Chapter 162 What Are You?

Chapter 162 What Are You?

Late at night.

The apartment had gone quiet.

Atticus had fallen asleep on the living room couch, snoring heavily.

Irene got up from the floor.

She walked to the window, pushed it open, and looked down. They were on the second floor, and there was a thick drainpipe running along the outside wall.

She changed into a black tracksuit and stuffed a few pieces of valuable jewelry into her pockets.

She gritted her teeth, climbed out the window, and slowly worked her way down the drainpipe.

The rough pipe scraped the skin off her palms, but she barely felt the pain.

There was only one thought in her head: she would never marry Miles.

Once her feet hit the ground, she ran to the street inside the complex and found Atticus's beat-up old car parked there.

She had secretly made a spare key a long time ago.

She yanked open the door, started the engine, and floored the gas pedal.

She was heading to the warehouse on the south side of the city. She was going to force Miles to call off the engagement. She would give him Stella's current address and let that lunatic go kill her.

That way, all her enemies would be taken care of at once.

2 a.m. An abandoned warehouse on the south side of the city.

Miles sat on a broken wooden crate, holding the hunting knife he'd bought from the hardware store, dragging it back and forth across a whetstone.

Scrape — scrape —

The sound of metal grinding echoed through the empty warehouse, sending a chill down the spine.

Miles stared at the blade without blinking.

He hadn't slept in days. His mind kept replaying that recording on a loop — Stella's breathless sounds, Dennis's low growl — like countless insects crawling through his veins.

He had completely lost his mind.

There was only one thing he wanted to do now: find Stella, cut her into pieces, and put her in a box.

That way she could never leave him again. She could never end up in another man's bed.

The warehouse door let out a dull, creaking groan.

Irene pushed it open and walked in.

Miles slowly raised his head and looked toward the entrance. In the dim light, he couldn't make out the woman's face.

All he could see was the outline of a figure in dark clothes, with long hair falling over her shoulders.

His pupils dilated instantly. A twisted smile spread across his face.

"Stella…" Miles stood up, his voice thick with a sick kind of excitement. "You finally came to see me. You know you were wrong, don't you?"

Irene frowned. Something was very off about Miles.

He reeked, and he was holding a gleaming knife in his hand.

"Are you out of your mind? Look at who I am!" Irene snapped. "I'm Irene! I came here to call off the engagement! There's no way I'm marrying a broke loser like you!"

But Miles couldn't hear a word she was saying. His mind had been completely taken over by hallucinations.

In his eyes, the woman standing there was Stella.

"Why did you betray me?" Miles gripped the knife and walked toward her, one step at a time. "You think I'm disgusting? When you were sleeping with Dennis, why didn't you think he was disgusting?"

Irene finally realized she was in danger.

She took a step back, her voice starting to shake. "Miles, stop right there! What are you doing?"

"I'm going to cut you apart." Miles's eyes went completely wild. "Every part of you he ever touched — I'm going to cut it all off!"

He suddenly let out a roar, raised the hunting knife, and charged at Irene like an animal that had lost all reason.

"Ahh!" Irene screamed in terror and spun around to run.

She sprinted toward the warehouse exit as fast as she could. Her heel caught on something and she went down hard, slamming into the dusty ground.

Miles's footsteps were getting closer. Irene scrambled back to her feet, kicked off her heels, and ran barefoot across the gravel-covered ground.

Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might burst out of her chest.

"Stella, you can't run!" Miles laughed wildly behind her, slamming his knife into an old metal barrel nearby with a deafening clang.

Irene burst out of the warehouse and plunged into the wasteland outside, surrounded by weeds that came up to her waist.

Then a sharp, stabbing pain tore through her lower abdomen.

"Ugh…" She clutched her stomach and her legs gave out. She dropped to her knees in the weeds.

She felt something warm and wet running down the inside of her thigh.

She reached down and touched it. In the moonlight, she saw her hand covered in blood.

The baby.

That baby was her only leverage with Atticus. If she lost it, she would have nothing left.

"No… help me…" She collapsed face-down on the ground, moaning in agony.

Irene lay face-down in the mud, both hands pressed hard against her stomach. Blood was flowing down the inside of her thighs. She was shaking all over from the pain, gasping for breath.

Miles walked up to her and stopped. He looked down at the woman's face.

The crazed obsession in his eyes vanished instantly.

"Oh, it's you." Miles dropped the knife at his feet. "I thought someone was coming to find me in the middle of the night. What's this about? Did that old bastard Atticus send you here with money?"

"Help me…" Irene stretched out her hand — caked with mud and blood — reaching for Miles's pant leg. "My baby… please call an ambulance…"

"Help you? Who do you think you are?" Miles let out a cold laugh.

"Go back and tell Atticus to give up his little dream. Even if I'm bankrupt, even if I have nothing left, I'm not going to marry some woman he's already used up."

Irene's vision was blurring from the pain. "You… you took the money…"

"The money was leverage — me taking it doesn't mean I agreed to marry you. Let me be very clear: the only person I'm going to marry is Stella. I'll give her the biggest wedding Cloud City has ever seen. As for you — you could die out here and nobody would care."

With that, Miles stood up, didn't spare her another glance, and walked straight out of the wasteland.

Irene lay on the ground, watching Miles disappear into the darkness. Her fingernails dug deep into the mud.

The cramping in her stomach came in wave after wave. She could feel her life — and the tiny, unformed life inside her — slipping away little by little.

She bit down on her lip until she tasted blood.

Miles. Stella. She screamed both names over and over in her head.

She didn't know how long she lay there on the ground. It wasn't until a passing truck driver spotted her that someone finally called for an ambulance.

The next morning.

Stella was sitting in the AURE studio office, going over the marketing plan for the new brand launch.

The office door flew open.

Kenna hadn't even knocked. She rushed straight in, holding up a tablet, her face completely drained of color.

"Stella, something's happened! Look at the trending topics — now!"

Stella frowned and took the tablet.

On the screen, several of Cloud City's biggest gossip outlets had all broken the same bombshell story at the same time.

The headline was in huge bold letters: "Back Together! Former Hudson Group President Miles Secures Mystery Funding, Set to Remarry Ex-Wife Stella!"

The article was full of convincing-sounding details, claiming Miles had secured five million dollars in overseas investment and was preparing for a comeback.

And his first move, it said, was to hold a new wedding ceremony with Stella.

The story even came with a few blurry photos of the two of them attending a dinner event together, back when they were still married.