Chapter 4
When Elena woke again, the hospital room was so empty that her chest tightened with unease. Her right leg was wrapped in a thick cast. Even the slightest movement sent waves of pain crashing through her, leaving her drenched in cold sweat.
While the nurse was changing her dressing, she couldn’t help but mutter, “There’s another patient here, Ms. Constance Beck. She got sent in from the same accident.
“Her husband and child haven’t left her side once. But you—your injuries were even more serious that you almost died. How come your family isn’t here to take care of you?”
“That husband and child you just mentioned… they’re mine,” Elena replied softly.
The nurse’s face froze in embarrassment. She quickly finished changing the dressing and left in a fluster.
Sunlight streamed through the window, falling on the white sheets. Still, it couldn’t chase away the coldness inside her bones.
By evening, the silence was shattered as the door to her room was suddenly kicked open. Robin stormed in, rage practically radiating off him.
He grabbed her by the chin and yanked her face toward him as he asked, “Was this car accident your doing?”
Elena’s pupils shrank.
“Do you know Constance almost got a scar on her face?” His grip tightened, fury boiling in his eyes. “She won’t look like Evangeline anymore if she gets disfigured…”
Elena let out a weak cough. “It wasn’t me… I didn’t do anything. And… can’t you see I was the one who got hurt the worst?”
Even so, Robin didn’t believe a word she said. He dragged her out of bed, and they went straight toward Constance’s hospital room. His voice was like ice as he spat, “Come with me to apologize to Constance.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Her refusal only enraged him further. “Fine! If you won’t apologize, I’ll show you exactly what it means to destroy her face.
“I remember… You used to dance, didn’t you? Someone—break Elena Larson’s leg!”
As soon as the words left his mouth, a bodyguard entered the room while holding a baseball bat. Elena’s blood ran cold.
“No—please, no…”
She struggled to escape, but two bodyguards pinned her down firmly on the hospital bed. The baseball bat immediately came crashing down on the cast around her right leg.
There was a loud crack as the sound of her bone breaking echoed in the room. As the searing pain tore through her body and shattered her grip on reality, a ridiculous thought suddenly crossed Elena’s mind—she didn’t even know how to dance.
It was Evangeline who had won the gold medal in the ballet competition. It was her sister whom Robin could never forget. She was nothing more than the illegitimate daughter the Larson family kept hidden in the shadows.
If Evangeline hadn’t died, perhaps her father, Paul Larson, would’ve gone his entire life without remembering he even had another daughter. He would’ve never known how she and her mother had struggled to survive, relying only on each other.
When the bodyguards finally let go, Elena curled up on the bed like a discarded doll. Cold sweat had soaked through her hospital gown. Robin stood by the bed, his expression frigid as he watched the nurse panic while scrambling to call the doctor.
“Remember how much this hurts. Maybe you’ll learn your lesson next time.”
Days passed, and not a single person came to visit Elena. Until one afternoon, when Paul burst into the hospital room and slammed a stack of photos across her face.
“This is how you uphold the bond between our families? By letting a fake trample all over you?”
The sharp edges of the photos scratched her cheek, drawing thin lines of blood. When she picked them up and looked, they were all images of Constance with Robin and Kane, smiling and living in bliss.
“These have nothing to do with me. Plus, the six years are up,” Elena replied calmly. “It’s time for me to leave.
“We had a deal. Once the marriage ended, I’d get to live my life with Mom.”
Just as Paul was about to explode, the hospital door flew open with a bang. Robin stood in the doorway, his face dark as a storm.
“Do you mean it?” he asked coldly.
