Chapter 6 Hit by a Car

She had once come and gone from this building for three years as Alfred's personal assistant, invisible like a ghost. Now, the first time she wanted to enter as Mrs. White, she was stopped at the door.

"Sorry, Grace, you can't go in without an appointment." The receptionist blocked her way with a businesslike tone, though her eyes carried a hint of contempt and gossip.

People were coming and going around them. Many employees recognized her, pointing and whispering.

"That's her, right? The one from the news."

"She looks so innocent, but who knew she was such a player..."

Grace kept her face blank and pulled out her phone to call Alfred's direct line.

The phone rang for a long time before someone picked up. His impatient voice came through, "What?"

"My phone is with you. Give it back." Grace got straight to the point.

"You want it?" Alfred let out a cold laugh. "Come up and get it yourself."

As soon as he finished speaking, he hung up. Only the busy tone remained in the receiver.

Grace tried to go inside again, but the receptionist still blocked her. "Sorry Grace, Mr. White didn't say you could go up."

She understood immediately—Alfred wanted to humiliate her in the lobby, in front of everyone.

Grace took a deep breath, swallowed the nausea rising in her throat, and turned to leave the lobby.

But she didn't leave. Instead, relying on memory, she circled around to the employee entrance, swiped her access card that was still valid, and went straight down to the underground parking garage.

She knew Alfred had a lunch meeting and should be coming down around this time.

The huge garage was empty and quiet. Her high heels clicked crisply against the cement floor.

Grace found a corner and waited quietly.

Before long, the private elevator doors opened, and Alfred and Brenda appeared in her view.

Brenda was intimately holding his arm, looking up at him and saying something. Alfred's profile was soft, his eyes showing an indulgence she had never seen before.

Grace stepped out from the shadows and blocked their path.

"Grace?" The warmth on Alfred's face instantly vanished, replaced by cold disgust. "You really are like a bad penny."

"My phone." Grace didn't want to waste words with him. She held out her hand, her eyes calm and steady.

Alfred looked at her stubborn expression, and his anger flared even more.

He pulled out a folded newspaper from his suit pocket and threw it hard in her face.

"Fooling around with a strange man in a hotel for three days and nights, and you still have the nerve to come find me?" He stepped forward, his tall figure radiating intimidation. He grabbed her chin, forcing her to look up. "Are you that desperate for men? Can't I satisfy you?"

The humiliating words were like poisoned knives.

Grace's face hurt from his grip, her eyes instantly reddening, but she stubbornly refused to show any weakness.

"Who I'm with has nothing to do with you." She spoke word by word. "We're already divorced. Give me back my phone."

"Divorced?" Alfred acted like he'd heard the biggest joke. His grip on her chin tightened. "Grace, I haven't signed the divorce papers, so you'll always be Mrs. White! You dare to cheat on me, you'd better be ready to face the consequences!"

So he had already found out.

Grace's heart sank, but she couldn't worry about that now.

"I'll say it one more time, give me back my phone." Her voice was trembling, not from fear, but from anger and anxiety. "What's inside is very important to me."

"Important things?" Brenda chimed in sweetly, pretending to be innocent. "Are they love messages from Mr. Wilson? Alfred, since Grace says it's so important, just give it back to her. Don't let this hurt your relationship."

As she spoke, she "took" the phone from Alfred's hand, as if she really was going to hand it to Grace.

Grace instinctively reached out to take it.

Just as her fingers were about to touch the phone, Brenda's hand loosened.

The phone fell straight onto the hard cement floor, the screen instantly shattering.

"Oh no!" Brenda cried out, covering her mouth. "Sorry, Grace, it slipped..."

In that instant, Grace's mind went blank.

She looked at the shattered phone on the ground, feeling like her heart had broken along with it.

"My phone!" She screamed, not caring about anything else, crouching down to pick up the phone.

Just as she bent over, a beam of blinding high beams suddenly hit her, accompanied by the roar of an engine and the sharp screech of tires.

A red sports car, as if out of control, charged straight toward her!

Grace's pupils contracted sharply. Her body froze in place, no time to react.

With a loud crash, she was violently thrown into the air, like a fragile butterfly, tracing a tragic arc before landing heavily several meters away.

Warm blood flowed from her forehead, covering her eyes, turning the world blood red. Intense pain came from every part of her body. Even breathing felt like a luxury.

Brenda's face went pale. She glanced at Grace lying in a pool of blood, then her eyes rolled back, and she fell straight toward Alfred.

"Brenda!"

Alfred's cry pierced Grace's eardrums.

She used her last bit of strength to turn her head. In her blurred vision, she only saw Alfred rushing toward Brenda with panic all over his face, carefully holding her in his arms, not sparing her even a glance.

He was holding the person who had hit her, his voice filled with a panic and heartache she had never heard before.

"Brenda, wake up! Don't scare me!"

Grace lay on the cold ground, her body's warmth and strength draining away bit by bit with the flowing blood.

She watched Alfred pull out his phone and dial emergency services with trembling hands.

Soon, the wail of an ambulance siren grew from distant to near.

Medical staff rushed down with a stretcher, but Alfred pointed to the "unconscious" Brenda in his arms and shouted urgently, "Save her first! She passed out!"

Grace watched helplessly as Alfred carried Brenda onto the stretcher and left with the ambulance, without hesitation, right past her.

The ambulance siren wailed away, taking with it the last bit of light in her life.

So he really could be this cruel.

Her consciousness gradually faded. Just as she was about to fall into endless darkness, in the distance, the shattered phone screen stubbornly lit up once.

On the screen, "Dylan" flickered in and out through the blood, becoming the last thing she saw before losing consciousness.