Chapter 4

Barely fifteen days pass since the agony of losing my unborn child, and a gold-foil summons lands right on my hospital bed.

I rip the IV needle out of the back of my hand. Beads of blood immediately well up, but I feel absolutely nothing. The lingering phantom cramps deep in my stomach remind me of one thing. If I don't strike first, Eli will tear me to shreds.

I am heading to the board of directors.

I shove the heavy oak double doors wide open. At the far end of the round table, Eli keeps his head bowed, playing the part of the long-suffering victim perfectly. Ella sits pressed right up against him, her eyes rimmed red.

"Miss Lia, there has to be a limit to your spoiled behavior." The head board member taps impatiently on the solid wood table. "Eli submitted an incredibly detailed complaint. You used your family's corporate backing to ruthlessly target Ella, and you even threw a tantrum during the practical training that led to an accident."

My chest burns with absolute fury. Anger rushes straight to my head. I march right over, slam both hands onto the conference table, and glare right at the shameless old man.

"Threw a tantrum? I lost my baby!" I scream, my voice echoing through the massive room.

"That was an unfortunate accident," another board member cuts me off coldly. "As a top-tier student on a full ride, Eli's character speaks for itself. The board's final decision is this. You two will repair your engagement immediately and put an end to this ridiculous drama."

Repair the engagement? Let me keep sharing a bed with a murderer?

I kick the chair hard out from behind me.

Bam!

I drop hard to my knees on the marble floor. The unhealed wounds tear open, and a cold sweat instantly soaks through my shirt. But I keep my spine perfectly straight, glaring up at the circle of men looking down their noses at me. I am not begging. I am declaring war.

"I voluntarily give up all my guaranteed spots at the prep school." I grit my teeth, tasting blood with every word. "I would rather scrub decks down at the docks than stay engaged to Eli for one more second!"

"Since when does this school board act as a sanctuary for murderers?"

The heavy thud of combat boots against the wood floor shatters the dead silence. Kaelen steps right out of the shadows in the gallery. His dark blue navy uniform is perfectly pressed, and his eyes are dead cold.

He slams a black hard drive onto the table. The projector immediately flickers to life.

The footage is crystal clear. Inside the simulation cabin, Ella yanks down the control lever with pure malice on her face. And Eli stands right in the camera's blind spot, watching completely unfazed as the heavy mechanical arm slams straight into my stomach. He does not utter a single word of warning.

The next slide clicks over. It shows a series of bank transfers from Eli to a campus clinic nurse, right next to black-market receipts for high-grade abortion pills.

Gasps echo around the room. Eli shoots up from his chair, all the color draining from his face.

"Gentlemen." Kaelen leans his weight onto the table, his gaze sweeping the room with crushing authority. "If it were my own sister lying in a pool of blood today, forced to swallow abortion pills, would you still brush it off as an 'accident' to our families?"

The question hits a raw nerve. Several board members go pale, beads of sweat breaking out on their foreheads. No one here is stupid enough to cross Kaelen's elite family connections just to protect some broke scholarship kid.

The tide turns in an instant.

The head board member snatches up his gavel and slams it down.

"The ruling is amended. The engagement is officially terminated." He clears his throat loudly. "All special scholarship funds provided by Miss Lia to Eli are revoked immediately. Eli's access to the private training facilities is hereby suspended, and he is permanently disqualified from this year's national maritime competition."

The second the gavel hits the wood, I am done. I push myself up on my aching knees and march straight out the door, bringing six of my family's private security guards right to Eli's dorm room.

Bam!

A guard kicks the dorm door wide open. Eli and Ella, having just scurried back from the board meeting, stare at us in absolute terror.

"Clear it out." I point to the room, my voice dead and cold.

The guards get right to work. They rip the advanced maritime star charts straight off the walls. They smash open the glass display cases, tossing the high-end imported compasses, the precision sextants, and the pressure-resistant diving suits straight into the hallway trash cans.

"Stop! I need that for my assessment next week!" Eli lunges forward like a madman, trying to wrestle a depth sounder out of a guard's hands.

The guard kicks him away without a second thought. Eli crashes hard into the mess on the floor, a piece of shattered glass slicing a long, bloody gash across the back of his hand.

Ella screams and cowers in the corner, too terrified to even look up.

In less than ten minutes, the entire room is stripped bare down to a single crappy wooden bed. Everything that belongs to me is gone. I do not leave them a single screw.

"Lia!" Eli stares at me, his eyes completely bloodshot like a rabid dog backed into a corner. His jaw clenches hard enough to crack, his chest heaving.

"You're going to pay for this! I swear to God I will get you back for this! I'll make you wish you were dead!"

I walk right up to him, looking down at the face of the man I once gave everything to. My anger has already sharpened into a deadly blade.

"I'll be waiting." I let out a cold laugh, turn on my heel, and march right out the door.