He slapped me again. Harder. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.
"Stop making excuses! You called her to the café. She drank the water you gave her. Are you suggesting she tried to kill her own baby?"
From the bed, Faith let out a weak, hiccupping sob. She looked fragile, the picture of innocence.
"John... don't blame Michelle." She wept softly. "She did it because she loves you. She's just jealous. I'm the one who upset her. If hurting me makes her feel better, I'll bear it. I don't want to come between you two."
As the last word left her lips, she went limp. Unconscious.
"Faith!" John rushed to her side, pressing the call button like a madman.
Only after the doctor confirmed she was stable did he turn back to me. His expression was cold. Devoid of any humanity. He signaled his bodyguards.
"Hold her down."
He pointed to the floor beside Faith's bed.
"Kneel. You aren't leaving this room until she wakes up and you beg for her forgiveness."
I hadn't done anything wrong. Faith was the murderer who killed my child. Why should I apologize to her?
John didn't care about the truth. He knew about my severe claustrophobia, yet he dragged me to the basement and shoved me inside. The heavy door slammed shut, sealing me in absolute darkness.
Panic clawed at my throat. I ignored the searing pain in my vocal cords and screamed, my voice cracking into a jagged rasp. I pounded on the door until my palms were raw and my strength failed me.
No matter how hard I begged, the silence remained unbroken. The darkness pressed against my chest, suffocating, heavy as lead.
John never opened the door.
In that suffocating void, the image of the man I had loved for eleven years didn't fade—it disintegrated, piece by piece, until nothing remained.
Then the world went black.
When I opened my eyes, blinding light flooded my vision. John had finally released me.
"Michelle, you are impossibly stubborn," he sneered, looming over me. "Still refusing to repent? Then take a look at this."
He shoved a tablet in my face. On the screen, a news headline flashed: Chapman Group Facing Imminent Collapse.
I frowned, confusion cutting through the haze. My father's company had been stable for years. I forced words through my damaged throat, the sound grating and ugly.
"John... you did this?"
His expression was terrifyingly calm. "This is the price of defiance."