The words landed like a knife to Ayla’s chest—sharp, brutal, and utterly unforgiving.
She stumbled back a step, staring at the man she had loved for more than ten years, her voice trembling with disbelief.
“Bennett… You actually think of me like that?”
She could no longer take it; tears finally burst from her eyes, spilling freely down her cheeks.
Only then did she realize—in Bennett’s eyes, this was the kind of woman he believed she was.
Behind him, Vayda stood silently, but a faint, almost invisible smile curved her lips.
Then, right on cue, she spoke up, her tone gentle on the surface yet laced with a quiet condescension. “Bennett, don’t be too upset. Maybe Ayla just can’t stand me. Who knows? If I left, maybe Aston wouldn’t have to suffer so much either.”
Bennett’s throat bobbed. For a moment, he seemed to struggle with the weight of his words.
“Ayla,” he finally said, his voice low, “I know you’re still holding a grudge. I’ve been planning a new wedding to make it up to you… But what you did today—you’ve really let me down.”
He paused, his jaw tightening. “This time, I have no choice. You need to learn a lesson.”
He turned coldly to the men standing behind him. “Take her to the sauna. No one opens that door without my permission. And have the dog put down.”
“No!” Ayla dropped to her knees with a thud, her hands clutching his trousers in desperation. “Don’t euthanize him! I’ll do anything, just let him live! Please, Bennett, I’m begging you!”
But he looked down at her with indifference, his lips pressed into a thin line. When he spoke again, his voice was devoid of emotion.
“He’s just a dog. If I say kill him, he’ll have to die.”
She stared up at his face blankly. As she turned to the poor dog and felt as though her heart had been torn open and left to bleed.
‘Gizmo… We raised him together before. To me, he’s become family. And Bennett—he cared for him for years too. There’s no way he doesn’t understand how deep that bond ran!’
“Gizmo attacked Aston,” he stressed. “That dog has to face the consequences.”
Bennett met Ayla’s gaze, unwavering. “I know you blame Aston for ruining the wedding, but you can’t take revenge on her like this.”
“Gizmo’s just a dog,” he repeated. “I’d known he would turn out to be this disobedient. I never would’ve brought him home in the first place.”
At that, Ayla felt as though she’d been plunged into ice water.
For a split second, she couldn’t even tell—was he still talking about the dog, or was he talking about her?
He didn’t remember how it had been that dog barking in the night that alerted them when he had a fever and collapsed.
Nor did he remember how, when an enemy showed up at their door, it was Gizmo that threw himself in front of her and saved her life.
Now, all of that meant nothing. In Bennett’s eyes, the dog had become nothing more than danger and nuisance.
Perhaps it was something in her eyes—a grief too raw to hide—that gave him pause. For a fleeting moment, a complicated emotion flickered through his expression.
But it was gone in an instant.
With a simple wave of his hand, two burly men stepped forward. One took Ayla’s left arm, the other her right, each gripping her tightly.
“No! Please! Don’t do this! Let go of me! Bennett!” she cried out, struggling against them.
But her protests fell on deaf ears. They dragged her down the hallway as she thrashed and kicked, her voice growing fainter with each step.
Just before she vanished from sight, she caught one last glimpse of Vayda.
She stood still, her lips curled into a small, satisfied smile, and her eyes sparkled with quiet triumph.
Following Bennett’s order, the two men threw Ayla into the sauna and slammed the door shut behind her. She heard the click of the lock, then silence as they walked away.
The air inside hit her like a wall—the temperature had been turned to its maximum. The heat pressed in from all sides, thick and stifling, choking the air from her lungs.
She pounded on the heavy wooden door with both fists, shouting hoarsely. ‘Help! Somebody help me! Please!”
But the only response she got was brutal silence and the realization that no one cared if she lived or died.
In Bennett’s world, only Vayda and Aston mattered.
The truth had been there all along, plain for anyone to see. But she ignored it—again and again.
Soon, sweat soaked through her clothes. Her legs gave out, and she slid to the floor, her back pressed against the scorching wooden wall. Yet even then, she felt no pain.
The cold inside her heart was far more unbearable than the blistering heat around her… even when the temperature continued to rise.
Each breath became harder than the last. Her vision began to blur, and her thoughts turned foggy.
Suddenly, a stabbing pain tore through her lower abdomen.
She gritted her teeth, forcing herself to call out toward the door once more.
At last, one of the security replied, though reluctantly.
“Ma’am… Sir Bennett took Ma’am Vayda and Sir Aston to the amusement park. Without his orders, we can’t let you out.”
With those words, despair crashed down on Ayla.
Slowly, she closed her eyes.
“Bennett…” she whispered. “That makes ninety-nine. I’ve repaid every bit of love you ever gave me. From now on… we owe each other… nothing.”
Her voice faded to a whisper. Then—nothing at all.
Her mind drifted, and her memories spilled forth like an old film reel playing behind her eyes.
She was ten, the day they first met. He had given her a thousand paper cranes he’d folded for his mother, a silly grin lighting up his childish face.
She was eighteen, walking home alone after a party when she was kidnapped. He’d searched for her through the night, finally holding her in his arms, sobbing as he slid a ring—his family’s symbol—onto her finger.
She was twenty-two when he proposed. After she said yes, he let tears stream down his face. Even now, people still teased him for crying like a baby.
‘But that Bennett I loved… He… He’s gone.’
That was her last thought before her vision dimmed.
But just before everything went black, she saw someone—blurry, indistinct—running toward her.
And then, her head dropped to her side. And then, darkness took her.
