Chapter 6

Lily POV

The voices outside drifted faintly through the crack beneath the door.

It was the two nurses who had come to change my dressing earlier, before Ethan had rudely interrupted them.

“Oh my God, that guy was so sweet to that girl. He kept holding her protectively the whole time and barely dared to raise his voice, like he was afraid of frightening her.”

“Yeah. Her face was all red, and she looked so helpless. But the girl in the hospital bed with blood on her head is the one who’s really pitiful. She’s all alone. That guy looked like her brother, and he hit her so hard. Then he told her to get out.”

“It must be some kind of family drama. That girl’s eyes looked like they were about to shatter…”

The nurses’ voices gradually faded.

I remained motionless on the floor.

The blood on my forehead had already dried, sticking to my eyelashes and tinting my vision a horrifying dark red.

I thought I had cried myself dry the night before.

But when I heard the words “she’s all alone,” hot tears still broke through the dam and silently struck the floor.

Alone.

Was I really the only person left in this world?

I braced myself against the cold wall and struggled to stand.

I didn’t call for a nurse. Instead, I walked into the bathroom and rinsed the blood from my face again and again with cold water.

The person in the mirror looked as pale as a ghost. A vicious wound split her forehead, and her hollow eyes were terrifying.

I took a deep breath, left the bathroom, picked up the phone that had fallen onto the bed, and called a lawyer.

It was the number my grandfather had given me before he died.

“Mr. Carter, it’s Lily Bennett.” My voice was surprisingly calm, hoarse but filled with the resolve of someone burning every bridge behind her. “I need you to prepare the documents immediately. I want to sell all my shares in Bennett Enterprises, along with every piece of real estate I own that can be liquidated. Yes, as quickly as possible. I don’t care if the price is lower. I want cash. Transfer everything into my overseas account.”

Mr. Carter was shocked.

“Ms. Bennett, please think this through! Those shares are the trump card your grandfather left you. Didn’t you say they were meant to—”

“That was before.” I closed my eyes and cut him off. “I don’t need them anymore. Get it done.”

After hanging up, I slid weakly onto the hospital bed.

The shares amounted to fifteen percent of Bennett Enterprises’ core ownership. My grandfather had secretly transferred them to me before his death without telling anyone.

I had never touched them. Ethan didn’t even know they existed.

I had planned to use them to help Julian when he took over his family’s business, or to help Ethan if his company ever faced a crisis.

I had also planned to give half of them to Julian as a wedding present.

But now, everything had become a joke.

I wrapped my arms around my knees and buried my face in them.

Memories of Julian and me cut into my heart like sharp blades.

I remembered being eight years old, when I accidentally broke an antique vase in the house. Terrified, I hid inside a cabinet and cried.

Julian had stepped forward and taken the blame when the adults scolded me.

He’d smiled at me.

“Don’t be scared, Lily. I’m not afraid of getting yelled at.”

I remembered the winter when I was fourteen. I suddenly developed a high fever, and the family driver wasn’t home.

Julian had carried me through snow that reached above his knees, stumbling three miles to the hospital.

By the time we arrived, his hands were blue and stiff from the cold, yet he had continued shielding me inside his coat.

I remembered my eighteenth birthday celebration.

Julian had worn a white suit and knelt before me like a real prince. Beneath the dazzling fireworks, he kissed the back of my hand. His eyes were so gentle they could drown me.

“Lily, once you graduate from college, we’ll get married. I’ll make you the happiest woman in the world.”

I remembered six months ago, when we had been about to part at the airport.

Julian had held me tightly, his eyes red, his voice trembling.

“Lily, six months is too long. I’ll miss you every day. You have to take care of yourself. If you lose even one strand of hair, it’ll break my heart.”

The boy who had once been heartbroken over a single strand of my hair now stood beside another woman and watched me bleed from the head.

“It’s only a rabbit. You’ve really disappointed me.”

The warmer the memories were, the crueler reality became.

I bit down hard on the back of my hand, suppressing the sob that threatened to tear through my throat.

I took those five unforgettable memories, along with more than a decade of wholehearted love for him, and ripped them apart inside my heart. I crushed them flat and burned them to ash.

From this day forward, I had no brother.

And no lover.