Chapter 5

My heart clenched painfully. I looked up and saw Vanessa's increasingly smug expression.

Under everyone's contemptuous stares, I stumbled toward her, eyes red.

"She's my only family. Don't you dare touch her!"

My voice trembled uncontrollably. My whole body was shaking.

People murmured around us. Adrian's face couldn't hide his embarrassment as he shoved me away hard.

"Lydia, will you stop!"

I crashed completely into the champagne tower. Countless glass shards pierced my skin.

Adrian instinctively stepped forward, but Vanessa got to me first.

"You really are clever, Lydia—seeing right away that I took that old woman. But guess what? How do you think I'll torture her?"

My heart raced frantically. Before I knew what I was doing, my hands were wrapped tightly around her throat.

"I won't let you hurt her!"

The next second, a massive force threw me aside, followed by a slap.

"Lydia, I've been more than fair to you. What has Vanessa ever done to you? Look at yourself—you're acting like a shrew!"

In his eyes, I looked completely deranged and humiliating.

But all I could think about was Margaret's uncertain fate.

The next second, I grabbed a knife nearby and rushed at Vanessa.

"Adrian, help me!"

I didn't expect Adrian to step in front of her and take the knife in his back.

He turned around and furiously ordered the security guards:

"My wife has lost her mind. Make her bow and apologize one hundred times. Maybe that'll wake her up!"

They forced my head down again and again until my forehead was bloody and raw.

But when I lifted my head once, I saw Vanessa triumphantly waving her phone at me.

The orphanage where I'd grown up was engulfed in thick smoke, and I could hear Margaret's cries for help inside!

I completely panicked.

"Let me go! Adrian, please let me go!"

I struggled to break free, but Adrian held me down forcibly.

"You're not leaving until you've bowed a hundred times!"

I couldn't care about anything else. I kept bowing, blood blinding my eyes.

Hatred filled my gaze as I looked at each person there.

Adrian's eyes flashed with shock, and he instinctively reached for me.

But I shook him off violently and ran out of the gala without looking back.

The man's gaze followed me, his heart sinking inexplicably.

When I reached the orphanage, the fire had spread to the entire attic.

I rushed in frantically, fumbling to untie the ropes binding Margaret.

But she smiled at me weakly, then took her last breath.

I froze in place. In that moment, my heart died completely.

But the next second—boom—an unexpected explosion hit, and my vision went black...

As the charity gala's donation representative, Adrian headed to the orphanage surrounded by reporters.

The moment he opened the car door, flames filled the sky, and he froze in place.