Chapter 2
Oil spat and popped, peppering her hands with blisters.
That night, he sat at the table, his gaze skating over the dishes she had poured her heart into. But his eyes barely paused on her bandaged fingers.
"Don't do this again."
His voice was flat, as if he were reviewing a quarterly report.
Back then, Charlotte, like a fool, had thought he was worried about her.
Later, Vivian knocked over a coffee and singed her fingertips.
Charlotte watched Alexander, a man who wouldn't flinch if he took a bullet, cradle Vivian's hand and personally smoothed balm over her tiny burn.
He frowned, as if that tiny burn were a mortal wound.
It turned out he wasn't a man made of ice. He was a fire. But Charlotte was not the one who could make him burn.
The sharp pain in her knees jolted Charlotte back to herself.
She looked down at the dried patches of her own blood on the floor and let out a soft laugh.
How pathetic.
In her past life, she had lost everything so quickly that there was barely time to register the pain. Now, when she lived it all again, the memories were more brutal than ever.
Her father shot her one last desperate look before he jumped.
Her sister's cold hand haunted her still.
But worst of all was the bullet that blazed straight through her heart. It still burned deep inside her.
The first light of dawn streamed in through the glass of the shooting range.
"Time's up," a bodyguard announced curtly before leaving without a backward glance.
Charlotte couldn't feel her legs anymore. Gritting her teeth, she pressed her hands to the floor and forced her stiff limbs to move, inch by painful inch.
A soft click echoed from the end of the hall.
The bathroom door was now locked.
Shivering, Charlotte pulled out her phone. The screen's light cast a ghostly pallor on her pale face.
"Dad," she said hoarsely. "Take Rainy to Seaview City. Go now."
There was a brief pause on the other end.
"What's wrong?" Richard asked, blinking awake. "Your voice..."
Charlotte bit down on her lip until she tasted blood. "Take the private jet. Don't tell anyone where you're headed."
Another pause hung in the air. Richard knew Charlotte too well.
"The CEO handover will take a week, and the board meeting..."
"Forget the board!" Charlotte yelled and let out a frantic whisper. "Dad, please. Trust me. Just this once."
She could hear his heavy breathing over the line.
Finally, he sighed. "Alright."
Hanging up, Charlotte sagged against the wall, utterly drained.
Three days from now, Vivian would claim the Evans family had bullied her at a gala. The stock would plummet. Their investors would pull out. And Richard would be driven to the edge of a rooftop.
On that stormy night, Charlotte knelt in the lashing rain, soaked to the bone. Her fingernails scraped against the pavement, the blood from her torn cuticles mixing with the rainwater.
She looked up through the downpour at that lone figure atop the 68-story skyscraper. Her father, the Chairman of Evans Group, stood on the rooftop, his suit whipping furiously in the howling wind.
"Alexander!" she screamed. "I'm begging you. Let my father go..."
Alexander stood over her with a black umbrella held aloft, looking down at her with an expression of pure indifference.
His lips barely moved. "Charlotte, I gave you a chance."
Charlotte clawed at the leg of his pants, her body trembling. "No! No one touched her! She fell on her own! Alexander, believe me. Just this once."