Chapter 144

[Evelyn’s POV]

What the hell happened? Ow! M-My head!

The last thing I remembered...I was at the Silverwood Estate. I was walking out of the living room and then suddenly...There was a huge, thunderous pain in the back of my head as though someone had hit me with something hard.

The pain continued to pulse and scatter along the side of my head. And as I tried to lift up my hand to reach for the spot, I quickly discovered that I couldn't. Something was restraining both my arms down to where I wasn't able to move them within a single inch.

My mouth felt horribly dry; my tongue was swollen. But that wasn’t the worst of my situation as I’d realized.

My arms weren’t the only part of me that was being restrained. It was my whole body. Someone had managed to strap me down to a long metal table.

“What the hell?” I croaked.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move. I was stuck. Trapped...Vulnerable at the mercy of whoever had placed me in this horrifying situation.

I took in several deep breaths as a means to calm myself down and to better assess my surroundings. The lights hanging above me were very bright. For what it was worth, my eyes weren’t stinging from any sort of harshness in that regard.

However, that dim lighting happened to add an eeriness to the place that didn’t settle well with my nerves.

The walls were made entirely out of old stones and bricks—very similar to how the hidden cellar at Kingston Hall looked. Even the air was stale and filled with dust.

Another wave of uneasiness washed over me.

Oh, God...

My heart sank in my chest as I caught a glimpse of something that made my blood curdle. Hanging on the walls all around me were various sharp metal tools and knives. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn that I was actually back in that dark, horrible cellar at home.

But I knew that wasn't the case. This circular room I was stuck in seemed to be just a singular space as opposed to being attached to a long desolate hallway with other individual cells. Which all still begged the question, where the fuck was I??

The sudden sound of two chittering voices startled me. A moment later, I was greeted with the unfortunate sight of Isabella and Samantha. The two were cackling about something until they noticed that my eyes were open.

“Well, look who’s finally awake,” Isabella hummed.

Her fake tone of innocence sent a shiver down my spine.

“Where the hell am I?” I asked bitterly. “What did you do to me?”

Samantha giggled. “Not feeling so high and mighty now, are we?”

Isabella wore that same wild look in her eyes that she had before. She slunk closer, causing my muscles to tense.

“You’ve become quite the problem, Evelyn,” she slithered. “You marrying Alexander was really meant to be a means to an end. But no one would ever have expected that you—you of all people would charm that monstrous excuse for a man.”

I struggled against the restraints as a searing feeling of anger raced through me. Even if Alexander and I were at odds with each other, I still wasn’t going to tolerate people talking poorly of him.

“Let me out of here,” I told her through gritted teeth.

“No. I don’t think I will,” she cooed. “You know what I came to realize...All of my problems would instantly go away if you were to go away. Think about it, if you were to permanently disappear, the money that’s been going toward Edward’s treatments would stop and he would likely fall ill again. Once you’re gone, Alexander will be free to marry again, which means that Samantha will have a proper chance to be with the Alpha she should have been with all along.”

Good God. If that was truly her plan, then I severely underestimated the woman’s intelligence. I knew that the probability of Alexander ever choosing to marry Samantha was seriously in the negatives. But the mere image of that notion sent my blood boiling.

“You’re fucking delusional if you think Alexander would ever marry someone as stupid and useless as her!”

SLAP!

Isabella’s hand had flown through the air and snapped across my left cheek, leaving a stinging pain in its wake. I tried hard not to wince or show any sign of effect. But, somehow, that one slap of her hand had turned into a series of nail-curling hits and punches.

It was as though the woman had just figured out a way to unleash years of pent-up anger. And she was doing it by taking it out on my face and stomach.

“It won’t matter what you think after today,” she snarled.

I’d lost count of the number of times my face took a battered strike from her. The only thing I could bring myself to focus on was the pulsating pain. There was no doubt that I was terribly bruised and bleeding.

I tried to speak through the ache. “So, what? Your plan is to just keep me here till I die of starvation?”

Isabella laughed. “Oh, no. That would take far too long. No, you see, we’re not the only people who feel wronged by you.”

My brows furrowed. Instead of giving a direct answer, Isabella moved out of the way to reveal another person who’d been standing. Fiona. My stomach rolled at the sight of her.

Had she been standing there this whole time?

My breath became caught in my lungs the longer I stared at her. It wasn’t as if I was scared of Fiona personally; however, the particularly large blade she held in her hands was a whole other story.

Fiona looked utterly unhinged.

Whatever rational sense that woman had was clearly long gone.

My eyes never left her as she moved from out of the shadows and toward the table. It was becoming rapidly difficult for me to keep my eyes open as the swelling grew.

“You and Alexander ruined my life. You somehow got into his head and twisted his mind around. You turned him against me.”

“You’re going to kill me, is that it?”

I was met with a cold, heartless smile. “Maybe,” she hummed. “I think at the very least I ought to level out the playing field.”

“What?” I questioned incredulously.

She clicked her tongue. “I know, deep down, that Alexander wishes he was still his handsome self. For him to have been horribly disfigured because of the accident was just a tragedy,” she explained.

I couldn’t help but flinch as Fiona raised the end of the blade to the side of my face and gradually applied a bit of pressure.

“If you think about it, Alexander never even needed a wife. He was doing just fine on his own until you came along and fucked everything up for everyone.”

No. No, it’s not true. Surely that wasn’t true.

“I say we make her as ugly as he is,” Samantha said with her natural tone of bitterness.

Fiona laughed. “My thoughts exactly.”

“N-No, don’t. F-Fiona, stop,” I whimpered.

I felt like I was staring death in the face and the only thought that crossed my mind was for my poor brother. I didn’t dare wish for the same miracle of him coming to save me this time.

What were really the chances of that happening a second time?

The moment I felt the disgusting pain of the blade digging into the side of my cheek, I blacked out.