The realization curdled in my stomach like sour milk.
It all made sense now. My father's sudden downfall wasn't a stroke of bad luck. It was a surgical strike.
Everyone in the city knew Lu Fangting had been salivating over the Mayor's seat for decades. And here I was, the idiot daughter, jumping into the son's car. Begging the predator's offspring for a drop of mercy.
"It was a tag-team effort, wasn't it?" I spat. Voice trembling with grief and self-loathing. "A masterpiece of political theater. Your father breaks him, and you 'save' the remains."
Lu watched the light die in my eyes. Replaced by jagged, bleeding despair.
I saw a flicker of genuine pain cross his face. A phantom of the man I thought I knew.
He remained silent. The weight of his own secrets anchoring him to the floor.
"If that's how you want to see it…" His voice a hollow rasp. "I can't stop you."
---
He didn't tell me the whole truth.
He and his father were at war. There was no "teamwork" in the Lu household.
Lu Fangting had been livid when he found out his son had stepped in to pull his rival out of the fire.
But Lu Zhouyue had a different agenda. He didn't care about the Mayor's seat. He only cared about one thing.
Chris was coming back.
He knew that the moment Chris touched down, I would vanish into his arms. Lu would become a ghost in my rearview mirror.
So he'd leaned into the chaos. Tipped the scales of my father's case just enough to make the situation terminal. Ensured I had nowhere else to turn.
A gamble fueled by terrifying, singular obsession.
---
I looked at him. At that mask of pained innocence.
A wave of nausea hit me.
"Where are my clothes?" My tone cold as a tombstone.
"What are you doing?"
He reached for my hand.
I recoiled as if his touch were radioactive.
"I'm leaving this disgusting place." My eyes flashed with lethal contempt.
His expression snapped.
The "gentle professor" vanished. The wolf took over.
In one blurred motion, he lunged. Seized me. Slammed me back onto the massive bed.
He leaned over me. His heat radiating through the T-shirt.
A familiar scent hit me. The same dark, expensive musk from that feverish night in the N City hotel.
My eyes snapped open. Wide with new horror.
"It was you." My voice a jagged shriek. "That night… it was you in the hotel!"
He let out a low, predatory hum.
"Who else did you think would crawl through the mud to keep you alive?"
I ignored the sarcasm. Mind racing.
"How did you even know? How did you know I was in trouble? How did you find me in N City?"
Lu didn't pull back. Lowered his head. Lips grazing the sensitive skin of my throat.
His voice a vibrating whisper that felt like a brand.
"I've always been there, Liulian."
A pause.
"I never left."
---
The words were a physical blow.
I shoved his head away with frantic, panicked strength. Face twisted in pure, unadulterated disgust.
"You're pathetic." My body shaking with rage so thick I could taste it. "You've been stalking me? For three years?" A jagged breath. "You're even more twisted than I thought, Professor."
The insult finally broke his composure.
He gripped my chin. Fingers bruising the skin. Forcing me to look into the abyss of his dark eyes.
"Liulian, listen to me carefully!"
His voice roared, shaking the walls.
"If I weren't this 'twisted,' if I weren't 'vile' enough to watch over you, you wouldn't be lying here in this silk bed." His grip tightened. "You'd be a corpse in an N City ditch. Or rotting in a cell under the thumb of a police chief who wanted you broken."
He leaned closer.
"I'm the only reason you're still breathing."
---
I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
He was right.
That was the cruelest part of the trap.
If he hadn't been a predator, I would have been the prey of a much lesser man.
I was alive because I had been claimed by the most dangerous wolf in the forest.
My memory of the past years rushed in. Every calculated move. Every boundary he'd ruthlessly crossed.
A hysterical, bitter laugh bubbled up in my throat. I stared right into his abyssal eyes. My voice matching the ice in his own.
"You know what, Professor?" I spat. "I would rather have let the Guo family break every bone in my body than lie here under you."
A pause.
"I'd rather be dead than yours."
The words landed like a physical blow.
I saw the famous composure of Lu Zhouyue—the man who never let the world see him bleed—crack wide open.
A lethal, primitive rage took over.
The fingers on my chin tightened until I heard my jaw creak.
"Liulian… you think death is an easy escape?" His voice shook with the effort not to strangle me. "I'm going to make you understand what it feels like to be alive and envy the dead."
He leaned closer.
"You think I'm vile? You think I'm shameless? Fine. I'll show you exactly how vile and shameless I can be."
---
With one violent rip, he shredded the T-shirt.
His large, calloused hands covered my naked body. Possessing me with brutal, unbridled desperation.
I shrieked. Clawed at him. Screamed every insult I knew.
"Stop it! Let me go! You disgusting, soulless monster!"
My screams meant nothing.
My struggle was laughable against his absolute, terrifying strength.
He was a force of nature. Pinning me effortlessly. His mouth crushing mine. Silencing my protests. Stealing my air until my lungs screamed for oxygen.
The world blurred from his suffocating kiss.
The realization hit me like a tidal wave.
*Marriage.*
I wasn't just giving him a few nights to pay a debt. I had signed my life over to him.
He was using a gold ring to leash me for eternity.
How did it come to this?
I thought he only wanted this young, defiant body. Thought he'd tire of me. Break me. Throw the pieces away.
I never imagined he wanted *us.*
I didn't love him. Couldn't marry him.
Marriage was supposed to be a choice. A union of two souls. Not a cage built on lies and blackmail.
After Chris… I hadn't thought about love. Never planned to give myself to anyone.
But now… now…
The terror was a sickness in my blood. The despair a black ocean I was drowning in.
My tears flowed. Hot. Unstoppable. Dripping onto his hand.
---
The wetness finally broke through his madness.
He pulled back. Breath ragged. Gasping for air as he stared at my tear-streaked face.
For a long, suffocating minute, he just glared at me. A chaotic war raging behind his eyes.
Finally, with a low, primal snarl of frustration, he released me. Stood up. Stalked toward the bathroom.
Ever since that feverish night where he'd taken me while I was barely conscious, he'd made a vow.
Every time he possessed her, he wanted her to be *awake.*
He wanted her to look into his eyes. To know exactly who was worshiping her body. To feel the heat of his devotion, not his force.
This was supposed to be sacred.
He didn't want to break her. He wanted to own her adoration.
---
"The agreement! I want to see the agreement!"
I screamed the words at his back. Voice hysterical. Clinging to the final, pathetic sliver of hope.
I needed to see it with my own eyes. Needed to believe he was just playing a sick joke. That there was no "marriage" clause in the contract.
He stopped. Turned around slowly.
The look in my eyes—that desperate, childish hope that it was all a lie—burned him more than my hatred.
*Did marrying him truly feel like a death sentence?*
*Did my love for Chris make her so blind that she couldn't see the depth of his devotion?*
His large, powerful hands clenched into fists at his sides. Then released.
He fought back the urge to destroy the room.
With a sigh of pure, exhausted resignation, he crossed to the desk by the window. Grabbed a thick document.
Threw it onto the bed without a word. Crossed his arms over his chest. Watched me.
---
I snatched the paper. Fingers shaking so hard I could barely turn the pages.
Didn't care about the asset division clauses. The millions in offshore accounts now jointly ours.
I skipped everything until I found the last line.
*Terms: Party A will facilitate the complete exoneration of Xu Dingbian and ensure his lifelong safety. Party A will cover all medical and elder care costs for Party B's mother. In exchange, Party B agrees to a legally binding marriage to Party A.*
The words blurred.
The ink felt like a cage door slamming shut. Locking me inside.
It was real.
I was a slave in a white dress. And the rest of my life belonged to the devil I hated.
When the truth finally bared its teeth in the form of that contract, the air left my lungs.
My heart felt like a hollowed-out cavern. The tears drying instantly, as if scorched by a fever.
I couldn't even cry anymore. There was only the violent, rhythmic shaking of my hands as they gripped the document. And a face as pale as a death shroud.
But I wasn't the only one bleeding.
Across from me, Lu Zhouyue's composure was a facade over a thousand jagged wounds. My blatant disgust. My visceral rejection. A coordinated strike against his towering pride.
As the CEO of the Lu Group, he was the one who handed out cold stares. No one dared to whisper a "no" to his face, let alone treat him like a plague.
He took a long, stabilizing breath. Forced the bitterness back into his throat.
When he spoke again, his voice had shifted back to that terrifyingly calm, gentle baritone.
"Get ready. We're going to the hospital to see your mother."
"My mother? The hospital?"
The words acted like a shock to my system. I snapped out of my trance. Expression twisting into a mask of pure terror.
"What happened to her? Tell me!"
"She found out about your father's arrest last night. The shock was too much. She collapsed."
He watched me with a gaze that had softened slightly. The jagged edge of his temper smoothed over as he saw my defenses crumble.
For the first time today, I wasn't looking at him with daggers in my eyes. I was just a girl drowning in fear.
"She's at Central Hospital now."
"What?!"
The panic was a physical weight. I lunged off the bed. Frantically searching for my clothes. Voice rising in an accusatory shriek.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner? Why the hell are we still standing here?!"
He stepped forward. Hand snapping around my arm like a shackle. Voice vibrating with sudden, dark fury.
"Because last night, you were wasted, Liulian! You were incoherent!" His grip tightened. "If my people hadn't been watching your mother 24/7, she'd be in a morgue right now instead of an ICU!"
---
The memory of the previous night flashed behind his eyes.
Hauling her out of the bar. The long drive where she'd been sick all over his leather interior and his expensive suit.
He'd intended to take her home. Then the call came: her mother had gone into respiratory arrest.
He'd diverted here. To his private residence.
She was his now. Living together was an inevitability. So why wait?
After getting her settled, he'd spent the rest of the night at the hospital. Summoning the city's top specialists for a consultation.
Asthma wasn't usually a death sentence. Provided the patient had the right care and a stress-free environment.
But with her meager savings? With her pathetic ability to handle a crisis?
She was a child playing at being an adult. And it was killing the woman she loved.
*Why the hell won't you just lean on me?* he thought. Jaw aching from the tension.
---
I froze. Air leaving my chest.
I hadn't realized… I hadn't known he was keeping tabs on my mother too.
My lips moved. Barely able to form the words through the shame.
"Thank… thank you."
"Is this it, Liulian? Is this the 'freedom and happiness' you were so desperate to find?"
My gratitude only seemed to stoke his fire.
He threw my arm back as if it burned him. Voice a freezing lash.
"The freedom you fought for—three years of back-breaking labor for pennies?" A pause. "The happiness of being too broke to pay for your mother's meds? Of being utterly powerless while they drag your father to a cell?"
His eyes bore into mine.
"Is this the life you chose over me?"
I couldn't breathe.
Every word was a serrated blade. And every word was the goddamn truth.
He'd stripped me bare.
Three years of struggle. Of thinking I was being strong and independent.
And all I had to show for it was a dying mother and an imprisoned father.
I bit my lip until it bled. Turned my head away.
So he wouldn't see the defeat in my eyes.