From Doormat to Doomsday Billionaire!

Chapter 45: The audience

Paul had burst into the underground garage with a kitchen knife in his fist.

He looked like a man ready to kill. Everyone he passed hurried out of his path.

“What’s going on?”

“Is he going to fight someone to the death?”

“Did somebody steal his family’s food?”

At a time like this, what could be worse than having your food and water stolen?

Paul was too furious to notice any of it. He marched straight toward Rhys’s mansion.

He had seen Sara walk through that door with his own eyes. What else was there to understand?

“That bitch sold me out for food!”

The thought made him angrier. His hand shook around the handle.

He plunged into the long, black passage. His phone battery was dead, so he had no light. In his rage, he kept charging forward through the dark, slammed into  walls, cursing even louder.

At last, he found the steel door and started hammering it with the knife.

“Rhys! You motherfucker! You touched my wife! Get out here! I’ll hack you to pieces!”

The noise drew more and more neighbors.

“Is he looking for Rhys?”

“What could he have against Rhys? Did his wife cheat on him?”

“Not Sara…”

They traded glances. And suddenly everyone understood.

Sara was having an affair. And the man was Rhys.

The crowd felt a swirl of envy, jealousy, and even resentment. Sara was one of the prettiest women in the neighborhood, maybe the prettiest, with that mature, magnetic quality that turned heads. What man wouldn’t want her? But who ever got the chance?

And now she had walked to Rhys’s door on her own?

Hadn’t everyone said money was useless after the disaster? How was Rhys still living so well, with even Sara willing to visit him?

Curious, the crowd followed Paul down the passage, though nobody dared get too close. Not with a knife swinging.

Paul kept hacking at the door. Sparks flew where the blade bit into steel.

Inside, Sara heard the noise.

She forgot all about the shower. She rushed to Rhys, her hands trembling.

“Please. Let me out. Let me explain things to him!”

Rhys checked the security feed.

Paul stood outside, shouting and waving his knife. Farther down the passage, a crowd of neighbors had gathered like spectators at an execution.

Rhys sneered.

“If he’s determined to get himself killed, maybe I should play along.”

Click.

The steel door swung open, spilling warm light into the dark.

Paul instinctively covered his eyes. After so much blackness, the sudden brightness stung.

“Paul, listen to me!” Sara hurried out.

But Paul wasn’t prepared to listen.

“Bitch!”

Smack!

The slap rang down the corridor. Sara fell to the ground.

“You cheated on me!”

“No! We haven’t done anything this time!” she cried.

Paul didn’t believe a word.

“Nothing? Then why did you come here? Tell me where those noodles came from! Tell me where that water came from!”

Sara had no answer.

His fury doubled. He kicked her, and she curled up on the floor with a cry.

“Tell me! How many times?”

“I did it all for you!” Sara sobbed. “Why else would I come here? Didn’t I bring home the noodles you ate? The water you drank?”

It was exactly the wrong thing to say.

Paul lost control entirely.

“You’ve got the nerve to say that?”

To him, his wife was humiliating him in front of the whole neighborhood by announcing that he couldn’t even feed her.

He hit her several more times.

The crowd grew. Nobody stepped in. Nobody said a word. They simply stood there, a ring of silent faces in the dark, staring at a woman on the floor.

Sara lay curled on the concrete, aching all over, too weak to stand. Worse, everyone was watching. Her name was ruined. Her secret was dragged into the light.

And with Paul making such a scene, would Rhys ever agree to help her again? Would they just starve? Die of thirst?

That was when Rhys finally stepped out.

He carried a powerful flashlight. He aimed it straight into Paul’s eyes.

Paul flung up an arm to shield himself, blinking, half-blind.

“Rhys!” he screamed, tightening his grip on the knife. “You slept with my wife! How are you going to compensate me?”

Sara nearly fainted.

He said it out loud. How could she ever face anyone again?

“What compensation do you want?” Rhys asked mildly.

In truth, Sara had only come for a meal. Nothing else had happened yet. But since Paul had come looking for trouble, Rhys was happy to play along.

Paul’s greed showed right through his face.

“Give me this mansion,” he snarled, “and you can have that bitch! I’m sick of her anyway!”

She managed to bring back so many noodles and bottles of water, Which means Rhys must have much more. And the mansion still has power and heat! If Paul could take it, he’d never be cold or hungry again.

As for Sara, why keep a woman who had betrayed him? He’d throw her and her lover outside to freeze.

Sara went pale as if she’d been struck in the face.

Shame. Anger. Heartbreak. A bitter disappointment that cut deeper than any blow.

She had been completely devoted to Paul. Even when he’d gambled everything away, she had stayed. She had even sold herself to feed him.

And this was how he repaid her?

Dazed and hollow, she slid down the wall and sank to the floor.