Chapter 7
Lena's head snapped up. She was almost amused by the absurdity—laughing through her rage.
Her mother had been driven to death by this mother and daughter, and now she was supposed to grovel at their feet?
"Slander?" she scoffed. "Lisa, I don't know who put that up on the screen."
"But they weren't wrong. A daughter of a homewrecker—you've earned that title fair and square."
Jason's face darkened instantly.
"Lena, are you really this unrepentant?"
He turned to comfort Lisa, whose expression had frozen with displeasure.
"Lisa, I'll make this right for you."
"Someone, take Lena to the second-floor warehouse."
After escorting Lisa to her room, Jason headed to the warehouse.
He pulled a whip from the corner—jet-black, glossy, lined with sharp barbs—and handed it to his subordinate, then sat down on a chair in the shadows.
Lena stared at the whip, her hands bound tightly behind her back, her mouth sealed with tape.
Jason's dark eyes gave away no emotion as he spoke,
"If you refuse to apologize, this will serve as your atonement to her."
The subordinate raised the whip.
"First lash."
Crack!
The whip sliced through the air, slamming into her back with brutal force.
Cold sweat erupted across her skin, her hair standing on end. Her back felt as if it had been torn open. A muffled scream escaped her throat despite the tape.
Tears streamed down her face—instinctive, uncontrollable—but there was no time to catch her breath. The second lash landed on her shoulder before the first pain had even faded.
Even as the agony roared in her ears, she heard Jason's voice clearly,
"Don't hit her stomach."
Jason... your baby is already gone.
The thought flickered through her mind, and for a split second, the pain vanished. She curled up on the floor, staring numbly at the ground.
Crack! Third lash, fourth lash... all the way to the ninety-ninth.
There was no reprieve. Each strike landed before the last had healed, a relentless onslaught of agony. It wasn't until the hundredth lash fell that the punishment finally ended.
Lena's eyes were glued shut by sweat and tears, her gasps stifled by the tape. Her consciousness blurred, teetering between reality and delirium.
In the eerie silence, the click of a camera stopping recording cut through the air.
"Show this to Lisa. It should calm her down."
It was Jason's voice.
Lena's face drained of all color, leaving it ashen and lifeless.
So he'd stayed here the entire time—only to make sure the camera was rolling properly.
Left curled up in the corner, her hands and mouth now free but still trapped in the warehouse, Lena gasped for air. Her body throbbed with searing pain, every inch of her screaming.
The closed, silent space let her thoughts drift...
Their first real meeting hadn't been at that banquet. Before her mother died, when she was thirteen, she'd played with Jason for a year. But then he'd gone abroad, and they'd lost touch.
The boy who'd been clean-cut and gentle had grown into the powerful, feared President Jason of Beijing's elite circles—a transformation so drastic she hadn't recognized him until she'd flipped through an old photo album last month. She'd never told him.
She hung her head, her gaze lingering on the faint ring mark on her ring finger.
On their wedding day, Jason had cried uncontrollably during the vows, swearing he'd love her forever, protect her always, never let her suffer a single hurt. His hands had trembled so violently when sliding the ring onto her finger that he'd struggled to get it on.
Jason... was your "forever" only three years long?
Lena's body could take no more. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she fainted into the darkness.