I watched my parents shuffle away with heavy hearts. As they disappeared from sight, the ringing phone in my hand pulled me back to reality.
"Ariel! I already heard about that scumbag Derek—are you okay now?" Gemma's anxious voice crackled through the receiver.
I reassured her softly, telling her not to worry about me and to focus on recovering from her own injuries.
"I told you to stop driving already... and now look—you're stuck in bed with those serious injuries, just staring at the ceiling."
A while ago, during one of Derek's business trips, Gemma had offered to stay with me for a while. On her way to my place, due to her poor driving skills, she accidentally hit someone. The victim had only suffered minor external injuries but was hospitalized for a few days to recover.
Gemma had stayed by the patient's side the entire time until he was discharged. She hadn't known his identity—only that he had a dark birthmark on his lower leg.
They thought the matter had been resolved quietly. But not long after, someone deliberately targeted Gemma. While she was home recovering, she was hit by a car in a vicious "accident" and knocked unconscious. The road had no surveillance cameras, and to this day, the truth remained a mystery. Gemma had no choice but to swallow the injustice.
It wasn’t until later that she discovered the man she had accidentally hit was someone from the Reed Group. Knowing how the Reed family operated—strict, calculating, and always repaying debts—she immediately suspected they were behind the hit-and-run. After all, her family had worked with them before, and the Reed Group was infamous for being ruthlessly fair and unforgiving.
“Wait—what?! That man was from the Reed family?” Gemma exclaimed in shock and sat upright in her hospital bed.
I could practically hear the gears in her mind turning. She had never understood why I insisted on taking the fall for Derek. Now she was starting to piece things together. Looking at the cast on her leg, she nodded silently with a complicated expression.
"Take care of yourself, Ariel," she said quietly. "Once I'm better, I'll come see you."
After I ended the call, my parents' words echoed in my mind.
"The victim has regained consciousness..."
A faint smile tugged at the corner of my lips. It was time for me to start playing my own chess game.
I had five minutes left before returning to my cell. I was about to dial a number on a slip of paper I'd been holding when the phone rang again.
"Gemma? What is it? Don't worry too much about me. I'll find my own way out."
Just as I was about to hang up, a deep, magnetic voice came through the line.
"Ariel. It's me."
My heart froze. I dropped the phone in shock.
"You're... you're really awake," I whispered, trying hard to suppress the surge of emotion welling up inside me.
Before he could reply, the visitation time ended. The call cut off automatically, and the phone was taken back by the guard.
Back in the cold, damp prison cell, I gripped the piece of paper with the number I never got to dial. My mind was already spinning—the next move had to be flawless.
Determined to earn another visitation opportunity, I decided to fully cooperate and maintain model behavior for the next few days.
That night, I lay in bed early, memories flooding my mind like a broken dam.
I thought about everything between me and Derek.
We met in our teens. I'd fallen for him at first sight. After months of pursuing him, we naturally became a couple—like fate itself had drawn us together.
On a warm summer day, he threw a surprise party. In front of all our friends and family, he knelt on one knee with flowers and a ring, vowing his future to me. We married on my 20th birthday.
"Ariel, you'll always be my one and only. I can't live without you."
"Ariel, hold on a little longer. I'm almost at the hospital. You and the baby must be okay!"
"Ariel, Cody's crying again. Can you look after him? I'm heading out."
"Take the kid away. Don't embarrass me in front of my drinking buddies!"
His words echoed like a tangled web in my head, each memory pulling me deeper into heartache. Sweat broke out on my forehead.
"Ariella! Wake up!"
The warden’s shout blared from the loudspeaker, yanking me from my restless sleep. I wiped the cold sweat from my brow and started another grueling day.
Even though I hadn’t been here long, some of the older women in the cell already couldn’t stand me. When I worked seriously, they’d mess with me on purpose. During meals, they’d dump their leftover scraps into my bowl. Before bed, they’d drench my mattress with urine.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I stormed over and yelled at them in fury.
But they didn’t back down—in fact, it fired them up. One of them suddenly slapped me hard across the face, knocking me to the floor.
