Chapter 3

I stared at the stormy gaze of the woman who had her foot in my blood-soaked shirt. She had a disposition unlike one I'd ever seen before.

Her eyes were malicious, vengeful, and wicked. But there was still a symptom of meekness beneath all that mask and that oddly attracted me to her even though I was in this state.

I still didn't know who she was, but the way she was looking at me told me the impression she had of me.

"Ma'am—"

She scoffed at my attempt to make a conversation with her and turned to glance at the wrecked car that held my father's body.

"You killed him, didn't you?" She said, withdrawing her foot from my chest.

"What?" I turned my neck to look at my father's unmoving figure in the crashed car. 

"You killed your own father."

I didn't know how to respond to her. After all, she had a point. If I hadn't tried to stop my father from driving, we wouldn't have gotten into this accident and he wouldn't have died.

But at this moment, it mattered less to me because I worried for my mother more.

"Your father killed several people, and you killed him. It seems the phrase like father like son is correct in that regard."

"Ma'am," with shaky hands, I crawled onto the ground and grabbed her feet. "Please save me, I will do anything."

She forcefully broke away from my hold on her and kicked me in the face. "Ew! What are you doing?"

I wiped my now bloody nose and looked up to her stormy blue eyes that held disgust for me.

"I… I would like to make a deal with you." I could feel my lightheadedness kicking in. If I didn't hurry with this I could die.

She scoffed, "A deal? What can a weak person like you possibly offer me?" She turned to walk away.

"I'm a med student at RRA University. I'm the second top student in the whole university and I'm currently in my final year."

"So?" She stopped in her tracks.

This was my chance.

"I can help you do anything you want with my medical license in the future. Anything." I said the last part carefully but also in a way in which she knew I was eligible to do dirty work for her if that was what it took for me to live right now.

"Hmm," she placed a finger over her temples before elbowing her bodyguard/assistant.

"Check if what he's saying is correct."

"Yes miss,"

The man went to grab an iPad from the car and soon asked me some questions after which he typed on the iPad before showing the woman.

After reading whatever was on the screen, her eyes widened. "So he is the second top student at his university. He can be quite useful, especially because he's studying medicine."

I exhaled. 

The woman stepped forward and grabbed me by the chin and assessed my face, she pulled away after a few seconds and said to herself. "He's not bad looking."

"Miss, what are you thinking?" Her assistant asked her.

"What did my daddy promise he'd give me again if I get married?"

"The second floor of his newly established shopping complex but why do you ask, miss?"

The woman looked at me with a smirk and her assistant gasped in horror. "Miss don't tell me your groom is going to be this man right here!"

She lifted her chin as she looked at me as though to insert dominance. "That's right. He'll be my groom. So craft a contract, Lou. Make it quick. I'll be the one to make the rules so you don't have to worry."

When I saw the smirk on her face, I felt both relief and pain.

I would clearly be at a disadvantage but it was okay if I got to live and be there for my mother.

While the woman and her secretary went to the car, I sat there in a puddle of my now-dry blood and let the cold air seep into my body.

I was cold, and I could barely contain my breath. But my hope clung to the smiling picture of my mother which I had in my head.

By the time the woman and her secretary came back, I was tired and sleepy.

As the woman placed the iPad in front of my face, I immediately scrolled to the last page and signed it with the iPad pen before letting myself give in to the darkness.

***

When I woke up, a couple of wires were in my wrists and attached to a monitor on the side. I sat up on the bed and looked around enough to realize that I was in a room at the hospital.

I exhaled. Thankfully, I survived.

I immediately pulled out the wires from my hands and immediately went out of the room and into the hallway to use a telephone. The moment I found one, I immediately rang my mother's shop number. After three attempts and she didn't answer, I figured that she must've found out about father's death. So I stopped trying and took a seat in the hallway.

I buried my face in my hands and sobbed bitterly.

A normal son would probably hurry home to his mother to ensure she wasn't hurting alone, and feeling lonely, but I just couldn't find it in myself to go to her. I felt like I had lost the credibility to look her in the face because of what I'd done. 

I wiped my tear-stained face and bent my neck downwards In shame. So this was what it was like to lose honor.

I remembered my father's words when I asked him why he was so selfish and couldn't sacrifice for our family.

He said it was for honor.

I didn't understand him. Even now I didn't. Because for Mother, I'd exchanged my honor if it meant I could help her. 

If I could do something like that without batting an eye, I wondered why my dad couldn't.

To be honest, I was a bit jealous of what was so honorable to him that he couldn't bear to lose. Not for his family and not even for himself. An honor someone could even lose his life for… was for sure, impressive.