I woke up from a pain that drilled straight through my skull. A dull, throbbing ache at my temple mixed with a tearing sensation, and the moment I opened my eyes, tears surged up uncontrollably.
The smell of disinfectant was strong—so strong it tightened my throat and made my stomach churn. Instinctively, I lifted a hand to press the wound at my forehead, but my wrist hadn’t even reached halfway before someone slammed it down.
“Don’t move!” The nurse changing my dressing sounded urgent. Her fingers pressed on the IV in my wrist as she frowned. “Your line was just placed—if you move around, it’ll infiltrate. You got thirteen stitches on your forehead. The cut was deep. If you keep messing with it, it won’t heal well, and you’re going to scar.”
My hand froze in midair, my gaze drifting slowly to the IV bag above my head. The clear liquid dripped down the tube at a slow, steady pace, carrying a chill with it. I parted my lips—my throat was so dry and raw that every word scraped painfully.
“I… why am I in the hospital? Who brought me here?”
The nurse cleared up the tray as she answered casually, “Your boyfriend brought you in. He said you two had a fight, you got emotional, and you hit your own head with a vase. It caused quite a commotion.”
“He paid the hospital bill and left,” the nurse added, pausing briefly, her tone edged with helpless advice. “He said he had an urgent business engagement. He also specifically told me he hired a caregiver for you, so you can focus on healing. Honey, no matter how mad you get, you can’t gamble with your life. If that hit had been a little lower, your eye would’ve been in danger.”
Hit my own head?
My pupils shrank sharply. My fingertips turned ice-cold and started trembling—so much that even the fluid in the IV line felt like it had gone colder. Every word the nurse said hammered into my chest. I went cold all over, as if my blood had frozen solid.
I let out a low laugh. The sound was full of bleakness. Tears slid down my cheeks and dropped onto the white fabric of my hospital gown, blooming into a small wet stain.
So in his eyes, I was that kind of person—hysterical, unstable, pathetic?
All those years he claimed to treasure me, to hold me like something precious—so it had all been fake. I was nothing more than a stepping-stone in the relationship between him and Vanessa Bennett, something that could be sacrificed at any moment.
A ridiculous curiosity rose inside me: that “urgent business engagement” he mentioned… was he really by Vanessa’s side right now?
Were the two of them leaning together on a couch at this very moment, him gently blowing on the tiny cut on her fingertip, saying the same sweet words he once said only to me?
Enduring the stabbing pain in my forehead, I used my right hand—my free hand—to fumble for the phone on the bedside table. My fingers shook so badly that it took three tries for the fingerprint unlock to work.
I didn’t look at any unread messages. I went straight to social media, and Vanessa’s newest post was right at the top.
The caption was just one line, dripping with deliberate sweetness:
“Even if I’m not a princess, I can still meet a knight who’ll protect me with everything he’s got~”
Three photos were attached.
In the first, Vanessa sat on a sofa at home, slightly pouting, her right fingertips extended with a cartoon Band-Aid stuck on them. The wound was so shallow it looked like a tiny red dot—almost invisible.
In the second, Liam Foster knelt on one knee on the carpet, carefully cradling her hand as his brows knit tight, his eyes filled with pain and worry, as if she’d suffered some terrible injury.
In the third, the two of them posed together. Vanessa leaned against Liam’s shoulder, smiling. Liam’s gaze stayed glued to her face—soft, tender, devoted.
That look… had once belonged only to Clara Bennett.
I recognized it at a glance. The cut on Vanessa’s fingertip was from yesterday—when she smashed the vase into my head, and a shard of porcelain had accidentally nicked her.
I’d gotten thirteen stitches. Blood everywhere. I’d nearly died. And in his mouth, it became, “She hit her own head.”
But Vanessa’s tiny scratch—this barely-there wound—was enough to make him panic and ache, as if he wanted to place the entire world at her feet.
I stared at the screen, hard, until my fingertips turned white from the force and my knuckles creaked. The glow of the phone reflected in my reddened eyes. Every memory of being with Liam—every promise he’d made, every vow he’d sworn—stabbed into my heart like knives.
It hurt so badly I couldn’t breathe. My throat tightened until it felt blocked, and I couldn’t even make a sound.
I forced myself to breathe for a full half-minute before I finally swallowed down the choking lump in my throat.
Then I opened my photo album and pulled up the surveillance footage from the villa’s living room—something I’d installed a while ago, just in case Vanessa tried anything. A hidden micro-camera tucked behind a decorative piece.
On the video, Vanessa’s motion as she raised the vase and smashed it into me was crystal clear. So was her arrogant laugh afterward.
Once I confirmed the evidence was complete, I dialed the police without hesitation. My voice was hoarse, but every word came out unmistakably clear.
“Hello. I want to report an assault. Someone deliberately injured me, and I have complete surveillance footage as evidence.”
In less than an hour, the hospital room door was shoved open violently—bang—slamming against the wall and shattering the silence.
Liam walked in wearing a silver-gray suit, pressed perfectly flat. His shirt collar was buttoned, tie in place, hair combed immaculately—obviously he’d rushed over from some formal event.
But there was not a trace of worry on his face. Only blame—thick, heavy, impossible to miss.
The moment he stepped in, he barked at me, his voice low and harsh, full of impatience and anger.
“Clara Bennett, are you out of your mind? Vanessa is your half-sister! It was just a small dispute between sisters, and you actually called the police to accuse her of intentional injury? Are you trying to ruin her?”
“A small dispute?”
I leaned against the headboard and slowly lifted my gaze to him. There was no retreat in my eyes—only a cold, dead stillness. I tugged at the corner of my mouth. The movement pulled at the wound on my forehead, sending pain flaring through my skull, yet I didn’t care.
The sarcasm in my voice was impossible to hide.
“She smashed a heavy celadon porcelain vase into my head. I needed thirteen stitches. I almost died. And you call that a small dispute? Liam Foster—how far does your heart have to tilt? In your eyes, is my life really worth less than one of her fingers?”
Liam’s brows tightened further. His face darkened into something frightening, his tone hard and absolute.
“This really was Vanessa being impulsive. I already said something to her, and I told her to message you and apologize. We’re family—we’ll see each other every day. If this goes to the police station, it’ll damage everyone’s reputation—especially yours. You just came out of that kind of scandal. If you blow this up, who would still want you?”
He paused, then ordered as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“You’re calling the police right now to withdraw the report. This ends here. I’ll have Vanessa come visit you more—consider it compensation.”
“An apology? Compensation?”
It was like I’d heard the funniest joke. I suddenly laughed out loud—sharp and shrill—echoing through the quiet hospital room like something breaking. I laughed until tears poured down my face, until my chest ached from it, and only then did I stop.
I stared at Liam and asked, each word deliberate, cutting, unmistakable:
“I got thirteen stitches. I almost died by her hand. And a light, casual apology is supposed to erase all of that? Liam Foster, tell me—who exactly is she to you? The little sister I’m supposed to ‘let win,’ or the person you protect at the tip of your heart? Your tenderness toward her, your coldness toward me—how could it be any more obvious?”
Something in my words struck a nerve. A flicker of panic flashed through Liam’s eyes—too fast to hold onto—then anger swept over it.
He stepped forward, looming over me, the disgust in his voice completely unhidden.
“Don’t be ungrateful! I’m only taking care of Vanessa because of you. And instead of appreciating it, you’re maliciously twisting things and implying there’s something going on between us?”
“Clara Bennett, how did you become like this? So vicious, so petty—clinging to the smallest thing! Where did the gentle, sensible you go?”
“I’m vicious?”
I clenched the bedsheet beneath me so hard my knuckles turned white, the fabric crumpling into a tight knot. The grievance, rage, and pain I’d held down for far too long finally exploded.
I screamed until my throat burned, tears falling like broken pearls.
“Liam Foster! You turned Vanessa Bennett’s explicit photos into mine, shoved me onto the chopping block of the entire internet, let them call me promiscuous, say I was sick, say I might have HIV—then you publicly ended our engagement. And you didn’t think that was vicious?”
My voice shook with sobs, yet every word still landed clean and sharp, like a blade slicing through Liam’s hypocrisy.
“For her, you threw filth on me for the ninth time, destroyed my reputation and my dignity—and you didn’t think that was vicious?!”
I forced the words out through tears, my gaze burning into him.
“If you cared about Vanessa Bennett that much, why did you get with me in the first place? What was I to you? A stepping-stone for your relationship with her? Or just some disposable entertainment when you were bored?”
Liam looked as if he’d been punched. For a second, unease flashed across his face. He even took a half-step back, then forced himself to argue back, his voice no longer as firm as before.
“I… I was with you because I loved you! If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even bother with Vanessa!”
He paused, as if suddenly coming up with a way to “make it up” to me. His tone softened, but it carried a lofty arrogance, as if he were granting me something.
“I know you’ve suffered. I already called in favors and had the report withdrawn. You focus on healing. When you’re better, I’ll give you a grand wedding—consider it compensation.”
As he said it, his chin lifted slightly, smugness filling his eyes—like that wedding was some enormous gift, enough to erase all his betrayal and damage, enough to make me fall into grateful tears.
I looked at him like this, and my stomach twisted. The last lingering attachment I had to the past finally crumbled into ash.
Back then, he used to trail after me, eyes bright, clinging to me with boyish excitement, promising he’d marry me after graduation, promising he’d give me the grandest wedding in the world so everyone could bless us.
Back then, he sounded devout and sincere. He remembered the bouquets I loved, the dresses I liked. He would excitedly plan every detail with me as if giving me a wedding was the luckiest thing that could ever happen to him.
But now, the wedding he once begged to give me had become a tool—something to dismiss me, something to “compensate” me with.
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