Chapter 4

Vienna's POV

I was sent to the wound cleaning room by a nurse. The cut on my arm was deep, flesh torn open, but I didn't make a sound as the doctor stitched it.

Through the wall in the VIP ward, Grace's tearful voice came through clearly:

"Hayden, I was so scared... I thought I'd never see you again..."

"It's okay now. I'm here."

Hayden's voice was low and gentle.

"Did you get hurt anywhere? Let me have the doctor check again?"

"No need. As long as you hold me, it doesn't hurt anymore."

One wall apart, I watched the nurse cut the suture thread. The last bit of feeling in my heart was also cruelly severed.

That was my husband. When I was covered in blood, he was holding the culprit, tenderly comforting her.

He didn't even ask "where is she."

When heartache reaches its extreme, it truly becomes numbness.

After bandaging the wound, I refused the recommendation to stay for observation and left the hospital alone.

I returned to the hillside villa.

This was the home I'd shared with Hayden for four years of marriage. But the moment I opened the door, a strange perfume smell hit me in the face, sickly sweet and nauseating.

I rushed upstairs.

In the master bedroom, the simple curtains I'd carefully selected had been replaced with Grace's favorite lace pink. The cherished wedding photo at the bedside was gone, replaced by an artistic photo of Grace.

The study was even worse-a complete mess.

With trembling hands, I pulled open a drawer. This was where I kept my brother's belongings.

My brother's diary from when he was alive. His award certificates. That broken watch found in the ruins. All of it, gone.

In their place were Grace's fashion magazines and cosmetics, brazenly filling the corner that once belonged to that young man.

"Looking for this?"

A mocking voice came from the doorway.

Grace leaned against the doorframe, holding a black garbage bag like it was something filthy.

"Your dead brother's stuff-I found it unlucky, so I had the servants throw it in the backyard to feed the dogs."

"Grace!!"

My rationality completely snapped in that moment.

I rushed forward to grab the bag, but Grace dodged sideways. The garbage bag hit the floor with a "smack," its contents scattering everywhere. The watch shattered into pieces.

Grace stepped on my brother's award certificate and ground it with her foot, a vicious smile curling her lips:

"Stop wasting your energy. Hayden said from now on, I'm the mistress of this house. I can throw away whatever I want. Not just this junk-even you will eventually be cleaned out like garbage."

"You're asking for death!"

I raised my hand and slapped Grace hard across the face.

Grace's face snapped to the side from the blow.

But instead of fighting back, Grace suddenly grabbed my collar, pulling us both toward the staircase.

Then, before I could react, Grace released her grip and shoved me hard!

My foot slipped, my body falling backward uncontrollably.

As I tumbled down, I instinctively protected my abdomen, but the violent impacts still felt like my organs were being displaced.

Bang!

I crashed heavily onto the first-floor marble floor. My forehead split open, blood instantly flowing down, my vision a sheet of red.

"What's going on?!"

The door was pushed open. Hayden strode into the entrance.

He immediately saw me on the floor, face covered in blood, and Grace standing at the top of the stairs, covering her face and "trembling."

The moment Grace saw Hayden, tears burst forth like a dam breaking. She stumbled down and threw herself into Hayden's arms:

"Hayden! She went crazy... I was just trying to help her tidy up the house, and she hit me and tried to push me down the stairs... If I hadn't grabbed the railing, I'd be the one on the floor now..."

Hayden looked at Grace's swollen face, then at me on the floor.

"Vienna! You're absolutely unreasonable!"

He strode over to me, looking down from above.

"Grace is already in poor health, and you'd be so vicious toward her? Where has your upbringing gone?"

I lay on the floor, my whole body in bone-shattering pain. My lower abdomen sent waves of suffocating, sinking sensations.

I struggled to lift my head, looking through blood-blurred eyes at this man:

"It was her... she threw away my brother's belongings... it was her who pushed me..."

"Enough!"

Hayden cut me off sharply, his face full of disgust.

"You're still lying! Grace wouldn't even step on an ant-how could she push you? But you-what have you become!"

With that, he didn't even look at the blood pooling beneath me. He turned and scooped up the "frightened" Grace in his arms.

"Hayden, my face hurts so much... am I disfigured?"

Grace curled in his embrace, crying her eyes out.

"You won't be. I'll take you to a doctor-the best doctor."

Hayden's voice instantly became gentle, as if the furious man from moments ago was my hallucination.

He strode out the door carrying Grace, leaving me only a resolute, cold back.

The villa's main door stood open. The late autumn wind poured in.

I lay on the floor, a pool of glaring blood gradually spreading beneath me.