The voice on the other end of the line carried the careful precision of someone delivering potentially devastating news.
"Hello, Mr. Chen. My name is Adrian Qi." A pause, weighted with hesitation. "I apologize for calling unexpectedly, but I need to ask—are you currently at home? Or perhaps with Elena?"
The question itself was innocuous enough, but something in Adrian's tone—that carefully controlled tension, like a string pulled just shy of snapping—sent warning signals cascading through Marcus's nervous system.
"Mr. Qi?" Marcus's mind raced through possibilities, none of them good. "Is something wrong? Elena wasn't feeling well today, so she's resting at home."
He emphasized the location deliberately, establishing her presence, her safety, her alibi.
Another pause stretched across the connection, longer this time. When Adrian spoke again, his voice had dropped half an octave, carrying unmistakable worry threaded through with something that sounded disturbingly like fear.
"It's about Veronica . She's had an... incident. She's in the hospital currently, and her condition is quite serious." Adrian's words came carefully measured, each one selected with precision. "Elena didn't attend classes today either, and I'm concerned that she might have encountered similar trouble. I wanted to verify that she's safe."
Marcus felt his mouth forming a response, the reassuring words already halfway to his lips. "No, she's been home all day, she was sick and—"
The words died in his throat.
His pupils contracted to pinpoints as realization crashed over him like ice water. His entire body went rigid, every muscle locking in place as his brain made connections he desperately didn't want to make.
Veronica. An incident. Hospital. Serious condition.
Elena. Absent from school. "Sick at home."
The same day.
No. No, it can't be—
Several seconds of paralyzed silence passed before Marcus managed to force out the rest of his sentence, the words emerging strangled and unconvincing: "...resting."
Adrian continued speaking on the other end—reassurances, perhaps, or additional details—but Marcus couldn't process the words anymore. His heartbeat had accelerated to a thunderous roar in his ears, each pulse feeling like his chest might crack open. An uncontrollable surge of panic flooded through his system, starting at the crown of his head and spreading through every nerve ending like freezing water through arterial pathways.
Veronica had an accident. Elena was conveniently absent due to "illness."
In the few hours since he'd left the Nightshade estate—the hours he'd spent congratulating himself on earning points, planning his career, living his normal life—had Elena been doing something entirely different? Had she left that bed where he'd tucked her in? Had she gone out into the world and dealt with someone?
The silence from the phone pressed against his consciousness like a physical weight, allowing his paranoia to spiral into ever-darker possibilities.
He wrestled his turbulent emotions back under some semblance of control, though his voice emerged with a tremor he couldn't quite suppress. "Mr. Qi, what exactly happened to Veronica? What kind of incident are we talking about?"
Adrian seemed to be choosing his words with extreme care. The pause extended long enough to become uncomfortable before he finally responded.
"The specific details are... unclear to me. However." Another weighted pause. "Perhaps it would be better if I showed you what's circulating on the school's anonymous message board. I'll send you the images, but I should warn you—they're disturbing. Prepare yourself."
Marcus's phone vibrated twice in rapid succession. Two image files downloaded.
His thumb hovered over the screen for a moment, some instinct screaming at him not to look, that once he saw what was there he couldn't unsee it. But he had to know. He needed to know.
The first image loaded.
It was a wide shot of the campus plaza—specifically the older section of the academy grounds. The photograph had been taken from an elevated position, looking down on a scene of crowded chaos. Students packed the space in a dense semicircle, all facing inward toward some central focal point. He could see them pointing, gesturing, their body language radiating that particular combination of shock, morbid curiosity, and social media excitement that characterized modern tragedy consumption.
The atmosphere that emanated from that image was oppressive even through the digital medium—the voyeuristic hunger of a crowd witnessing someone else's absolute degradation.
Marcus's hand was already trembling as he swiped to the second image.
The close-up loaded onto his screen, and every drop of blood in his body seemed to freeze simultaneously.
Veronica Xue occupied the center of the frame, and "occupied" was perhaps too gentle a word. She'd been displayed there, arranged deliberately for maximum humiliation.
Her mouth had been stuffed with what looked like cotton cloth, the crude gag preventing speech while ensuring she could still breathe through her nose—conscious cruelty in the details. Wet hair plastered across her face in irregular patterns, obscuring her features but somehow making the image worse, forcing the viewer to imagine the expression beneath. The desperation. The absolute violation of dignity.
Her upper body had been stripped entirely, clothes removed with what the disheveled state of the remaining fabric suggested had been violent efficiency. Her skirt had been yanked upward to her calves, the material bunched and twisted, reminiscent of flower petals trampled underfoot and left to wilt in the dirt.
But the detail that Marcus's eyes kept returning to, the element that elevated this from mere humiliation to calculated psychological torture, was the rope.
Thick hemp rope, perhaps the width of his thumb, had been wrapped around her body in elaborate patterns. The bindings cut deeply into her flesh, tight enough that even in a still photograph he could see how they constricted. Angry red welts marked every point of contact, the skin abraded and inflamed. In several locations, the marks had darkened to purple-blue—bruising from sustained pressure, from struggling against restraints that wouldn't yield.
The rope work was intricate. Almost artistic. Someone had taken their time with this.
The image matched the original novel's description with photographic precision. Every detail aligned—the location, the binding method, the strategic clothing removal, the public display, even the timeline.
A chill shot up Marcus's spine like electricity through a lightning rod, starting at his tailbone and exploding through his skull. His entire back went ice-cold, and he could suddenly feel it—the sensation of being watched. As though somewhere in the shadows behind him, invisible but undeniably present, a pair of eyes filled with murderous intent were observing him with cold calculation.
It happened anyway.
The thought crashed through his mind with the weight of absolute failure.
All his careful planning. All his point farming and strategic touching and attempts to build genuine connection. All his efforts to shift Elena's trajectory away from becoming a villainess. All the small victories he'd celebrated—the removed tattoo earning points, the medication ritual, that brief moment when she'd seemed almost comfortable with his presence.
None of it had mattered.
Elena had still done this. The plot was still progressing exactly as written. And he'd been congratulating himself on earning ten measly Positive Value points while she'd been out there destroying someone.
"Mr. Chen? Are you still there?" Adrian's voice cut through the spiral of Marcus's thoughts, pulling him back to the phone conversation he'd nearly forgotten. "Elena is truly alright? She's safe at home?"
Marcus's eyelid twitched involuntarily—a minute muscle spasm he couldn't control. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed against a throat gone suddenly dry. When he spoke, maintaining vocal steadiness required every ounce of his trained composure.
"She's fine. She's resting at home."
The words sounded hollow even to his own ears, conviction-free, the verbal equivalent of trying to convince yourself that everything was normal while standing in a burning building.
His free hand clenched into a fist so tight that his fingernails bit into his palm, using the small pain to anchor himself in reality. He forced his voice to remain calm, professional, merely curious rather than desperately hoping.
"Mr. Qi, do you have any information about who might have done this? Any leads at all?"
Adrian's sigh carried through the phone line heavy with frustration and helplessness. "Unfortunately, no concrete leads yet. The small plaza is in the older section of campus—the surveillance infrastructure there is outdated and incomplete. The exact location where Veronica was found sits in a blind spot. No camera coverage whatsoever."
Of course it does, Marcus thought bitterly. Exactly as planned.
"The photographs appeared on the anonymous message board," Adrian continued, "but we haven't been able to trace who posted them initially. The school's IT department is investigating, but these anonymous platforms are designed to be... difficult to track."
He paused, and Marcus could hear papers rustling in the background—the sound of someone reviewing notes or reports, trying to make sense of senseless cruelty.
"We contacted Veronica's family immediately, of course. Their response was..." Another heavy sigh. "Evasive. Defensive. They've refused all communication with the school administration. They're treating this as a private family matter rather than a potential crime that occurred on school grounds."
"And Veronica herself?" Marcus asked, though part of him already knew the answer. He'd read this chapter. He knew how it ended.
"She's been admitted to the hospital—primarily for psychological evaluation and trauma counseling. Physically, she appears to have no serious injuries beyond the rope burns and some bruising. But psychologically..." Adrian's voice dropped even lower. "She's refusing to see anyone. Won't speak to counselors, to family members, to friends. She's completely shut down."
Marcus closed his eyes briefly, seeing not just Veronica but the larger pattern. The careful orchestration. The strategic targeting of someone who'd bullied Elena. The public nature of the humiliation, designed to break rather than merely punish.
This was Elena's handiwork. He'd stake everything he had on that certainty.
"What about the police?" Marcus asked, grasping at the last fragile thread of hope. "Surely something this serious requires a police investigation? Assault, public indecency, possibly kidnapping depending on how she was transported there—"
"That's the thing," Adrian interrupted, his tone shifting to something that sounded almost defeated. "Veronica herself has refused to file a police report."
Marcus's jaw clenched. "She what?"
"She's claiming—through her family, since she won't speak directly—that nothing actually happened. That it was just photographs, just humiliation, but no actual assault. No physical violation beyond the binding and display." Adrian's voice carried a note of barely suppressed frustration. "She's insisting it's not a police matter. Just teenage bullying that got out of hand."
Of course she is, Marcus thought with grim understanding. Because that's what happened in the original novel too.
He could map the psychology perfectly because he'd read it, studied it, tried to prevent it. A privileged young woman from a wealthy family, subjected to devastating public humiliation. Her first instinct wouldn't be justice—it would be damage control. Preservation of what little dignity remained.
Reporting it to the police meant tearing that wound open again. It meant detailed questioning about exactly what happened, medical examinations to document every bruise and rope burn, testimony that would be scrutinized and challenged. It meant having the incident preserved in official records, turning a terrible day into a permanent part of her legal and medical history.
It meant reliving the trauma over and over while lawyers and investigators picked apart every detail.
Far easier to claim it was "just" public humiliation. "Just" inappropriate photos. To frame it as cruel bullying rather than criminal assault. To drop out of school, move away, disappear from everyone's memory and start fresh somewhere new where nobody knew about the worst day of your life.
Veronica would ultimately vanish from the story entirely, just as the novel had described. Another casualty of Elena Nightshade's transformation into a villainess.
And Marcus had changed nothing.
Adrian's voice cut through his spiraling thoughts once more. "I just wanted to make sure Elena was accounted for and safe. Given that she was also absent today, and considering Veronica's... history of targeting certain students..." He trailed off delicately, not quite saying what they both knew: that Veronica had been a known bully, and Elena had been among her victims.
"Thank you for checking on her," Marcus managed, injecting false warmth into his voice. "I appreciate your concern for your students. But Elena's been home all day, completely safe. Just a bout of illness, nothing more concerning than that."
Please let that be true, he prayed silently. Please let me be wrong about all of this.
"That's a relief to hear," Adrian said, though something in his tone suggested he wasn't entirely convinced. "I apologize for disturbing you. I'll let you get back to your day."
"No trouble at all. Take care, Mr. Qi."
"You as well. Goodbye."
Marcus lowered the phone from his ear mechanically, ending the call with a thumb that felt disconnected from his conscious control. He stared at the device in his hand—at the two images still displayed on the screen—and felt the weight of impossible knowledge crushing down on him.
The sheer volume of terrible information, the horrifying implications, the potential confirmation that his wife was a methodical criminal who'd just committed aggravated assault while he'd been out drinking coffee and discussing career opportunities.
His mind couldn't process it all at once. It felt like trying to swallow an ocean.
Marcus surged to his feet with enough force that his chair scraped backward across the floor with a harsh screech. He grabbed his baseball jacket from where he'd draped it over the chair back, already moving toward the exit as he shrugged it on.
"Emergency," he barked at Devon, who was watching this sudden transformation with wide eyes. "I have to go. Right now. I'm sorry—"
Devon stood as well, half-rising from his seat with an expression mixing confusion and concern. "Whoa, wait, what? You just got here! We've barely been sitting for twenty minutes and you're already rushing back to play the devoted husband? Marcus, that's a bit—"
But Marcus was already gone, his form disappearing through the billiard hall's entrance like a man fleeing a crime scene. Or racing toward one.
Devon settled back into his chair slowly, watching the empty doorway with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. "Absolutely whipped," he muttered, shaking his head. "Prioritizes his wife over his friendships. Though I guess he runs fast when properly motivated..."
He'd barely picked up his coffee spoon when his own phone began vibrating across the table. Unknown number. Devon frowned at the screen before swiping to answer.
"Hello?"
The voice that emerged from the speaker was cultured, educated, carefully modulated—the kind of voice that suggested expensive private schools and classical music training. Male, probably late twenties, speaking with the precise diction of someone accustomed to being listened to.
"Good afternoon. Am I speaking with Mr. Devon Zhang?"
Devon leaned back in his chair, idly stirring the foam of his cappuccino while half his attention tracked the conversation. "Speaking. Who's asking?"
"My name is not important for our current purposes, but what I'm prepared to offer should interest you greatly." The stranger's tone carried that particular quality of someone used to getting what they wanted. "I understand you maintain connections within the film and entertainment industry. Talent scouting, location coordination, various... facilitation services."
Devon's expression shifted subtly, becoming more focused. This person had done their homework. "I might know some people. What's this about?"
"I have a proposition that requires someone with your particular skillset and discretion. A small commission, really—the kind of job that pays well for minimal effort, provided one exercises appropriate judgment about client confidentiality."
As the stranger elaborated on his requirements, Devon's face underwent a gradual transformation. The casual disinterest faded, replaced by professional attention, then strategic calculation, and finally a kind of cold decisiveness that didn't match his usually jovial demeanor.
When the mysterious caller finished explaining, Devon was quiet for several seconds, processing the implications and potential complications. Then his mouth curved into a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes—the expression of someone who'd just been offered exactly the kind of interesting trouble he'd been looking for.
"You know what?" he said slowly, still stirring his coffee with mechanical precision. "I was just thinking today's been too quiet. Too boring. Nothing exciting happening anywhere."
His smile widened fractionally, taking on an edge that would have troubled anyone who knew him well.
"Alright. I'll take your commission. Send me the details."
The strategy had been elegantly simple, really. A classic maneuver that Sun Tzu would have appreciated: lure the tiger from the mountain, then move freely while the predator's attention is elsewhere.
Marcus, racing through city traffic in the Panamera with his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, had no awareness of the manipulation. All his focus had contracted to a single desperate objective: get home, confirm Elena's location, prove to himself that his paranoid assumptions were wrong.
His fingers trembled against the leather steering wheel despite his attempt to maintain iron control. His entire nervous system felt like it was vibrating at the wrong frequency, fear and faint, foolish hope warring for dominance in his chest.
Please be there, he thought desperately, weaving between slower vehicles with reflexes honed from his previous life. Please just be sleeping in bed where I left you. Please let this all be terrible coincidence and circumstantial paranoia.
He could picture it so clearly—Elena exactly as he'd left her, drowsy from medication, curled up under that velvet duvet in the master bedroom. Breathing softly. Unconscious of any drama at school. Innocent of any crime.
Please.
But even as he nurtured that fragile hope, another part of his mind was already calculating darker possibilities. Practical considerations filtered through the panic:
If Elena had done this—if she'd actually bound and displayed Veronica Xue in a public plaza like some kind of medieval punishment—then what was Marcus's responsibility?
He came from a world with rule of law, where crimes had consequences, where you didn't just ignore felony assault because the perpetrator happened to be your spouse. His entire previous life had been built on a foundation of professional ethics, even if those ethics served violent ends. Bodyguards didn't protect criminals. They protected clients within the bounds of legality.
If Elena was guilty, should he... could he... report her?