Chapter 6

I kept flipping through the pages, one after another.

At first, the diary was all about sweetness and happiness.

She wrote about the places they traveled to, the gifts Victor gave her.

Every line was filled with the giddy excitement of a girl head over heels in love.

But then, at some point, everything started to change.

The whole vibe of the diary shifted.

[Today, Victor lost his temper with me for the first time.

[All because I broke a cup he liked.

[The way he looked at me was terrifying, like some wild animal about to attack.

[He locked me in my room and didn't let me eat for the whole day.

[He said it was to teach me a lesson about discipline.]

From that day on, the happiness in her diary started to fade away.

Fear and unease began to seep into every line.

[Victor hates it when I try to reach out to my family.

[He says they're too rough, that they'll ruin me.

[He took away my phone and cut the landline.

[I feel like a bird trapped in a cage.

[Lucas was born, and I was over the moon.

[But Victor said the baby belongs to his family, not to me.

[He brought in top-notch nannies and won't let me do anything myself.

[I'm nothing but a tool for making babies.]

Tears started streaming down my face before I even realized it.

I could almost picture Emily twelve years ago, all alone in this empty villa, wrapped in loneliness and despair.

She wrote down every bit of her pain in this diary.

This was her only little way out.

I kept flipping through the pages.

The deeper I went, the more disturbing the diary entries became.

[He hit me again.

[Because I smiled at a guest during dinner.

[He said I was being disloyal and made him lose face.

[He whipped me with a belt. It hurt like hell.

[I didn't dare cry or fight back.

[Because if I did, he'd hit me even harder.

[He had so many ways to punish me.

[He locked me in a dark room, starved me, and poured ice water over me.

[He said this was how he showed his love for me.

[He said I'd only truly belong to him if he completely broke my spirit.]

I was shaking all over, my stomach churning.

It turned out that everything I'd seen was the tip of the iceberg.

In this fancy villa, Emily was living in hell every single day.

The last few pages of the diary were scribbled and chaotic, barely legible.

They overflowed with despair and a hollow sense of numbness.

[I'm pregnant again. It's the fifth one.

[I can't even remember how many children I've had.

[None of them truly belong to me.

[They call me Mom, but their eyes are full of nothing but distance and fear.

[They're Victor's perfect tools, just there to monitor and control me.

[I can't escape.

[He told me he'd destroyed my passport and all my identification.

[In this world, Emily Evans is already gone.

[All that's left is just something that belongs to Victor.

[The day before yesterday, he brought home something really strange.

[It was a metal mold, engraved with their family crest.

[He heated it until it was glowing red in the fireplace.

[He smiled at me and said he was going to give me an eternal mark.

[A sign that I'd always belong to him.

[I struggled. I fought back.

[Then I smelled the stench of my own flesh burning.

[It hurt so much that I went numb.

[From that day on, I knew I was completely broken.

[I wasn't even a whole person anymore.]

At that point, I just couldn't hold it in anymore.

I covered my mouth, trying to keep myself from crying out loud.

Tears fell like a broken string of pearls, soaking the pages of the diary.

So that was how that hideous mark came to be.

I couldn't even imagine what kind of inhuman torture that must have been.

The diary ended there.

The last page was blank.

Maybe from that day on, Emily's heart died.

She never wrote again, never fought back.

She became a flawless puppet with no soul.

I closed the diary, my hands shaking uncontrollably.

This was the proof I needed.

This was the ironclad proof of Victor's monstrous crimes.

I had to take it with me.

I hugged the diary tightly to my chest, like I was cradling Emily's shattered soul.

I grabbed that bunch of small keys and the meds from the drawer, taking them with me.

I put everything back just like before.

Then, just like when I came in, I slipped out of the study without a sound.

I went back to my room and locked the door behind me.

I stashed the diary and the meds in the hidden compartment at the very bottom of my suitcase.

By the time I finished, the sky was already starting to lighten.

I hadn't slept a wink all night.

My body was exhausted, but my mind was buzzing with adrenaline.

I had the evidence.

Now, I needed a plan to get out of here.

I had to get Emily and all this evidence out of this hellhole.

At breakfast, I forced myself to pull it together and show up in the dining room.

Victor was, as always, effortlessly stylish and graceful.

He greeted me with a smile.

"Charlie, did you sleep well last night?"

His gaze lingered on my face just a bit too long.

I instantly felt a chill run down my spine.

He was testing me.

Maybe he was already suspicious.

I couldn't let him see through me.

I mustered up a tired smile.

"Not really. I'm still jet-lagged, and my head's killing me."

I rubbed my temples, pretending to feel awful. "Is that so?"