Chapter 6

Pearle's POV

“Zachary Shaw! Have you lost your mind? Those are my parents! You’re using them to threaten me?”

But no matter how much I shouted, Zachary remained unmoved.

He raised his wrist and glanced at his watch, his voice calm.

“You have ten minutes. If you still refuse to tell me, I’ll pick one of them to lock in the walk-in freezer.”

My voice was already hoarse from crying for so long.

I reached out and clutched his pant leg, pleading with him.

“Zachary, I really, truly don’t know where Vivian Sullivan is! I didn’t hide her anywhere. Please, will you just believe me?”

But Zachary only checked his watch again.

“Six minutes left.”

He bent down slightly and wiped the tears from the corner of my eye, saying the cruelest things in the gentlest voice.

“Who should go in first? Your mother or your father? Pick one, Pearle Foster.”

In that moment, despair swallowed me whole. The weight in my chest was so crushing I could barely breathe.

When the ten minutes were up, I watched as my father was dragged toward the door.

Something inside me snapped.

Frantic, I grabbed the fruit knife from the table and held it to my throat.

“Zachary Shaw, if you don’t let my father go, I’ll kill myself right here! Don’t think I won’t!”

The fingers hanging at Zachary’s side curled for an instant.

But before he could speak, my father, Gordon Foster, dropped to his knees.

“Zachary, please don’t hurt Pearle. If this is because you don’t want to keep funding our company, we’ll accept that. All I ask is that you don’t hurt her. Please, I’m begging you…”

With that, he bowed down hard, pressing his head to the floor.

In an instant, the house fell silent except for my mother Lorraine Graham’s sobs and Gordon Foster’s pleas.

By then, my eyes were as still as stagnant water.

Looking at my kneeling father and weeping mother, I couldn’t help wondering why I had ever fallen in love with Zachary Shaw.

If I had known this was how it would end, I would rather never have met him.

“Even now, you still refuse to believe me?”

Zachary said nothing, but his silence gave me my answer.

“Fine. Then I just hope you don’t regret this!”

“What are you doing? Are you insane? Call 911!”

As I fell, I saw Zachary sprint toward me, just as he had the day he first told me he loved me.

Only back then, I had been the only person in his heart, the only one he saw. Now, someone else had taken my place.

Zachary pressed his hands tightly against my neck, disbelief filling his eyes.

“You… Why would you do this?”

I struggled to pull my lips into a smile.

“…You don’t believe me. Zachary, you actually… don’t believe me.”

A complicated emotion flickered in his eyes.

The ambulance soon arrived at the Foster family home.

The moment I was lifted into the ambulance, I lost consciousness.

When I woke again, I was lying in a hospital room.

Lorraine immediately rushed over and took my hand.

“Pearle, how could you do something so foolish?”

Looking at the anguish on my mother’s face, I felt tears sting my eyes.

“Mom, I’m okay. Don’t worry.”

I had deliberately avoided anywhere vital. It had looked like a lot of blood, but my life had never actually been in danger.

I had only done it to force Zachary to release my parents.

And my gamble had paid off.

No matter how worried Zachary was about Vivian Sullivan, he would back down if he thought my life was at risk.

“They found that woman, Vivian Sullivan, not long after you got to the hospital! She said she’d been kidnapped, and that you hired the people who did it. How could she make up such a vicious lie? I know you better than anyone. You would never do something like that!”

Just then, Gordon, who had been standing nearby, spoke up.

“Pearle, I’ve made up my mind. We don’t need financial backing from the Shaws family anymore. It doesn’t matter if we lose the company. Anything is better than letting you suffer!”

Hearing my father say that, I could no longer hold back my tears.

I knew better than anyone what that company meant to him.

Yet now, he would rather give it up than see me mistreated.

With reddened eyes, I looked at Gordon and Lorraine.

“It’s okay. I don’t care about Zachary anymore. Besides, you know I’m not the kind of person who just lets people walk all over me.”

Gordon nodded.

“I know you aren’t. But as long as we keep accepting money from the Shaws, they’ll have something to hold over you. You don’t have to tell me. I know Zachary must have threatened you with it.”

I fell silent for a moment. Seeing my reaction, Gordon snorted.

“I knew it! Don’t worry, Pearle. I’m calling Yvette Thorne right now to tell her we don’t need their money anymore.”

When he actually started making the call, I hurried to stop him.

Gordon waved me off.

“Don’t try to talk me out of this. Yes, I care about the company I built with my own hands. But nothing and no one matters more to me than you.”

Realizing I couldn’t stop him, I made up my mind and told them I was going to marry Raymond Shaw.

Gordon stared at me in shock.

“What did you say? You’re going to marry Raymond Shaw?”

I was about to explain when Zachary pushed open the door and walked in.

“What are you talking about? Who’s marrying whom?”