Chapter 25

The phone's shrill ringtone shattered the silence as Susan Thompson tended to Bella Quinn's wound.

Her fingers trembled when she saw the name flashing on the screen. Simon Finch's name burned her retinas like a branding iron.

"Hello?" She forced steadiness into her voice as she answered.

"You slut! Off whoring around again?" Simon's hysterical scream pierced through the receiver. "Get your ass home now!"

Susan bit her lower lip until it turned white. "I'm at a friend's place. I'll be—"

"Later?" Simon's chilling laugh made her blood run cold. "Should I stop your grandmother's dialysis then?"

The word "dialysis" paralyzed Susan. Visions of her grandmother writhing in pain last month flooded her mind.

"I'm coming." She hung up, red-rimmed eyes meeting Bella's. "I have to go."

Bella watched her friend flee into the rainstorm, heart breaking. She'd heard Bruce Bowman's name through the phone—knew Susan was returning to that living hell.

Outside, the downpour intensified. Bella's fingers brushed against the crumpled hospital bill in her pocket. Daniel's surgery fund remained desperately short.

Then fate intervened.

"Eighty thousand per cadaver," a nurse's gossip floated down the hospital corridor. "That new medical research institute pays top dollar."

Bella froze mid-step.

Three days later, she stood in the institute's office, signing the Organ Donation Agreement with shaking hands.

"Miss Thompson, are you certain about taking the seventy-thousand advance?" The clerk hesitated before handing over the check.

"My son can't wait." Bella clutched the check like a lifeline.

Sunlight blinded her as she stepped outside. Combined with Susan's fifteen thousand, the surgery fund was nearly complete.

That evening, Bella faced the gilded mirror at A Variety of Beauties. The crimson cheongsam accentuated her porcelain skin, while the white glove concealed her festering wound.

"Diamond Suite needs staff. You're up." The manager's appreciative leer made her skin crawl.

The elevator doors parted. Bella adjusted her collar—and collided with Henry Bartley's smirking face.

"Destiny." Henry seized her wrist, eyes glinting dangerously. "Four years. Did you miss me?"

Her back hit cold marble as his cologne assaulted her senses. Memories of that rainy night four years ago churned her stomach.

"Let go!" She struggled against his iron grip.

"Playing hard to get?" Henry sneered. "A cocktail waitress rejecting me?"

His hand slid up her thigh. Bella kneed him in the groin. As he doubled over, she bolted for the emergency exit.

Henry's enraged roar and pounding footsteps pursued her. Her heart threatened to burst through her ribcage.

Rounding a corner, she crashed into a solid chest. Looking up, she met fathomless dark eyes—

Andrew Lucas.