Chapter 52
The shock from this revelation was far greater than the news of my death.
I watched as Nash, immediately grasping the reality, was confronted with the painful. expression on his usually imperious face.
I had imagined countless scenarios of revealing this to him but never thought it would be in such a memorable setting.
It’s laughable, isn’t it?
A year passed, and my family hadn’t discovered my murder. What’s even more absurd is that I was frozen to death in that cold storage because I was pregnant.
And what’s more absurd is how shattered my life had become.
When did it all start?
It must have been the day after we took the family photo when I was eight. My mother took Nash and Lydia to the mall, leaving my stepfather to look after me as I had a slight fever.
From that moment, my room began to reek of nauseating smoke. My bedclothes seemed like an endless black hole, and my body started to rot from within.
At the time, I didn’t fully understand what I was going through. All I knew was that the slaps my stepfather delivered to my face hurt terribly.
When I was too exhausted to cry, he tore my clothes off.
When I felt like I might be dying, he left me, unfastened the tie binding my hands, and took me to the bathroom to clean up and tidy the bed.
Once everything was cleaned up, he grabbed my hair and told me, word by word, that if I ever told anyone about this, my mother would suffer the same fate, and even more, tenfold or a hundredfold pain.
After that day, I developed a high fever. He and my mother took turns keeping watch by my bedside. I saw the warning hidden in his concerned gaze. It took a week for me to recover from the fever, and once I was better, my mother hugged him and cried, grateful for his When I was too exhausted to cry, he tore my clothes off.
When I felt like I might be dying, he left me, unfastened the tie binding my hands, and took me to the bathroom to clean up and tidy the bed.NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.
Once everything was cleaned up, he grabbed my hair and told me, word by word, that if I ever told anyone about this, my mother would suffer the same fate, and even more, tenfold or a hundredfold pain.
After that day, I developed a high fever. He and my mother took turns keeping watch by my bedside. I saw the warning hidden in his concerned gaze. It took a week for me to recover from the fever, and once I was better, my mother hugged him and cried, grateful for his care.
But I began to have nightmares. My dreams. were filled with ferocious, man–eating monsters. They chased me, and I couldn’t escape. They grabbed me with long, twisted limbs, bit me, tore me apart, and consumed me.
Every day, I lived in constant fear, dreading that I might fall into the same agony as that day.
Fortunately, that year my stepfather spared me, allowing me time to heal and convincing myself that I could continue living.
The family, guided by the police, proceeded to the interrogation room.
The killer claimed he had details about my murder but only agreed to share them with my family. After consulting with my mother, the five of them went in together.
Seeing the killer’s face, I suddenly remembered why he seemed so familiar. I had encountered him many times in places I never paid attention to.
He was the neighbor who rode the elevator with me, the delivery person who brought me water, and the taxi driver I’d had.
I told my mother, word by word: “See, even someone who wanted to kill me showed more patience than you ever did.”
The police explained that the killer’s motive was straightforward: he had been deceived by his wife, who cheated and took all his savings. Driven to extremes, he sought out women resembling his wife–those who lived alone and had family conflicts.
The police were right. On the day of the incident, I had just argued with Nash on the phone. He had ordered me to come home, telling me that my only option in life was to depend on him. He insisted that rather than waste time out there, I should accept my fate early on.