Chapter 4

Sienna Shaw POV

Lucas Lawson carried me back to the villa that very night.

A private doctor treated the scratches on my neck and face.

After the bedroom door closed, I opened my eyes and lay quietly in the dark all night.

The next afternoon, only when I heard Lucas Lawson’s footsteps downstairs did I slowly sit up in bed.

I reached up and messed up my hair, then pulled open the collar of my pajamas, exposing the freshly bandaged gauze on my shoulder. My whole body looked wretched and haggard.

Only after doing all this did I walk barefoot down the stairs step by step, as if sleepwalking.

In the hall, Lucas Lawson was sitting on the sofa.

As soon as I reached the turn of the staircase, I heard Serena Stone’s somewhat aggrieved voice.

“Lucas, I don’t blame Sienna. She only hit me because she’s sick.”

Serena Stone sat on the sofa, holding an ice pack to her face, her voice very soft. “I’m just afraid that if she keeps going on like this, she’ll delay the progress of the West End Theater...”

Lucas Lawson was pouring her warm water. Hearing this, his tone carried a trace of tenderness. “You’re just too easy to talk to.”

As they spoke, I messed up my hair and walked barefoot down the stairs.

Seeing me come downstairs, Serena Stone instinctively leaned back behind Lucas Lawson.

Then she picked up the hot water and walked over. “Sienna, you’re awake? Have some water.”

Just as I was about to reach out, Serena Stone’s wrist suddenly jerked, and the entire cup of water splashed directly onto the newly scabbed wounds on both my knees.

“Ah!”

Serena Stone backed up two steps in panic. “I’m sorry! I lost my balance... I didn’t mean to.”

As she retreated in panic, the thin heel of her high heel just happened to step on the fingers of my right hand, which was braced against the floor. It landed dead on target, right on the gap of my broken fingernail.

A bone-drilling pain shot through my fingertip. I clenched my teeth, my body trembling.

Lucas Lawson quickly walked over. First, he helped the still-shaken Serena Stone back to the sofa. Then he bent down and pulled away my bleeding hand. He did not have anyone take me to get bandaged. Instead, he pressed both hands down on my shoulders and dragged me up from the floor.

His movements were still gentle, but the force in his palms was like raw iron, pinning me in place so tightly that I had no room to resist.

“Sienna, yesterday at the ceremony, you were the one who hurt someone first. That wasn’t good.”

Lucas Lawson smiled, using the pad of his finger to wipe away the tears of pain at the corners of my eyes. His voice was so gentle it made me shiver. “When you do something wrong, you have to apologize. Apologize to Serena.”

I froze in place, disbelief all over my face. “You want me to apologize to another woman?”

“It’s just an apology. Then this matter will be settled.”

I stubbornly refused. “No!”

Lucas Lawson’s face gradually darkened. He stood up and forced my body to lower inch by inch toward Serena Stone on the sofa.

His broad palm clamped down on me, forcing me to my knees on the cold floor.

The newly scabbed wounds on my knees split open again, and the pain made my whole body flinch.

In that nearly suffocating humiliation, I dug my nails into the bleeding wound in my palm, forced myself to lower my head, and gritted out, “I’m sorry…”

Serena Stone sat on the sofa with a face mask on. At last, a look of triumphant satisfaction appeared in her eyes.

Only then did Lucas Lawson let go.

He wiped the blood from his hand with a tissue, picked up the yellow safety helmet from the floor, and handed it to me. His voice was as gentle as ever.

“Since you’ve apologized, go do something for me. Pull up the data from the West End Theater.”

Blankly, I reached out and took the yellow safety helmet.

As long as Serena needed it, Lucas would still squeeze the very last bit of value out of me without hesitation.

Because everyone knew that only my ears could detect the most accurate sounds.

Twenty minutes later, at the West End Theater construction site.

Inside the empty, unfinished building, cold wind poured down my collar with a howl.

I had just stepped into the acoustic testing room on the basement level when the iron door behind me slammed shut. Then came the heavy crash of the lock.

I turned around. Through the double-layer soundproof glass, I saw Serena standing outside.

Serena gripped the control cable in her hand. Through the glass, her smile was strange and chilling.

“Sienna Shaw, it’s time you paid me back for that slap.”

In the center of the testing room stood a high-frequency acoustic device used for testing.

Serena sneered and suddenly twisted the knob on the control panel all the way into the red danger zone.

“Screee—!”

A piercing shriek exploded through the sealed space in an instant.

The shriek cut through the air like a white-hot steel spike, burrowing straight into my skull through my ears.

The pain made me bend over. I clamped my hands over my ears, cold sweat soaking through my back in seconds.

But that shriek seeped into every crack, again and again, as if it were about to shatter my eardrums.

Warm liquid flowed between my fingers.

Blood fell onto the cold cement floor.

In the dead silence that swallowed me completely, my vision went black, and I passed out.

When I opened my eyes again, the sharp smell of disinfectant filled my nose.

I closed my eyes and lay expressionless on the bed.

The hospital room door was pushed open, then locked from the inside.

A man in a gray trench coat walked to the bedside.

He had a pair of eyes so deep and dark they seemed bottomless. He was Lucas Lawson’s mortal enemy, Sebastian Lawson.

He leaned down slightly and looked at me. “Stop acting. I know you’re not completely deaf, and you’re definitely not crazy.”

I did not open my eyes. I did not move.

Sebastian gave a cold laugh. “Don’t be scared. That wonderful husband of yours killed your father for his new lover. You want to survive, and I want power. We have the same enemy.”

He leaned close to my ear and lowered his voice. “I can heal your ears, send you safely overseas, and even arrange a fake death for you.”

“As for the price, give me the evidence you have that Lucas stole the design drawings.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him. I had already lost everything. I could barely even hear anymore.

There truly was nothing left to be afraid of.

“Okay.”

With a hoarse throat, I forced out the word, syllable by syllable.