slowly fading. The choking made me feel the cold shadow of death creeping in—I couldn’t even speak.
Not long after, his phone rang. He put it on speaker.
“Mr. Gardner, bad news! The hospital says your daughter was never there.”
“What? She has a tracker on her. Find her!”
Dominic’s brow furrowed as he glanced at Zofia. He distinctly remembered telling her to take Aina to the hospital.
Zofia hadn’t expected Aina to bring a tracker around with her. Immediately, she panicked.
Zofia quickly gestured for Clementine to start packing their things, looking dejected as if she had suffered a great injustice.
“I really did take your daughter to the hospital, I even told her not to wander off. Hannah must have hid her daughter to frame me!”
Zofia then turned to me. “I know you’re angry about the kidnapping plan Nico and I came up with. I know you don’t want me and my daughter here. I’ll leave with Clem right now."
She continued, "It’s my fault—I should’ve listened to your warnings. Now you’re doing everything you can to ruin me.”
Dominic caught the implication instantly. “What did she threaten you with?”
Under his stare, Zofia pretended to hesitate before mumbling, “Hannah told me in private to stay away from you. She said she had plenty of ways to destroy my daughter’s future… She even called me and Clem worthless trash nobody wanted.”
By the end, she was sobbing uncontrollably.
“You… liar…” I managed to croak.
Dominic snapped. He yanked me up by the hair and dragged me across the floor until I was in front of Zofia. He forced my head down toward her feet.
“Zofia is the woman I treasure most. You have the guts to threaten her? Now, apologize!”
Meanwhile, his phone kept vibrating, but he had no time to notice.
“If you didn’t look a little like Zofia back then, do you think I would’ve taken the knife for you? Married you as a consolation prize?”
His words left me feeling as though I had been plunged into an ice cellar.
I clutched Aina's death certificate in my arms, refusing to let go, even as Dominic slammed my forehead into the floor until blood trickled down my face.
Through blurred vision, I saw Zofia’s lips curl in a faint smug smile.
I gave a bitter laugh.
So the man I thought had risked his life for me had never done it for love. I’d been nothing but Zofia’s stand-in.
Just as my consciousness began to slip away, tires screeched outside the gate. Dominic’s assistant burst in, looking frantic.
“Mr. Gardner! Why didn’t you answer your phone? I found your daughter’s trail.”
Bennie shot me a quick, pitying glance before continuing.
“The tracker was damaged, but I traced her with Mrs. Gardner near the awards venue. Then the signal vanished. I’ve got a team working on restoring the data now.”
