Chapter 3

Chloe's POV

Mia smiled with satisfaction, lifting her foot to admire my mangled hands. "See? This is how you should've been from the start. Would've saved us all this trouble."

I clenched my jaw, my voice hoarse. "I said it... Now pull her up."

Mia tilted her head, her voice languid. "I said I'd 'consider it.' Well, I've considered—"

She paused, her smile turning vicious. "And I've decided... I don't want you to save her."

"WHAT?!"

"You're playing me?!"

"So what if I am?" Mia turned and walked back to her lounge chair, elegantly picking up her champagne glass and raising it toward me. "Trash like you thinks she can bargain with ME?"

"Mia! You BITCH—"

Before I could finish, my hands suddenly gave out!

The prolonged strain had completely drained my strength. Victoria's weight became impossible to hold. The rope slipped through my bloody fingers.

"MOTHER!"

I lunged for the railing, but the rope was already gone.

SPLASH!

Victoria's body hit the water hard, sending up a massive spray.

"NO—" I screamed, desperately grabbing for the other end of the rope and pulling with everything I had.

The water was freezing. Victoria thrashed in the waves, getting battered again and again, choking and coughing violently.

But the blood made my palms slick—I couldn't get a grip.

"HELP! SOMEBODY!" I screamed hoarsely. "PLEASE help me!"

"If she dies, NONE of you will get away with this! Alexander Sterling OWNS this yacht—if someone dies, he won't let ANY of you off!"

Marcus's face changed.

He was just a bodyguard, after all. If someone actually died, nobody would escape the consequences.

He strode quickly toward Mia, lowering his voice. "Miss Sinclair, if something actually happens—"

"SHUT UP!" Mia glared at him coldly.

But she didn't explicitly refuse.

Marcus's eyes flickered. He immediately signaled to the other guards.

They rushed over and grabbed the rope alongside me, pulling.

"HEAVE! One, two, three!" Marcus shouted.

All ten of my fingers were shredded. Every pull felt like knives slicing through them. But I gritted my teeth and pulled with everything I had.

Inch by inch... inch by inch...

Finally, Victoria reached the railing's edge.

The guards heaved together and dragged her back onto the deck.

She collapsed against the railing, completely soaked, gasping for air.

But her breathing sounded wrong—short, labored, with a terrible wheezing sound.

The fear of heights combined with choking on seawater had triggered her asthma full-force.

Her face was deathly pale, her lips purple, her whole body trembling with spasms.

"Mother! Hang on!" I held her, but her breathing was getting weaker.

"Alex... ander..." she gasped, her voice barely audible. "Won't... let you..."

"Mother, don't talk!" With one hand gripping her clothes to keep her from sliding, I fumbled in my jacket pocket with my other bloody, trembling hand.

I always carried a backup asthma inhaler—I knew Victoria's medical history too well to go anywhere without emergency medication.

My injured fingers had lost all dexterity, but I finally managed to feel the inhaler.

Pulled it out. Opened the cap.

Just as I was about to give it to Victoria—

A foot suddenly flew out and kicked my wrist hard!

"AHH—"

The inhaler flew from my hand, arcing through the air.

It fell into the churning waves.

Gone.

I stared blankly at where the inhaler had disappeared, my mind going blank.

The next second, I let out a heart-wrenching scream:

"Are you INSANE?! That was her MEDICINE!"

"Oops." Mia pulled back her foot casually. "Clumsy me."

She strolled back to the lounge chair and settled in. "Now get the hell out. You're ruining my day."