Chapter2

I gritted my teeth and pushed myself up from the hood. The two guys who had pinned me down had already released their grip. With trembling fingertips, I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket. As the screen lit up, I pressed down hard on the first name at the top of my call history: Liam.

Beep—it rang once, and the screen went dark. The call was disconnected instantly.

Refusing to give up, I hit redial.

The call finally went through.

"Aria, are you out of your damn mind?" Liam's voice seethed with extreme irritation. "Calling me this many times—are you in a rush to meet your maker?"

I clearly remembered how he had cornered me outside my dorm room just last night. With red-rimmed eyes, he had held me tight, whispering intimately against my ear that I was the only love of his life. He promised that as soon as he found his footing, he would announce our relationship to the entire world.

Before I could utter a single word, the line went dead. Chloe glared down at me condescendingly, a mocking smirk playing on her lips. "What? Calling for backup?"

Fighting back the burning sting in my eyes, I pulled up the chat history, my voice completely hoarse. "He begged me to borrow this car last night! We have the chat records as proof!"

Chloe snatched the phone right out of my hand. Her eyes swept over the meme and the messages on the screen before she threw her head back and laughed, her gaze dripping with ridicule. "You think a joke meme counts as proof? Liam is a legitimate wealthy heir. Why would he ever borrow a car from a bottom-feeder like you? You take yourself way too seriously."

With that, she ruthlessly smashed my phone onto the concrete. The screen shattered instantly.

Immediately after, a vicious slap detonated across my face.

"Know your place and stop daydreaming. You're nothing but a pathetic clown."

Unbridled laughter erupted from the surrounding crowd.

"She must be out of her mind from being poor, actually daring to try and rob Chloe."

"Talk about not knowing her own limits."

My throat constricted. Using every ounce of my remaining strength, I let out a desperate, hissing defense: "I have been with him for three years. We are a couple."

"Three years?" Chloe cut me off. She pulled out her own phone and pressed dial. The call connected.

"What's wrong, baby?" Liam's voice drifted out from the speaker. It was the exact same voice, yet now it was gentle enough to melt ice.

I scrambled to speak first. "Liam, why is the car I snuck out for you—"

"Which bitch is this?" Liam's voice paused for a fraction of a second before turning ice-cold. "Why do you have my baby Chloe's phone?"

Three years of an underground romance, countless intimate late-night dates... He used to praise my gentle voice, remembered my preference for violets, and secretly gifted me a bouquet every single birthday. All the tenderness and affection that once belonged exclusively to us were now utterly denied by him.

Chloe looked at me triumphantly. Growing even more arrogant, she swung her arms and slapped my face fiercely from left to right, then cried into the phone with a delicate, helpless whine, "Liam, come quick! Someone is bullying me and trying to steal my car! I'm so scared!"

Liam plunged into an instant fury. "Don't be afraid, baby, I'm on my way!"

Chloe hung up the phone, a flash of pure malice darting through her eyes.

"See that? Liam doesn't even know you."

"Listen up, everyone!" She suddenly raised her voice, shouting out at the crowd. "This person is intentionally trying to steal the car! Just because of two coincidentally matching letters, she dares to falsely claim a multi-million-dollar luxury car is hers. What absolute delusion!"

"You're full of shit!" I jerked my head up furiously. Suddenly, I remembered that the proof of purchase for this car was sitting right inside the passenger-side glovebox—that was the most ironclad evidence!

I lunged violently toward the car door. Just as my fingertips were about to graze the handle, Chloe grabbed a huge fistful of my long hair and forcibly dragged me backward.

A tearing, explosive pain ripped through my scalp.

"Bitch." She leaned close to my ear, her voice soft but extremely venomous. "Feeling bitter? I refuse to let you touch it."

She forcefully threw me back onto the ground. Turning her head, she ordered the two frat boys in a freezing tone: "Since she loves this car so much, strip her clothes off! Let her take a good picture with it, and post it online for everyone to see!"

The two guys immediately stepped forward, yanking me up from the ground with brute force.

"Don't touch me! Let go of me!" I struggled like a madwoman, bending my knees in frantic resistance, but the physical disparity between us was too vast. Every ounce of my fight was completely futile.

One of the guys let out a scoff. Raising his hand, he tightly grabbed the collar of my hoodie and ruthlessly ripped it downward.

I was left wearing nothing but a thin camisole on my upper half, exposing large swathes of bare skin to the public eye.

The crowd instantly boiled over into an absolute frenzy.

Countless phone lenses were shoved right into my face, and the live-stream screens scrolled relentlessly.

"Look at this! The broke loser who tried to steal a supercar is showing her true colors!"

"The lowly garage manager's daughter failed her heist and is throwing a tantrum in public!"

"Get a clear shot and send it to TikTok! Expose her to the whole internet!"

Extreme shame, fury, and indignation surged like a tidal wave, completely drowning my sanity. They were fabricating a crime out of thin air, publicly trampling on my dignity, and attempting to ruin my reputation forever.

"Stop filming! Get the hell away from me!"

Tapping into a sudden explosion of sheer brute force, I threw my head down and viciously bit into the wrist of the guy holding my right hand.

"Fuck!" The guy cried out in pain and instinctively loosened his grip.

The very second my right arm broke free, I spun around and lunged straight at Chloe, who was holding her phone up to film a close-up of me. Raising my hand, I violently swatted her device away.

As my hand followed through, my sharp fingernails slashed brutally across her left cheek.

"Ah—my face!"

Chloe clutched her cheek and shrieked, "You dared to ruin my face? I swear I'll make sure you can never hold your head high for the rest of your life!"

The guy beside me instantly reacted, delivering a brutal kick to the back of my knee.

An agonizing pain shot through my legs as my entire body collapsed, slamming heavily down onto my knees against the concrete ground.

Right at that moment, a massive commotion suddenly erupted from the outer edge of the crowd. The spectating students were roughly shoved aside, and the sea of people parted layer by layer.

A male voice detonated abruptly, echoing across the entire quad:

"Who the hell dares to touch my woman?!"

Sprawled across the ground, my entire body wracked with agonizing pain, I tremblingly raised my head.

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