Chapter 8

Allie lay on the freezing tiles of the clinic floor for what felt like an eternity.

Slowly, agonizingly, she forced her eyes open. She pressed her hand against the wall, using the cold tile to drag her violently trembling body upward. Every muscle screamed in protest. Her head throbbed with a sickening, rhythmic pulse.

She staggered toward the locked door, her blood-stained fingers fumbling with the heavy interior latch. It took three agonizing attempts, her nails cracking against the metal, before the lock finally gave way with a heavy clunk.

She kept her right thumb pressed hard against the massive, bruising puncture wound on her left arm. She stumbled out of the blood-draw room, the harsh fluorescent lights of the hallway stabbing her eyes like needles.

She had to get back to the penthouse. If Curtis found out she had escaped the panic room, the punishment would be unimaginable.

She limped toward the elevator bank, turning the corner.

Suddenly, a tall figure stepped directly into her path, blocking the hallway.

Allie gasped, stumbling backward. Her vision was so blurry it took her two full seconds to focus on the man's face.

It was Jerald Burke.

Jerald took one look at her chalk-white face and disheveled dress, and his eyes filled with frantic concern. He reached out to grab her arms to steady her.

"Don't touch me!" Allie shrieked, her voice a broken rasp. She slapped his hands away as if they were covered in acid.

Her heart plummeted into her stomach. "Why are you here? Who gave you this address?"

"Brittanie texted me," Jerald said. He had known deep down that Brittanie was likely playing a sick game, but the sheer, paralyzing thought of Allie actually being sick and alone had completely overridden his logic. He couldn't risk ignoring it. "She said you were sick and at this clinic. Allie, I had to come. Look at you, you're dying in that monster's house!"

Allie closed her eyes. A wave of pure, suffocating despair washed over her.

It was a chain trap. The stepmother drained her blood, and the stepsister sent the stalker to finish her off.

"Get away from me, Jerald," Allie wheezed, leaning heavily against the wall to keep from falling. "You are a pawn. Brittanie is using you to destroy me. Leave!"

But Jerald's hero complex blinded him to her reality. He thought she was suffering from Stockholm syndrome, brainwashed by the abusive Deleon family.

"I'm not leaving you here!" Jerald yelled, his emotions spiking. He lunged forward and grabbed both of her shoulders, pulling her toward him. "I have tickets. We can leave New York tonight. I can save you!"

Allie didn't even have the physical strength to push him away. She shook her head weakly, tears of pure frustration leaking from her eyes. "You idiot... you're killing me."

At that exact moment, at the far end of the hallway near the lobby entrance, a man in a sharp black suit stood perfectly still.

It was one of the Deleon family bodyguards, dispatched by Vance to track her down.

The bodyguard didn't intervene. He simply raised his phone, zoomed in on the struggle, and pressed the shutter button.

Even in her dizzy, half-conscious state, Allie's peripheral vision caught a metallic glint reflecting off the harsh clinic lights. She turned her head slowly, her eyes straining to focus on the end of the corridor. There, pinned perfectly to the silent man's dark suit lapel, was the unmistakable silver Deleon family crest.

The blood in her veins literally turned to ice. It was over. She was dead.

Adrenaline, born from pure terror, flooded her system. She opened her mouth and sank her teeth violently into Jerald's hand.

"Ah, fuck!" Jerald yelled, recoiling and dropping his grip on her.

Allie didn't look back. She pushed past him, stumbling down the hallway like a broken doll, heading for the rear exit stairs.

Jerald stood there clutching his bleeding hand, watching her desperate, terrified retreat. For the first time, a sickening realization hit him: his "saving" was actually destroying her.

Meanwhile, in the glass-walled boardroom of the Deleon Group headquarters.

Curtis sat at the head of the table, listening to a multi-billion dollar merger proposal. His phone buzzed silently on the polished wood.

He unlocked the screen. A high-resolution photo from his security team loaded instantly.

It was Allie. Her dress was rumpled, her face pale, and Jerald Burke had his hands firmly gripped on her shoulders in the hallway of a private clinic.

The message was clear: She had broken out of the panic room, defied his absolute authority, just to sneak out and rendezvous with her lover at a hospital.

Curtis's pupils contracted to pinpricks.

He was holding a custom Montblanc fountain pen. His massive hand tightened around the barrel. With a sharp, violent crack, the thick resin snapped in half.

Black ink exploded across his knuckles and splattered all over the million-dollar contract in front of him.

The entire boardroom fell into a dead, horrifying silence. The executives stopped breathing, terrified to even look at the demonic rage radiating from the CEO.

Curtis didn't say a word. He violently spun his wheelchair around and rolled out of the boardroom, leaving a trail of suffocating dread in his wake.

Down on the street outside the clinic, Allie practically fell into the back of a yellow cab.

The bodyguard didn't try to stop her. He just watched her leave, acting as a grim reaper ensuring she returned to her execution.

The cab crawled through the congested New York traffic. Allie leaned her head against the cold window, watching the gray sky.

Her consciousness was slipping rapidly due to the massive blood loss. But the sheer, paralyzing fear of what Curtis was going to do to her forced her to stay awake. The physical agony and the psychological torture were pushing her right to the edge of total collapse.