### Chapter 4
Something snapped inside my head. I lunged forward and seized Alice's arm, gripping so hard my knuckles went white. "What do you mean it wasn't an accident? Explain yourself!"
In that instant, I understood. This woman wasn't insane. She hadn't lost her memory. Every single bit of it was deliberate.
"Please, Cecily, stop! Don't do this to me!"
Alice's voice transformed in a heartbeat. Terrified. Fragile. A trembling little doe cornered by a predator. Then she grabbed my wrist, angling her body as though I were the one shoving her, and threw herself headfirst into the wall.
Before I could even react, Dustin came charging out of nowhere and slammed into me. I hit the floor hard, the impact rattling through every organ in my body.
"Alice, are you okay?" His voice shook. His hands flew over her head, her face, her body, searching frantically for injuries.
"Oh God, she's lost her mind..." Alice curled into his arms, whimpering weakly. The posture, the expression, every micro-movement polished to perfection, as if she'd rehearsed it a thousand times.
"That vile woman attacked me," she sobbed, her voice choked with tears yet every syllable bitten off with surgical precision. "She grabbed my head and slammed it into the wall. She kept screaming that she's your wife. My head hurts so much..."
Tears streamed down her cheeks. So innocent. So pitiful.
Dustin turned to look at me. His gaze cut like a blade dragged across bare skin. I opened my mouth, but my throat sealed shut. Not a single word came out.
"I didn't," I finally managed, my voice cracking. "I didn't slam her. She did it to herself. She's lying!"
The fury in Dustin's eyes only deepened.
"So now you're calling her a liar? Calling my wife a liar?"
"Wife?" I couldn't stop myself from repeating the word. My expression must have been grotesque. "Dustin, who exactly is your wife?"
He shielded Alice behind him. Only her eyes were visible past his shoulder, fixed on me, glittering with undisguised triumph.
"Shut your mouth!" The rage in his dark pupils had become something uncontainable. "You've gone too far, Cecily. Alice is fragile enough as it is. How could you be this cruel to her?"
"She slammed herself into that wall!"
The words tore out of me in a ragged scream, my voice splitting apart.
Then I remembered what Alice had said moments ago. My head snapped up, and I couldn't stop myself from hurling the question at the bastard standing in front of me.
"My baby. The one I lost. Was that really an accident?!"
"Enough!" Dustin sucked in a breath and grabbed me by the collar, hauling me close. His voice dropped to a snarl only the two of us could hear.
"Whatever Alice told you, she's mentally unstable. You can't take the words of a deranged person seriously."
"That baby." His gaze cooled degree by degree until there was nothing left but ice. "You have no one to blame but yourself. You were pregnant and still went running around in the middle of the night. That's what caused the miscarriage. Who else is there to blame?"
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Did he really not know why I'd gone out that night?
It was this woman, this fraud playing her little madness charade, who had insulted one of his biggest clients to his face, called the man a backwater hick, and sent him storming out on the spot.
To salvage a deal worth hundreds of millions a year, I'd dragged myself out into the pouring rain in the dead of night to beg forgiveness.
I knelt outside that hotel entrance for three solid hours. My knees were raw and bleeding by the time the man finally relented, saying he'd give Delgado Group one more chance, for my sake alone.
And in Dustin's mouth, that became me "running around." Whatever warmth was left inside me turned to ash.
"Lately, you've really disappointed me." He looked down at me the way someone looks at a disobedient pet, his eyes brimming with nothing but impatience. "Someone take her to the basement. She can stay there until she's reflected on what she did wrong."
A violent tremor ripped through my body. Did he not know I was afraid of the dark?
I clutched the hem of his jacket, begging. "No! Dustin, don't you remember? I'm afraid of the dark."
After we married, once he found out about my fear, Dustin always left a light on for me no matter how late I came home. He never let me go near dark, cramped places like the basement.
Now he was going to lock me in there. For her.
Dustin pried my fingers off one by one, staring down at me from his full height. His voice held no trace of warmth. "Of course I remember."
"But if I don't do this, how will you ever learn your lesson? How will you stop tormenting Alice?"
No matter how I struggled, I couldn't earn a single look of mercy from him.
All he saw was that insignificant red mark on Alice's forehead.
He couldn't see the blood on my face. The swollen handprint. He could only see Alice.
A wretched laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
I gasped for air like a fish dragged onto dry land, my body limp, boneless, as the bodyguards hauled me into the basement and tossed me inside.
The heavy door groaned shut. In the last sliver of light, I saw Alice nestled in Dustin's arms, peering over his shoulder at me, her lips curving into a smile as sweet as it was venomous.
I closed my eyes in despair.
Darkness swallowed me whole. I spiraled into endless panic, endless terror, until consciousness slipped away entirely and everything went black.
