Chapter 2

Staring into those ice-cold eyes, I felt my chest pricked by thousands of needles, dense, relentless pain.

Over the years, in the middle of sleepless nights when nightmares dragged me awake, I’d thought of the hateful look in Elias’s eyes when he left. The pain always latched on like rot to bone.

So, pain like this… had almost become bearable.

Under countless strange stares, I lifted my mouth and forced a bright, reckless smile.

“Sure.”

“But I don’t seduce just anyone.”

“A pile of trash doesn’t deserve me. Take off one piece for a hundred grand. Can you afford that, big brother?”

I leaned in, undoing the buttons of my coat with deliberate, careless fingers.

Our breaths tangled. Elias’s gaze wavered.

His face hardened. He stared at my hands and said nothing.

I started unbuttoning my shirt.

Voices rose around us.

“She’s really doing it? How shameless.”

“What do you know she’s always been a whore. Taking off a few clothes is nothing.”

“She’s trash, but damn… that body. And the face isn’t bad either. How much for one night? Anybody know?”

Those words gnawed at me like ants, and humiliation drowned me until I could barely breathe.

But I didn’t beg.

I still grabbed the hem of my shirt and lifted it.

My pale, flat belly was exposed to a sea of greedy eyes.

I shut my eyes, about to tear away the last cover that protected what little dignity I had left—

“Enough!”

Someone slapped my hand away. Elias’s voice was low, heavy with menace.

“Iris, you really are as shameless as ever.”

“Put it on.” He sounded like he was grinding his teeth. “Don’t dirty my eyes.”

At the same time, Sophia’s high heel quietly stepped on my coat.

And when I yanked at it, she suddenly gasped and threw herself backward.

Her heel scraped across the back of my hand, the sharp point carving a bloody gash.

Sophia fell into Elias’s arms, her face drained. “Y-you pushed me! Why would you do that?”

I clenched my teeth. “I didn’t—”

“Iris!” Elias pulled Sophia tight against him and seized my wrist. “How did you become this vicious… No. From the start, you were always this low and poisonous.”

Yeah.

How vicious I was.

A laugh slipped out of me, soft and broken. My eyes burned red, my body trembling out of my control.

Because I was vicious, back when the Roxie family fell apart and I was terrified Elias would be dragged down with me, I’d rather let him believe I’d been “getting back at him” than let him stay anywhere near me.

Because I was vicious, even when he begged in pain, I never turned back.

Because I was vicious… even now, when I could finally tell him the truth—

I still didn’t dare.

Because I was dying.

I said nothing. I crouched down and reached for my coat.