Chapter 208
No.1
By three o'clock in the afternoon, the Miami sun was a blinding, oppressive force.
Elisa stood at the edge of the Four Seasons'exclusive, top-floor infinity pool. She had just survived a grueling three-hour pitch to the European VCs. Her brain was exhausted, but the adrenaline of the impending revenge kept her standing.
She wore a crisp, white linen pantsuit and dark sunglasses, waiting for a specific Swiss investor who had requested a private follow-up meeting.
The pool area was relatively quiet, dotted with wealthy guests lounging on pristine white daybeds.
"You look terrible, Elisa."
The arrogant, drawling voice broke her concentration. Elisa didn't turn her head. She knew exactly who it was.
Cyprian Thatcher walked up to her. He was wearing custom swim trunks and holding a bright pink Margarita. A thick white bandage covered the deep scratches on his neck-the scratches Allena had
No.2
given him when she lost her mind in the hospital.
Cyprian stopped a few feet away, looking her up and down with a sneer. He was deeply uncomfortable with the fact that he had instinctively protected her back in that New York hospital a few days ago, and he was overcompensating with cruelty.
"August was right about you," Cyprian said, taking a sip of his drink. "You bounce from Alastair to Preston without missing a beat. You are just desperate to keep your claws in this lifestyle, aren't you?"
Elisa did not bother to look at him anymore. She deliberately turned her back to the pool deck,facingthe endless horizon of the ocean behind the glass edge. Behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses, her eyes were dead.
"Cyprian," Elisa said, her voice dropping to a low,surgical register. "If your brain capacity only allows you to comprehend the world through the exchange of bodily fluids, I suggest you jump in the pool and cool off your pathetic lower half."
Cyprian's face flushed red. He opened his mouth to snap back, but Elisa cut him off.
"And before you try to lecture me on morality," Elisa
No.3
continued, her tone sharpening into a blade, "you might want to check on your 'sweet, innocent'Allena. After all, not everyone has a psychological fetish for injecting lethal poison into their own seven-year-old brother."
The words hit Cyprian like a physical blow. His hand instinctively flew up to touch the bandage on his neck. The memory of Allena's psychotic,bloodthirsty eyes flashed in his mind.
He opened his mouth, stammering, trying to form a defense.
At that exact moment, a commotion erupted from a nearby cabana. A man in a loud Hawaiian shirt, a mid-level investor Cyprian had been trying to impress all day,laughed boisterously.
"Go on, Leo, get the ball!" the man shouted.
His chubby, five-year-old son, wearing bright orange swim trunks, sprinted blindly across the slippery tiles after a heavy, wet volleyball. The boy's mother screamed for him to slow down, but the father just laughed, more interested in his phone than his child's safety.
The boy's wet feet slipped on a puddle.
No.4
He lost his balance and launched forward like a
fleshy missile.
His head slammed directly into the center of Elisa's lower back.①
It was the exact location of her L4 disc injury.
A sound like a dry branch snapping echoed in Elisa's skull. A blinding, white-hot agony exploded from her spine, shooting instantly down both of her legs.
Her nervous system short-circuited. Her legs simply ceased to function.
Elisa let out a choked, breathless gasp. Her body tipped backward, completely out of her control.
No.5
Cyprian's eyes widened in horror. He dropped his drink and lunged forward, his hand grasping desperately at the air, but his fingers only brushed the smooth linen of her jacket.
Elisa fell backward into the deep end of the infinity pool.
The freezing water swallowed her instantly. The impact drove the air from her lungs.
Underneath the surface, Elisa's eyes snapped open. She tried to kick her legs, tried to swim upward, but the nerve damage in her spine
triggered a massive, paralyzing muscle spasm.Her lower body was dead weight.
Water rushed into her nose and mouth.
Instantly, a horrifying psychological trigger fired in her brain. She was no longer in a luxury pool in Miami. She was seven years old again, trapped in the raging, muddy floodwaters of the Appalachian Mountains, watching her father drive away and leave her to drown.
No.6
Pure, primal panic seized her throat. She thrashed her arms wildly, but she was sinking fast.
On the pool deck, Cyprian stood frozen, his face pale with terror. He didn't know how to swim. He began screaming frantically for the lifeguard.
Directly above them, on the second-floor VIP terrace, August Chambers was standing with a cup of black coffee.
He had been watching Elisa and Cyprian argue.He had seen the boy crash into her.
For the first half-second, August's cynical brain told him it was a trick. A pathetic attempt to gain sympathy.
But then he looked down into the crystal-clear water. He saw Elisa's body contorting in unnatural,
agonizing spasms. He saw the frantic, desperate flailing of her arms slowly begin to weaken. He saw the trail of silver bubbles escaping her lips as she sank toward the bottom.
No.7
She was dying.
A catastrophic, world-ending explosion detonated inside August's mind.
Every single layer of his arrogance, his jealousy,his toxic pride-it all instantly vaporized. The only thing left was a raw, screaming, animalistic terror that tore his soul in half.
He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think.
He dropped the coffee cup. It shattered on the stone floor.
August didn't run for the stairs. He slammed his hands onto the glass railing of the terrace and vaulted his massive body over the edge,plummeting five meters straight down toward the water.