If there really was some kind of misunderstanding, it could wait until tomorrow.
I looked at Lydia and forced my voice to stay even:
"I don't care who you are. There's clearly been a misunderstanding between us. I'm exhausted, and I need to rest."
I stepped around her and headed for the front door, ready to unlock it with facial recognition.
I never made it close enough. A searing pain ripped through my scalp.
Before I could react, I hit the ground hard, landing on my tailbone. The pain shot straight up my spine.
Lydia stood over me, her expression ice-cold:
"I told you, my mother bought this house for me. No strays allowed inside. Are you deaf?!"
"You really don't know when to quit, do you!"
Lydia snapped her fingers, summoning the butler behind her, and spat through clenched teeth:
"Drag this pathetic little tramp out of here!"
I looked from Lydia to the men standing behind her, and my stomach dropped.
A dark premonition forced me to take this seriously. I lifted my head and stared at her. "Who are you, really? Why are you here?"
By all logic, my mother's new villa should have been known only to me.
How had this woman found out about it?
Lydia looked at me as if I'd just told a joke, her lips curling into a sneer:
"If you don't know my mother, then surely you know Grayson Butler. CEO of Butler Technologies. And my father, who adores me more than anything."
Grayson Butler was my father. After the divorce, I'd taken my mother's surname. But I had never heard of him having another daughter.
Could she be illegitimate?
The moment that thought landed, whatever patience I had left evaporated. I pushed myself off the ground, walked straight to the door, and let the facial recognition scan my face. The lock clicked open.
As the gate slowly swung wide, the color drained from Lydia's face. Fury twisted her features, and she lunged at me, hand raised to slap me again.
"You thief! You stole my passcode!"
I caught the wrist of the woman thrashing in front of me and told her, flat and cold:
"My name is Astrid Chapman. I am Vanessa Chapman's only daughter. As for wherever you crawled out of to cause trouble, that's none of my concern."
"But right now, it's time for you to leave."
I held her wrist suspended in the air. Her face cycled between white and green, her eyes darting wildly, calculating something I couldn't read.
Then, suddenly, she laughed. A soft, breathy sound. Her eyes filled with mockery all over again:
"Astrid Chapman? I've never once seen you at the Chapman estate, and my mother has never mentioned you. You think making up a name is enough to scare me?"
"You're not the first woman who's tried this around Dominic. Do you have any idea what happened to the others?"
Lydia leaned in close, squeezing out a smile that made my skin crawl, and whispered a single word: "Snap."
My eyes went wide. The threat behind that sound was unmistakable.
Before I could respond, Lydia wrenched her hand free. She was done talking. She ordered the two men to drag me out by force.
Then she strolled back into the living room and poured herself a cup of tea.
I tried to reach for my phone, to call for help, to call the police if nothing else.
Marcus Lawson saw it coming. He seized my arm and twisted. My left hand broke with a wet, grinding crack.
Stars exploded behind my eyes. My whole body shook, involuntary and violent.
As a top graduate in biotechnology, my hands were my livelihood. They operated precision instruments. They could not afford a single fracture.
The pain bored into my bones, and for the first time, real panic clawed its way up my throat:
"Please, I'm begging you, don't break my hand!"
Lawson spat at my feet, grinning as he sneered:
"Where do shameless little nobodies like you come from? Don't you know this is Miss Butler's domain? She's the Chapman family's precious darling, their one and only princess. And you thought you could cross her?"
