2026-05-13 16:19:46Two of the other bodyguards moved to her before she could take another step.
They were not rough but they were completely immovable, and within seconds Jenna found herself pinned, her arms locked, her feet barely touching the ground.
Mark found his voice again somewhere under the shock and the humiliation, and what came out of him was raw and ugly.
"I will kill you!" he screamed, spittle at the corner of his mouth, his eyes red. "Every single one of you! I will have your entire families wiped out, you hear me? You are all dead!"
Jenna, never one to be outdone, started screaming curses. Real ones, the kind that came from somewhere low and desperate, strung together in a breathless torrent aimed at Vivien, at the bodyguards, at anyone within range.
Vivien's face changed.
It was subtle. The composed mask did not crack exactly, but something behind her eyes went very still and very sharp, the way a person goes still when something crosses a line they cannot ignore.
Her grandfather was lying in a hospital bed right now, his body failing him, doctors standing around him with nothing useful to offer. And this woman on the ground was screaming curses at her family.
"A hundred times," Vivien said quietly.
One of the bodyguards looked at her. "Miss Holden?"
"Slap her," Vivien replied, her voice perfectly even. "A hundred times."
The color drained from Jenna's face immediately.
What followed was not quick. It was methodical and it was thorough, and Jenna went from screaming insults to screaming in pain to, eventually, sobbing and begging with her palms pressed flat against the floor.
"Stop, please, please stop, I am sorry, I am sorry, please."
Mark, who had been scrambling to his feet with the intention of rushing at Vivien, met two bodyguards before he got within three steps of her.
The struggle lasted about four seconds. When it was over, Mark was on the ground and one of his legs was bent at an angle that made it immediately obvious something had snapped.
His scream was long and high and genuine.
Edward had been standing in the doorway watching all of this with his arms loose at his sides and a slight frown pulling at his brow.
Not distress exactly. More the expression of a man watching something messy happen in a place he cared about.
He looked at Vivien. "Stop."
She glanced at him.
"This is the house my parents left me," he continued, his voice quiet and completely without drama. "I do not want their screaming in it. It is irritating." He tilted his head slightly toward the gate. "Make them leave."
Vivien held his gaze for a moment, then turned and gave the bodyguards a small nod.
The bodyguards stepped back.
Vivien looked down at Jenna, who was hunched on the ground with her hair loose and her face swollen, shaking visibly.
"You are leaving with your life," Vivien informed her, her voice carrying no satisfaction, just fact. "That is because of Mr. Harper. If it were my decision alone, you would be leaving without at least one hand." She straightened slightly. "Be grateful and do not come back."
Jenna did not argue. She could not even fully stand on her own.
She grabbed Mark's arm and dragged herself upright, and together they stumbled toward the gate, Mark half hopping and half dragging his broken leg, his face white and soaked with tears he was too proud to wipe away.
Nobody followed them.
They made it to the road outside the villa gates.
Jenna leaned against the wall, breathing hard, her hands shaking as she pushed her hair out of her face.
Mark slid down against the wall beside her, clutching his leg, his teeth grinding against the pain.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Jenna's hand moved to her pocket.
She pulled out her phone, her fingers clumsy and urgent, and dialed. It barely rang once before the other line picked up.
"Ken." Her voice broke on the first word, and the tears came flooding out of her all at once, messy and uncontrolled. "Ken, that criminal, that useless criminal Edward, he had someone break Mark's leg. He broke our son's leg, Ken. Come here right now. Come here right now!"
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Chapter 15: Let Him In
The elevator doors opened and Edward stepped out into the corridor, the bag steady in his hands. Peter and the old man were already there, waiting. The old man stood slightly apart from the group, his hands folded, his eyes half closed in the particular way of someone performing wisdom for an audience. He had the face of a man who had spent many years being introduced into rooms and enjoyed the moment of arrival more than anything that followed. Edward looked at him once. Something about the man made his brow pull together. Not recognition exactly. Just the instinct of someone who had spent years learning to read what people were actually made of underneath what they chose to show. Peter noticed Edward’s eyes on the old man and stepped forward with the smile of someone about to hand out a gift. “This,” Peter announced, his chin lifting slightly, “is the Medical Saint. The real one.” His eyes moved to Edward with pleasant contempt, the kind that does not even bother to sharpen it
Chapter 14: Unscientific
Josh stood in the corridor with his arms crossed and his eyes moving over Edward the way a man looks at something he has already decided is a waste of his time."Vivien." His voice came out clipped and hard. "Tell me you are not serious."Vivien kept her face composed. "I am completely serious, Josh.""This boy." Josh's chin lifted, his jaw tightening. "You called this boy? He looks like he just finished his university entrance exams. What does he know about medicine that my thirty years of experience does not?"Edward stood a step behind them, his face still, his hands loose at his sides. The irritation moved through him slow and quiet, the kind that did not need an audience.Josh turned to look at him directly, his gaze dragging upward from Edward's shoes like he was pricing something secondhand."How old are you?" Josh asked."Old enough," Edward replied.Josh made a short sound through his nose. "Vivien, I have treated heads of state. I have treated people whose names are printed
Chapter 13: Who is real?
The pieces connected in Eliza's mind slowly, then all at once.She stood at the foot of Mark's hospital bed and looked at the wall without seeing it, her thoughts moving backward through the afternoon.The VIP floor completely reserved. Every ward sealed off. The staff stepping carefully around the name they had eventually given her.The Holden family.And the Holden family head was ill. Ill enough that the best hospital in the city had handed over an entire floor without negotiation.She straightened slightly, something behind her eyes going sharp and focused, the same expression she wore in boardrooms when an angle presented itself that nobody else in the room had spotted yet.If someone could help the Holden patriarch recover, the gratitude of a first-tier family would follow.The kind of gratitude that opened doors that money alone could not unlock. The kind that made an upcoming public listing not just successful but untouchable.She stepped away from the bed and dialed Peter Hen
Chapter 12: Cheated
"That is completely different," she replied immediately, the coldness in her voice cracking slightly at the edges. "Peter and I have a business arrangement. It is professional.""And so is mine with Vivien.""It is not the same thing.""Then explain to me how it is different," Edward replied. "Take your time. I am listening."Silence.Not a short one.Eliza stood at the hospital window with the phone pressed to her ear and the city spread out below her, glittering and indifferent, and she found that the explanation she had been so certain existed a moment ago was not forming itself into words the way she needed it to.Peter Henderson had taken her to three dinners in the past month. He had sat across from her in restaurants that cost more per plate than most people's weekly salary and talked about synergies and investment pipelines and what the Henderson name could do for her company's valuation. She had let him. She had worn dresses selected for those evenings and smiled across can
Chapter 11: Cooperative Relationship
The regular ward was small and smelled like antiseptic and recycled air.Mark lay in the bed with his leg elevated, his face carrying the particular expression of a man who had expected the world to accommodate him and had been refused twice in the same afternoon. Jenna sat in the chair beside him, her posture rigid, her hands folded in her lap, the loud demanding energy she had filled the lobby with now compressed into something quieter and more dangerous.She had not forgotten about the Holden family. She would not forget about it for a long time. But the Holden family was untouchable, and Jenna had never spent energy on things she could not reach.Edward was a different matter entirely."He will pay for this," Jenna muttered, her eyes fixed on the wall across the room, her voice low and tight. "I do not care how long it takes. That criminal put his hands on my son and had some woman's thugs beat me to the ground. He does not get to walk away from that."Mark shifted against the pi
Chapter 10: Fooling her
"Mark was upset," Jenna continued, her voice picking up a righteous tremble. "He was doing it for you, Eliza. Think about it. Edward just walked out of prison and he already has another woman at his side. Which means while he was sitting in that cell all those years, who knows what was happening. He must have been involved with her long before today." She shook her head slowly. "Mark just wanted to ask him about it. For your sake. And Edward flew into a rage, completely out of control, and attacked him. And that woman, she had bodyguards with her. Real ones. Big men. They held us down and that is how Mark's leg ended up the way it is."The lobby was still moving around them, feet crossing the floor, a PA system murmuring somewhere overhead. Eliza stood in the middle of it and looked at her mother's face carefully.She did not fully believe it. The story was too neat and Jenna's tears arrived too precisely when they were needed. Eliza had known her mother for thirty years and she und
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