But even as I struggled, Sylus could not wait. His voice barked through Julius’s phone, impatient and irritated. “Hurry up, Julius. Charlotte will fall asleep again soon, and I don’t want to waste time.”
Julius hesitated, his gaze flickering with something he wanted to say, but held back.
I bit my lip, too drained to speak, and instead focused on keeping pace with the quickening steps. Each painful step forward felt like one step closer to the end of my life with Sylus.
As I stepped into the bedroom, I froze at the sight before me.
There, on the bed I used to share with Sylus, sat someone similar to me named Charlotte. Her eyes sparkling with joy as she played with the very pearl Xavier had so callously dug out of my stomach.
She twirled it between her fingers, the delicate pendant that had once adorned her childhood necklace.
That pearl was not just any trinket; it was Charlotte’s family heirloom, a pendant she had worn as a charm for as long as anyone could remember.
Years ago, she lost it just before leaving for abroad, and Sylus had found it and kept it.
With her return, he had eagerly planned to surprise her by hiding it inside a muffin.
However, the plan had gone awry when the maid, used to baking only for me, had mistakenly served the muffin to me instead. And I, unaware of its significance, had eaten it.
When Sylus realized the muffin was missing, panic must have gripped him. His search for me was frantic, not out of concern, but driven by the hope that I had not yet consumed the precious pearl.
But when he found me, it was too late. His only solution was to strike the nape of my neck, rendering me unconscious and sending me straight to Xavier’s cold, merciless operating table.
Seeing Charlotte comfortably seated on what had once been our bed, clutching the pearl that had caused me so much suffering, made a wave of nausea rise within me.
My stomach, still raw from Xavier’s rough handling, clenched with a sickening mix of pain and betrayal.
I covered my mouth to stifle the sickness, only to meet Sylus’s gaze, his eyes reflecting the all-too-familiar look of displeasure.
“I thought you got lost on your way here,” he said, his voice cold and indifferent, as if my suffering had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience.