I bow to the heavens as well.
If, one day, Maggie Westbrook could forgive me.
If one day she would come back into my arms.
I promise I will change, become good, and never kill again. Now, Samuel is the ruler of Harbor City, the owner of this casino.
He can reattach a severed finger and abandon old vows.
He can let his lover trample whole stacks of photographs.
But I cannot.
I want to build a blessed life for my child.
I want to bury these old wounds behind us.
Then I can take our child to a place without strife or betrayal and live out the rest of my days.
Samuel refused the divorce.
Not because he was unwilling to let her go.
But because his little girl called, suddenly saying she was afraid of the dark.
He dashed over, barely letting me finish a sentence.
That impatient bastard could not wait to send me a taunting video.
In the bright, spotless, floor-to-ceiling window light, Samuel was half-kneeling, washing her feet.
I knew this house.
When Samuel and I first came to Harbor City to make a living, we stood at the base of this building and looked up.
I had imagined standing by that window, sharing this view with my lover, and dying without regrets. Now Samuel could buy the whole building.
But the woman who lived there was not me.
More than a decade of blood and violence could not withstand the gentleness laid before my eyes.
I endured it again and again, but in the end, I could not.
I cleared the portraits, lit incense, and called a subordinate.
At dawn, a gift box arrived at Samuel's desk containing Serena Rowe's severed finger.
The blood, still wet, shone crimson and blurred the glittering ring.
Samuel's eyes burned with rage.
He bound the subordinate who worked for me and dragged him to me, saying sternly, "Sophia, this is going too far."
"Serena is just a child." "Child?" Those two light words stabbed my chest like a blade. I sneered and shook my head. Our child, our Maggie, is now buried underground. Every night I miss our daughter; every night Samuel is absent, I fear enemies hunting me. I fear Samuel, who hasn't yet returned, will be in danger. I fear he will suffer the same fate as Maggie. But what about him? He holds Serena Rowe and laughs at my frantic, wounded love. I clenched my fists and croaked, "Sign the divorce papers and I'll ...
"I'll cut off her fingers, her ears, her nose."
"I want to see whether her body or yours has more organs left." Samuel smiled with confident certainty. "You won't." "Sophia, I know you. You love me too much to tear us apart from a child."
Before he could finish, a girl's soft moan came over the line.
Samuel struck the man on the ground with one blow.
He hurried away, still longing for Serena Rowe.
After that incident, Samuel guarded Serena Rowe even more closely.
I held nothing back.
If I could not find her, I would destroy her.
In seven days, I hit thirty-seven docks and eighteen satellite casinos.
Wherever Serena Rowe had been, I smashed and burned it.
One day, while I was raiding a casino, my man called.
"Sophia, something terrible is happening! Someone is trying to demolish Miss Maggie's grave!"
"What?"
My eyes widened instantly, and I drove straight there, tires screaming, heart pounding like a drum. Memory after memory flashed — the child's laughter, the box, the silence. When I reached the cemetery gate, my hands shook, but my steps were steady. I would not let them desecrate her resting place. Not now, not ever. I promised myself blood for blood if anyone dared touch that grave. No second chance.
