Beneath The Servant's Apron

Chp 2

Chloe’s sinister words hung in the sterile air of the hospital room, freezing the blood in Lucas’s veins. The harsh fluorescent light cast jagged shadows across her cold face as she pulled out her phone, tapping the screen with a cruel, deliberate slow pace.

"I am not joking with you, Lucas," Chloe hissed, thrusting the glowing screen right into his swollen face. "One tap on this button, and the head nurse at the intensive care unit will walk over and pull the main power line to your mother's breathing machine. You have five seconds before she takes her very last breath."

A wave of terror crashed over Lucas, drowning out the agonizing throbbing in his fractured skull, his crushed hand, and his broken leg. 

He looked up at Elena one last time, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. He searched her cold, beautiful face, looking for even the smallest flicker of warmth, a single memory of the eight years he had devoted entirely to her.

“Do you really want this, Elena?” Lucas whispered. “After everything... do you really not love me at all?” 

Elena folded her arms tightly across her chest, tapping her designer high heel against the tile floor with extreme impatience. Her sharp gaze was devoid of any emotion, completely detached and icy.

"Stop whining and sign the papers already, Lucas!" Elena shouted, her shrill voice echoing off the concrete walls. "Stop using your petty injuries to manipulate me! You threw yourself at a car because you are stupid and careless. I don't owe you anything, and I certainly don't care about your useless mother. Sign the agreement right now!"

"Four seconds, Lucas!" Chloe called out, her thumb hovering directly over the call button. "Three seconds! Do you want to watch her die on video call?"

"No! Don't! I'll sign!!" Lucas sobbed out.“But do not regret it later”.

Elena hissed, her eyes narrowing with harsh disdain as she crossed her arms.

"Regret what?" she snapped mockingly. "What on earth is there for me to regret about losing a worthless, penniless man like you?" 

With his right hand trembling violently and fresh blood oozing through the white bandages wrapped around his fingers, Lucas grabbed the black pen. The plastic felt heavier than a mountain in his weak grasp.

He pressed the pen tip on the paper, every stroke of his signature tearing through his heart like a sharp blade. Blood dripped from his knuckles, smudging the crisp white legal paper as he forced his name across every single line.

The moment the last letter was finished, Chloe stepped forward with a loud, theatrical burst of applause. She clapped her hands together mockingly, her chuckles filling the room.

"Bravo! Congratulations, loser!" Chloe sneered, violently snatching the signed document right out from beneath his bleeding fingers. "Look at that, Elena! The parasite finally signed! You are officially free from this pathetic, penniless trash!"

Mrs. Raymond let out a dramatic sigh of relief, fanning her face with her jewelry-adorned hand. 

"Thank goodness! The dark cloud over our family has finally lifted! We can finally breathe clean air without this beggar polluting our house!"

Before Lucas could even wipe the tear-stained blood from his face, the door of the hospital room swung open.

A tall man stepped into the room, impeccably groomed and dressed in a tailored, custom Italian suit. A gold Rolex gleamed brightly on his wrist under the room lights, casting a blinding reflection across Lucas's bruised face.

It was Julian, the childhood lover Elena had constantly praised and compared Lucas against for years.

Julian walked straight past Lucas as if the injured man on the bed were nothing more than a pile of discarded trash. He glided over to Elena, smoothly wrapping his arm around her slender waist and pulling her possessively against his side.

Elena let out a bright, radiant smile that bloomed across her face. She leaned her head gently against Julian's broad shoulder, resting her hand over his chest.

"Julian, darling! You came!" Elena cooed softly, her tone dripping with sweet affection.

"Of course I came, my love," Julian replied softly, pressing a firm kiss against her forehead right in front of Lucas. "I couldn't let you deal with this useless trash all by yourself."

Julian turned his head toward the hospital bed, his eyes narrowing as he stared down at Lucas with disdain. A cruel, mocking smirk twisted his lips.

"So this is the famous house-husband?" Julian mocked aloud, letting out a soft, booming laugh. "Eight whole years of scrubbing floors, washing dishes, and cooking meals like a lowly house maid, only to end up broken and discarded on a filthy hospital bed. What a truly pitiful existence."

Lucas clenched his unbroken left fist against the rough bedsheets, his teeth grinding together in pure agony.

"Julian..."

"Don't speak my name with your filthy mouth!" Julian barked arrogantly, adjusting his suit jacket. "A penniless dog like you isn't worthy to even gaze at Elena, let alone be her husband. Do you have any idea who I am? I am the General Manager of Sterling Group—the company of the richest man in the whole world!"

Julian puffed out his chest, running a hand through his styled hair as he glanced around the room at the admiring faces of the Raymond family.

"I have spent years building connections across the globe," Julian bragged loudly. "My international network and corporate authority are light-years beyond anything a worthless loser like you could even comprehend in your wildest dreams. It was my influence that single-handedly pushed Elena's company into the city's top ten!"

Elena beamed with pride, clinging tighter to Julian’s arm as if he were a divine savior who had descended from the heavens.

"He's right!" Elena announced proudly, turning to face Chloe and her parents with glowing eyes. "Sterling Group is currently preparing a proposed two-billion-dollar master supply-chain contract specifically for my company! Two billion dollars!"

Raymond gasped in pure awe, his eyes widening to the size of saucers. "Two billion?! That is astronomical!"

"Yes!" Elena yelled triumphantly, her voice filled with arrogant delight. "Once that paper is finalized tomorrow morning, I will officially become the richest, most powerful woman in the entire province! I will stand at the absolute pinnacle of high society! I do not have a single, solitary regret for divorcing this pathetic worm! In fact, throwing him out of my life is the absolute best decision I have ever made!"

Lucas stared at her in utter disbelief, his heart shattering into millions of fragments. 

"Elena..." Lucas whispered, his trembling voice barely audible over the sound of her family's joyous giggles. "Does eight years... mean absolutely nothing to you? Does money, power, and high status truly matter more than genuine love, devotion, and loyalty?"

Elena scoffed loudly, her face twisting into an expression of intense, sickening disgust, as if the word 'love' coming from his mouth was an insult to her ears.

"Love?!" Elena snapped back viciously, stepping right up to the edge of his bed. "Only a poor, naive loser like you would sit on a broken bed and babble about 'true love'! Love cannot buy luxury villas! Love cannot drive high-end sports cars! Love cannot command respect from a billionaire!"

She poked her manicured finger violently into Lucas's bandaged chest, right over his cracked sternum, making him gasp in agony.

"You are poor, Lucas!" Elena shouted directly into his face. "You are weak! You have zero status, zero wealth, and zero future! I will not waste another single second of my life tied down to a helpless, useless nobody who has absolutely nothing to offer me!"

Julian chuckled darkly, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a tall, insulated travel mug filled to the brim with steaming, scalding hot black coffee he had purchased on his way inside.

"Here, my love," Julian said smoothly, handing the thermal cup directly to Elena with a wicked grin. "Why don't you help your ex-husband wake up from his pathetic little daydream?"

Elena took the cup without a moment of hesitation. Her eyes gleamed with malice as she looked down at Lucas's trembling, bandaged body.

"Consider this your final farewell gift from me, Lucas," Elena whispered coldly.

With a sudden, violent flick of her wrist, Elena poured the entire cup of boiling black coffee directly over Lucas's chest and open head wounds.

A scream tore from Lucas's lungs, echoing violently down the hospital corridor. The scalding liquid seeps instantly through his clean white gauze, burning his torn skin and blistering his raw, open wounds. He writhed frantically on the mattress, thrashing against the searing, unbearable pain.

Chloe clapped her hands in pure delight,a faint smile crisping at the corner of her lips..

"Look at him wriggling like a worm!" Chloe shrieked with laughter. "That's exactly where you belong, Lucas! In the trash!"

Raymond stepped forward with a scowl, raised his heavy boot, and violently kicked over the small bedside table. The plastic tray smashed against the floor, sending Lucas's prescribed pain medication and water pitcher shattering across the floor.

"Don't you dare think about using our money for your medical bills!" Raymond roared, kicking a pill bottle underneath the bed. "Rot and die right here for all we care!"

"Come, darling," Elena said smoothly, linking her arm back through Julian's. "We have a two-billion-dollar contract to celebrate. Let's leave this pathetic loser to wallow in his own filth."

Without a single glance, the family turned on their heels and strutted triumphantly out of the room, their cruel laughter fading down the quiet hallway.

Lucas lay on the bed, gasping for air, his chest smoldering under the hot coffee-soaked bandages. Tears of pain and humiliation blurred his vision as he stared blankly up at the ceiling tile.

Ten minutes passed in painful silence before quick, urgent footsteps hurried down the corridor. The door pushed open, and a woman dressed in an exquisite designer business suit stepped inside.

It was Natalie, the Secretary of Sterling Group—the highest-ranking executive under the Chairman himself and one of the few people who knows his true identity.

She had arrived at the hospital to conduct a private, emergency briefing with her boss. But the second her eyes fell upon the horrifying scene inside the room, her briefcase dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.

"Chairman!" Natalie gasped out, her face draining of all color as she rushed to the side of the bed. "Good heavens! Sir, what happened to you?!"

She saw the blistering coffee burns, the fresh blood soaking through his ruined bandages, and the shattered pills scattered across the wet floor.

"Who did this to you?!" Natalie demanded, her voice trembling with intense rage and fear. "The Raymond family, right?! I will call the Chief of Police this instant! I will have the entire armed police force storm this hospital and drag them to prison!"

"No... Natalie... stop," Lucas rasped out weakly, lifting his bruised left hand to stay in her arm. "Do not... call the police."

Natalie stared at him in utter shock, her hands trembling as she pulled clean medical wipes from her purse to gently dab around his burned skin.

"Sir... why?" Natalie wept softly, unable to comprehend his restraint. "You are the owner of Sterling Group! You are the richest, most powerful man on the face of the earth! You possess wealth that can buy entire nations! Why endured eight years of horrific abuse from that wretched family?!"

Lucas let out a faint, bitter laugh.

"I hid it... because I wanted to find true love, Natalie," Lucas whispered softly, staring blankly at the stained wall. “I wanted a wife who would love me simply for who I am as a human being, not for my bank accounts or my luxury mansions. I wanted unconditional loyalty."

He paused, coughing weakly as a sharp pain flared up in his bruised lungs. 

"When I met Elena eight years ago, her family's company was completely bankrupt," Lucas whispered. "They were drowning in debt, hunted by loan sharks. From the shadows, I directed multi-million-dollar contracts to her desk. I built her business stone by stone, elevating it from the gutter into a top-ten corporate giant in this city."

His chest heaved with bitter agony. 

"I washed her feet, I cooked her meals, and I swallowed every insult from her parents, all because I foolishly believed that deep down, she cared for me, cherished me and loved me. But the moment she gained a tiny taste of success, she threw me away like a dog."

Natalie wiped her eyes in pity.  

"They are absolute monsters, Sir," Natalie said, her voice trembling with barely contained fury. "They do not deserve a single crumb of your mercy. You are supposed to..."

Before she could finish her sentence, the sharp, shrill ring of a mobile phone shattered the heavy silence of the room.

Natalie froze. She quickly reached into her coat and pulled out her phone. Her eyebrows knitted together in deep surprise and unease as she stared at the glowing screen.

"It's Dr. Adam," Natalie murmured, her gaze darting anxiously to Lucas before placing the phone against her ear. "Hello?" 

As the voice on the other end began to speak, the color rapidly drained from Natalie's face. Her jaw dropped open in pure horror, and her hand began to tremble violently.

"What... what did you just say?!" Natalie gasped out, her voice cracking with terror.

Lucas's eyes snapped open instantly. 

"Natalie..." Lucas asked, his voice shaking uncontrollably. "Natalie, what is it?! What happened to my mother?!"

Natalie lowered the phone with a shaking hand, looking at Lucas with eyes brimming with tearful devastation and absolute disbelief.

"Chairman..." Natalie stuttered out, struggling to force the horrific words past her lips. "The doctor just reported... five minutes ago, an unauthorized person used an override code to enter your mother's ICU ward..."

She choked back a sob. 

"They... they pulled the plug on her life support system!The emergency doctors are performing manual CPR right now, but... but she is dying!"

The world inside the room went completely black for Lucas. His knuckles turned stark white as he smashed his fists against the mattress frame.

"CHLOE!!! ELENA!!!" Lucas roared in anger.  "YOU DEVILS! I SIGNED THE PAPERS AND I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU WANTED! AND YOU STILL TRIED TO MURDER MY MOTHER?!"

Completely ignoring the pain, Lucas threw off the covers.

"MOTHER!" Lucas screamed out, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. "I'M COMING!"

"Chairman, no! Don't move!" Natalie shrieked, reaching out to stop him.

But It was already too late. Lucas slammed his full body weight down on his leg, his thigh shifted violently, snapping with an audible, sickening crack.

His leg buckled instantly under his weight. Lucas collapsed heavily on the floor, his body crashing hard against the sharp edge of the metal bed frame.

Blood burst through his leg bandages, pooling rapidly across the floor around him. 

Yet, despite the unimaginable physical torture, Lucas dug his bleeding fingernails into the floor, dragging his body forward inch by inch toward the doorway, his agonized screams echoing in the room.