Chapter 55

Chapter 55
Elise's POV:

Benjamin was still kowtowing.

The sounds of crying and begging drifted faintly into my ears from half a block away.

His forehead must have split open by now. I couldn't see clearly—the light was too dim, the distance too great. I could only make out a human silhouette rising and falling, falling and rising again on the cement ground, like some mechanical, out-of-control repetitive motion.

Each time his forehead struck the pavement, there was a heavy, muffled thud—like an overripe fruit dropping from a height onto muddy ground.

Margaret's screaming had stopped.

She'd probably worn herself out, or someone had covered her mouth—I couldn't tell. I just knew she was no longer standing in the doorway. Anna was nowhere to be seen either.

But those neighbors were still there.

The community where Benjamin's family lived wasn't large, surrounded by people who all knew each other well.

Across the street, Mrs. Curtis in her floral nightgown—a regular visitor to the Miller household—kept talking to someone beside her. I couldn't hear the content, but she gestured as she spoke, her hands indicating "this much," "this big," "they got into a fight," and similar things. Next to her, a middle-aged man held up his phone recording video, the screen's glow flickering across his face.

They were all watching.

Watching this family they'd known for over a decade—Benjamin Miller, the law firm's former driver; Margaret Miller, a respectable housewife; Anna, the well-behaved college student—have all their dignity stripped away in a single night.

For years, the Miller couple had used my parents' inheritance and the money I sent home each month to maintain a carefully woven middle-class illusion: a decent house, respectable furniture, Anna's college tuition, the gold jewelry on Margaret's body. The neighbors had probably always assumed they were that kind of "not wealthy but getting by" ordinary family.

Now everyone knew.

Gambling debts. Loan sharks. Gang members at the door.

That thin veneer of respectability had been publicly torn away, shattered on the ground.

I sat in the car, my fingers ice-cold.

Victor sat beside me, his posture unchanged—still leaning back in his seat, one hand resting on my waist, his gaze calmly observing everything unfolding ahead, like an audience member who'd bought a ticket to the theater, appreciating the climax of the second act.

And my heart was racing.

Not because the scene before me was particularly frightening—Benjamin's downfall was something I'd anticipated, something I could even say I'd been waiting for. From the moment he'd placed his hand on the back of my neck when I was thirteen, I'd been planning to make this very scene a reality.

What made my heart race was something else.

It was the person sitting beside me.

From the beginning, I'd known Victor was different from Liam. The Sterling family people—whether Liam, Edwin, or those smiling with champagne glasses at cocktail parties—they pursued a certain upper-class elegant respectability. They controlled you with money, threatened you with reputation, crushed you with social status. Their weapons were visible and tangible: bank accounts, lawyer's letters, family alliances, social circle blacklisting.

What was the cost of defying them? Losing financial support. Losing admission slots. Losing a comfortable apartment and the status of a seemingly respectable boyfriend.

These weren't small matters. But they weren't fatal either.

Victor was different.

He didn't need elegance. Didn't need respectability. He didn't even care whether someone was recording video, whether neighbors were watching, whether this would spread throughout the entire street tomorrow.

He could mobilize loan sharks to collect debts at the door. He could investigate offshore accounts at Swiss banks. He knew when Mr. K's final deadline was. He could park the car precisely at this time, in this location, letting me witness firsthand how my former nightmare collapsed.

A single Elise was inconsequential to the Sterling family. They wouldn't do—and disdained to do—this kind of thing.

Defying Liam only required bearing the risk of losing money.

Defying Victor?

I didn't know what it would cost. But I had an instinct—that price would be far greater than I imagined.

My body shrank back slightly.

The movement was small. So small that perhaps even I hadn't fully realized it. But I did shrink back—toward the car door, toward the side away from Victor.

His hand was still resting on my shoulder. So that movement was equivalent to pushing his hand away.

Victor felt it.

He didn't turn to look at me. His fingers on my shoulder just tightened slightly. Then released. Then tightened again.

As if confirming something.

Then he turned his face toward me and kissed my forehead.

Very lightly. Very quickly. Like soothing a frightened cat or dog.

"Don't be afraid," he said.

Just two words. No explanation of why I shouldn't be afraid. No promise that he would protect me. No other superfluous comforting words.

Just "don't be afraid."

Then he turned his gaze back toward the yard.

The situation in the yard had reached a conclusion.

Scar Neck finally spoke—or rather, he finally deigned to give Benjamin a way out.

"This house looks pretty nice," he said.

Benjamin lifted his head. His entire face was covered with a mixture of tears and snot, glistening in the dim yellow light.

"Wh-what?"

"Your house." Scar Neck repeated, his tone still so flat, as if discussing an ordinary mortgage loan business. "The property title is in your name, right? Use it as collateral. That'll count as part of it. For the rest of the money, you've got two months."

Two months.

I knew what this meant for Benjamin. Given the total amount he owed and the speed at which the interest was compounding, two months was nowhere near enough. But this was already the biggest concession Scar Neck could offer—or rather, the strategy he'd negotiated with Mr. K: take a bite of meat first, leave the bones to gnaw on slowly.

"If-if after two months I still—"

"Then don't blame us for being impolite." Scar Neck cut him off, his voice finally acquiring some temperature—the icy kind. "Next time we come, we'll take people directly. Your daughter's pretty good-looking. The docks would probably like her."

Benjamin's body shook violently.

"Also," as Scar Neck turned to leave, he looked back and added, "Call the police if you want. But you should have heard of Mr. K's name—do you think the police showing up would be more troublesome for us, or for you?"

Benjamin didn't answer.

He was already beyond answering.