Chapter 3

The one who had struck me was Lucius.

I clutched my face, staring at him in disbelief as all the color drained from my face.

My body went limp, and it felt like I was plunged into an endless abyss. Grief, viscous like a swamp, consumed me completely. "Did… Did you just hit me…?"

Lucius looked at his own hand, as if he was stunned by his own actions. There was a flash of panic and regret, before he became cold once more.

"Penelope, how could you talk to my mother and brother like that? You're so disrespectful!" He reprimanded, before tagging on with an annoyed tone, "I don't have time to waste with you here. Selena needs me."

Without sparing me another word, he turned and left, along with the guests who knew staying wouldn't do much good.

In the end, I was left all alone, like a dog that was abandoned by the side of the road.

My thoughts wandered to the summer night when we were eighteen, when Lucius confessed to me. I still remembered how nervous he was, and how he cried an hugged me out of sheer happiness when I agreed.

"Ah, Penelope promised to become my girlfriend! God, thank you for being so kind to me! I swear that I'll treat her well for the rest of my life! If I break this promise, make me lose everything I have!"

His promises seemed sincere, under the witness of the fireflies that summer night, and I trusted him without a shadow of a doubt. Yet, sincerity could change in the blink of an eye.

I returned to the villa Lucius and I stayed in and packed up all my things, before moving into another larger villa instead.

Many members of my family were short-lived, but there were also many that were immortal. Throughout the course of their long lives, they amassed great amounts of fortune, of which I had access to.

In any case, I didn't have much time to continue moping over spilled milk. I needed to find a man so that I wouldn't die.

Out of the blue, I was notified by Horace that Lucius got hurt in a car accident, telling me to go see him at the hospital. I was still worried for him at the end of the day, so I went.

Yet, the moment I went to the hospital ward that Horace told me of, I saw Selena laying there on the hospital bed. Meanwhile, Lucius was sitting there without so much as a scratch on him to be seen, speaking to her gently.

The moment he saw me, Horace slapped my face. "How could you be so cruel, Penelope? Look, Selena's in the ICU now because you called and cursed her! Did you come here today so that you could agitate her again? How wicked!"

For a moment, I couldn't draw a single breath, as if there was a heavy stone on my heart.

Selena only glanced at me. "Don't get angry at Penelope for my sake, Lucius. I've long since become a pacifist, and I don't want to fight with anyone anymore. I don't blame her."

Lucius' gaze was freezing cold. "Don't you feel guilty at all, Penelope? How could you do that to someone as kind as Selena?"

Grief welled up within me, tears falling uncontrollably as I laughed bitterly. "Lucius, why didn't I ever realize how much of an idiot you are? Do you think a mistress like her is the type of person she claims she is?"

Everything was clear to me now—I had been set up. Selena must've been the one who worked together with Horace to incriminate me.

Started by my harsh tone, Lucius' expression betrayed a hint of panic, but it was right at that moment when Selena sighed weakly.

"I'm at death's door, so why are you being so unkind? I've already set everything aside at this point, so I guess I don't have much to say if you call me a mistress, but I won't snatch Lucius from you… Ah, Lucius, it hurts…"

Lucius immediately alerted the doctors, and as Selena was being checked on, he dragged me out to the stairwell and pressed me against the wall. "I'm going to get angry if you continue causing trouble."

I pushed him away from me and slapped him as hard as I could.

"Don't touch me! I'm telling you again, we're over. Consider these twelve years of mine completely wasted."

Before today, I still loved him, but after what I had just gone through, I was completely disillusioned.

Lucius grabbed me by the neck in anger. "Did you think I wouldn't lay a hand on you, Penelope? Do you know how much I despise how you bring up those twelve years all the time?

"I get it, you just want me to remember how you helped me, and how poor and pathetic I once was. Do you know how disgusted I feel whenever you do this? Why can't you just let the past be the past? No one likes remembering how disgraceful their past was."

I froze.

What I thought were beautiful memories were nothing but a burden for this man.

It felt like being plunged into icy water, the cold seeping through to my very bones. This man was a stranger to me—terrifyingly so.

Lucius glared at me, enraged. "I'll make sure you learn a lesson today."

With that, he tied my hands up and gagged me before calling Horace. "Take her home and lock her up."

He was so occupied with Selena all this time that he didn't even know that I'd already moved from his villa.

Desperation filled my heart. How could he be cruel enough to hand me into the hands of that pervert Horace?

Horace took me to his car in the carpark and pounced on me like a hungry wolf. "Penelope, why don't you be with me instead since Lucius doesn't want you anymore?"

"Mmf!"

'Don't touch me!'

I struggled as hard as I could and managed to dial the emergency contact on my phone, Lucius.

Meanwhile, Horace was blind with lust.

"Don't struggle, Penelope! Even if Lucius knew that I slept with you, he wouldn't do anything to me if Mom's on my side! Meanwhile, he'll kick you aside. Who do you think he'll help if I tell him that you were the one who seduced me?"

Tears trickled down my cheeks in fear, and hatred was all I could feel. How could Lucius be so cruel?

I didn't stop struggling, but when I tried to scream for help, I realized that my entire body was weak, and I could barely muster more than a whisper.