“Are you trying to drive us to our deaths?!”
I knelt on the cold floor, slowly raising my head to look at them.
“You were the ones who sent me to that hotel.”
My voice was hoarse, like something broken and rusted.
“You knew what would happen once I got there.”
“Whore!”
My father’s hand came down hard. My head snapped to the side, a high-pitched ringing exploding in my ears.
My mother’s voice was like venom, each word spat with hatred.
“Shameless! Absolutely disgraceful!”
“If you'd died out there, it would've been better!”
The maids all kept their heads down, pretending they hadn’t seen a thing. The air felt frozen, thick with silence.
Father towered over me, sneering.
“Don’t you dare act like the victim. Who knows where you went whoring around last night?”
“Roland didn’t touch you, right? Then who the hell did you sleep with? Huh?”
“You don’t even know his name? Was it some stray dog off the street?”
I didn’t respond.
I only reached into my pocket, my fingers brushing against my phone.
From the moment I stepped foot into the Perkins house, I’d been recording.
Every vile word they said was captured, word for word.
That was when Sariyah finally descended from upstairs.
She was draped in expensive silk loungewear, her face painted with a mask of concern.
“Sis, how did things get this bad?” she cooed.
“Mom and Dad are furious. If you’d just come home earlier, maybe President Larson wouldn’t be so angry...”
She crouched down in front of me, her voice soft, but her eyes glittering with cruelty.
“But I guess it makes sense—someone like you probably sleeps with just about anyone, right?”
She leaned in close to my ear, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“Did you really think sleeping with some random man would save you?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
I lifted my head and stared at her, my chest burning with rage.
She was positively glowing with satisfaction, like she’d stepped right onto my most painful nerve.
“Do you even know how powerful the Larson family is?” she said, lips curling into a smug smile.
“Simon might be the one out front, but the real power lies with the Larson patriarch. If he wants you to marry in, even a dog would have to wag its tail.”
“But don’t feel too bitter about it.”
I lowered my eyes, refusing to give her the pleasure of a reaction.
But my knuckles whitened around the phone in my hand.
That night, the Perkins family locked me in the storage room on the farthest corner of the third floor.
The door was bolted from the outside, and the window was nailed shut.
Four walls pressing in, choking the air out of me.
—
The next morning, a servant brought in breakfast.
While they weren’t looking, I huddled in the corner and connected to the Perkins household’s WiFi.
The phone lit up. A financial news alert popped onto the screen.
[Heir to the Perez Corp, Shawn Perez, returns to America—capital restructure expected to shake the New York elite.]
I froze.
The photo showed a man in a dark suit, features sharp and cold. His gaze was piercing, his aura arrogant and commanding.
It felt like my chest had been slammed by a freight train.
Flashbacks from that night surged in my mind.
Cold sheets. Scalding breath. That low voice in the dark.
Suddenly, the door burst open.
Sariyah stood there in flawless loungewear and house slippers, gliding in like a queen.
Her gaze landed on the phone in my hands, and she let out a mocking laugh.
“Wow, you're already reading financial news this early?”
She leaned over to see the screen—and instantly burst out laughing, nearly spilling the milk in her hand.
“Shawn Perez?!”
It was like she’d just heard the joke of the century.
“You think you’re worthy of him?”
"A toad dreaming of swan meat.”
Sariyah inched closer and spat coldly, “Are you insane?”
