In a newly opened luxury motel, three figures slipped inside, hoodies pulled low as they hurried up the stairs.
They all stopped upon arriving in front of door 67.
The elderly man in front paused, teeth clenched, his hands tightening into fists.
"Father, Maya and I can go in first and confirm what the reporter said…" The middle-aged woman by his side pointed to the younger girl beside her, about to suggest they check first, when he suddenly reached for the doorknob and pulled it open.
Inside, a blonde woman froze, then snatched the duvet to cover her naked body.
Her brow perked up slowly in confusion when neither of them said anything.
"G-grandfather? What are you doing here with Maya and Aunty?"
The man's eyes dimmed, his face unreadable.
Swallowing nervously, her eyes shifted toward Maya Warren and a smile broke across her face before she could stop herself.
"Maya, you won't believe what happened. When I came to this bar you suggested, I…"
As she tried to talk to her cousin, Maya Warren's face twisted into a glare.
"You haven't even explained yourself, and you're already blaming me? Have you no shame, Dahlia?"
Dahlia Warren froze, her bright eyes widening in confusion.
Paying no heed to her reaction, Maya turned sharply to her grandfather.
"Father, you have to do something about your twenty-four-year-old daughter who sleeps around."
"The family doctor already cleared her of autism and she's been given drugs to help her, so you can't keep making excuses for her. She knew exactly what she was doing!"
"M-Maya…" Dahlia whispered, not knowing how to react.
This younger cousin of hers wasn't smiling anymore.
She was frowning so hard that she barely recognized her as the same woman who had insisted she try the new motel that opened in town.
She even ordered her a gown and personally brought in someone to do her makeup earlier today.
Something was wrong, she could feel it, but her foggy mind couldn't piece it together.
"Father, Maya is right," eyeing Dahlia, the middle-aged woman turned to him. "Dahlia is no child. Even autistic people know better than to go into a room alone with a man."
"She totally embarrassed herself," Maya Warren hurriedly added. "You saw the photos that news reporter took. She was totally hanging onto that man like her life depended on it!"
"The reporter even said it wasn't even thirty minutes after they met that she followed him to this room. Isn't that proof enough that she came here with something in mind?"
Dahlia stood dumbstruck, watching as accusation after accusation was thrown at her.
Accusations…
Were they even accusations? She didn't know.
When she met that man, she was already tipsy. Maya had told her she needed to be taking a sip of her drink if she wanted to be approached, so she did and before she knew it, she finished almost a bottle.
So she knew she had been in bed with someone, but what he looked like… she barely remembered.
"Silence! All of you!" her grandfather suddenly roared.
The room quieted instantly.
He beckoned Dahlia forward. She moved numbly and stood before him.
"Dahlia," he said coldly. "You came into this room with a man, but nothing happened. Tell your cousin and aunt that nothing happened."
Maya and Olivia Warren turned to him in disbelief.
There were pictures of Dahlia coming into the room with a man and right now, she was barely covering her nakedness with the duvet.
What other proof about what happened could he possibly want?
Dahlia paused, chewing on her thumb before slowly nodding.
"You're right, Grandfather. We didn't sleep together. We just couldn't keep our hands off each othe—"
"ENOUGH!" a furious bellow cut through her words.
The man who had been calm all these while stepped toward her, his face red with anger.
Exhaling in relief, the mother and daughter took a step backward.
"There is a man out there willing to take you for two times the price I've offered, but you dare to humiliate me like this?!"
Dahlia blinked at his aggression.
Her grandfather had always mentioned this man—Mr. Quinn.
The one "kind enough" to make her his fourth wife.
Absurd.
A small man like him having four wives was laughable, but what confused her more was why her grandfather was so angry about that when it had nothing to do with this.
"You're furious… why?" she asked honestly.
Clank!
A sharp kick struck the back of her knees and she fell forward in pain.
Olivia Warren walked around and yanked her by the collar, shouting into her face in annoyance, "Shut up! If Mr. Quinn finds out about this, you better be ready to grovel like your life depends on it until he agrees to take you as his wife!"
Being choked, Dahlia's face turned red and she vigorously nodded.
At the same time, a phone went off and her grandfather reached into his pocket for it.
Seeing the name sprawled across his screen, he swallowed, smiling desperately as he answered it.
"Mr. Quinn, you must disregard whatever you've heard. My first granddaughter has a problem with her brain."
"Yes, she's autistic and doesn't mean half the things she says. She may claim something happened when the opposite is true."
He forced a chuckle. "But look on the bright side! She's young, pure, untouched. Imagine what you could teach a naïve wife like her!"
Being suppressed, Dahlia lowered her head, falling silent in defeat.
"There are plenty of women who would beg to be chosen," Mr. Quinn snapped, his enraged voice blaring out from the phone's speaker. "If she can't even show remorse, why should I go through the shame and take such a brat home as a wife?"
The dial tone as the call ended resounded throughout the quiet room.
The elderly man trembled with rage.
He had spent over a year grooming a grandchild to marry into the Quinn family, and now…
He squeezed his eyes shut, then turned a burning glare on Dahlia.
She remained on the floor, head bowed.
Not trembling.
Not crying.
That only made him angrier.
As punishment for "showing no remorse," the Warren family locked Dahlia in her room for a week.
When she finally came out, she still refused to apologize and news spread that Mr. Quinn was pursuing another woman.
Even more angered, Elderly Mr. Warren locked her up again.
This time for three months.
She saw no one.
Food was slid under her door.
Nine months passed in silence. Then, one night, a sudden scream tore through the house.
The family were having dinner and ignored it at first. Elderly Warren was still fuming at how much disgrace she had brought upon the family and how much money he had to pay to hush everyone who knew about the incident.
But when the cries of newborn babies filled the house, he couldn't ignore it any longer and got up to see where it was coming from.
He pushed the door open—then froze at the sight.
Dahlia lay on the floor in a pool of blood, two tiny newborns trembling in her arms, her breathing shallow
She had given birth to twins.
The aftermath of that night with the man no one knew.
The family was already long displeased with her, and this new development threatened their reputation.
So Elderly Warren made his decision.
That night, he threw her out of the house and erased her name from the family registry.