Chapter 4 Chapter 4

"Just visiting a friend," I said, my voice steady. I forced a casual tone, my heart pounding against my ribs. "She just had surgery."

Liam's eyes narrowed, scanning the empty room, the neatly made bed. He didn't believe me. He walked towards me, his gaze sharp and suspicious.

"Let me see your phone."

It wasn't a request. It was a command.

To give him my phone was to expose everything. The escape plan, Ethan, Nyx. I clutched it tighter.

"Why?" I asked, playing dumb. "Don't you trust me?"

He laughed, a short, humorless sound. "No."

I had prepared for this. I unlocked my phone and opened a chat window. It was a fake conversation I had created with a fictional friend, full of banal gossip and well-wishes for her supposed recovery. I held it out to him.

He snatched the phone from my hand, his grip rough. He scrolled through the fake chat, his eyes narrowed in concentration. As he leaned in to read, he stumbled slightly, his elbow knocking against the IV stand by the bed. It wobbled, the metal pole crashing against the bed frame with a loud clang.

I flinched, a phantom pain shooting through me as if my mother were still lying there. My concern was instinctive, a reflex. In that split second, I forgot she was safe. I forgot my own plan. I only saw the threat.

The sudden movement pulled at the fresh bruises on my arm from the mob attack. A sharp pain shot through me, and I couldn't suppress a wince.

Liam's eyes flickered to my face, then back to the empty bed. He saw the genuine flash of panic in my eyes. He knew.

He tossed my phone back at me, his suspicion gone, replaced by a cold certainty. "Stop playing games, Ava. Where is she?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my bruises, and dragged me out of the room. The pain was sharp, but I refused to cry out.

"What are you doing?" I demanded, struggling against his grip.

"Chloe needs your help," he said, pulling me down the hallway towards the elevators. "She's presenting a paper at the international symposium next week. A paper based on your research."

I stopped dead. My research. My notebook. He wanted me to hand over my life's work to that talentless fraud.

"No."

The word was quiet, but absolute.

He yanked me forward. "That wasn't a request."

A primal rage surged through me. I twisted in his grip and sank my teeth into his forearm. Hard.

He swore, his grip loosening for a second. It was enough. I tried to pull away, but he was faster. He slammed me against the wall, his body pinning me. One hand grabbed my jaw, forcing my head back. His face was inches from mine, his eyes blazing with fury.

"You've become a real animal, haven't you?" he hissed.

He reapplied his grip on my arm, his fingers like a vise. "This is what you owe her, Ava. A small price for the trouble you've caused."

There it was again. That twisted logic. My suffering as her reward.

"Let's end this, Liam," I said, my voice shaking with a mix of pain and fury. "The engagement, all of it. It's over."

He laughed in my face. "End it? Don't be stupid. The Vanderbilts and the Prestons don't just 'end' things. Our families are intertwined. Our engagement is a business arrangement. You are part of the deal."

He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "And don't forget who you are without me. You're nothing. A charity case I picked up out of the gutter. You gave up your PhD scholarship for me, remember? You have nothing and no one else to go to."

Every word was a calculated strike, designed to remind me of my dependency, of my past sacrifices. He was right. I had given up everything for him. And he was using it all as a weapon against me.

He dragged me into the elevator and down to the parking garage. He shoved me into his car and drove us to Chloe's office at the university hospital.

She was waiting for us, perched on her desk like a queen on her throne.

"There you are," she said, her voice dripping with condescension. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't be able to convince her, Liam."

Liam stood by the door, arms crossed, while Chloe pointed to a computer on a side desk. "All my notes are there. I just need you to organize them into a coherent presentation. My name is on it, but the work is yours. You have two hours."

Liam and Chloe stood together, watching me, a smug, united pair. They moved in perfect sync, their body language screaming intimacy and shared history.

I sat down at the computer. The desktop wallpaper was a photo of them. Liam and Chloe, laughing on a beach, his arms wrapped around her from behind. It was dated six months ago. The day of our second canceled wedding.

Chloe leaned over my shoulder, her perfume cloying and sweet. "Oh, dear," she said, her voice full of fake sympathy. "It seems you've accidentally deleted my primary research file. All my work... gone."

She immediately turned to Liam, her eyes welling with tears. "Liam, she did it on purpose! She's trying to sabotage me!"

"The file is time-stamped," I said calmly, not even looking at her. "The last access was three hours ago, from your IP address. I've been with Liam the whole time. It's impossible for me to have deleted it."

Liam didn't care about logic. He didn't care about the truth. He only saw Chloe's tears.

He strode across the room and slapped me.

The force of the blow snapped my head to the side, my cheek stinging.

"She would never lie to me," he snarled.

"Of course not," I said, tasting blood in my mouth. I looked him straight in the eye. "She's your precious Chloe. And I'm just the woman you happen to be engaged to."

"She needs to be taught a lesson, Liam," Chloe sobbed, clutching his arm.

"You're right," he said, his eyes cold and hard. "She does."

He grabbed my arm again, his grip even more brutal this time, and dragged me out of the office. "You're going to fix this," he said, his voice a low growl. "And you're going to learn some damn respect."