Chapter 5
755words
But the moment Kimberly heard that, she trained an icy gaze on me.
Irving, too, looked at me with feigned surprise and said, "So you'd already called the firefighters ahead of time. No wonder you dared to jump down. I thought you were trying to kill me by pushing me off the rooftop. I guess you just wanted to scare me, huh?
"But don't you remember that you had some men beat me until my eardrum was perforated. If I really did fall from that height, I might've gone completely deaf."
Irving looked fearful and aggrieved. His eyes reddened as he looked at Natalia.
He went on, "I'm not afraid of dying. I just can't bear to leave you behind. Still, Lucian loves you very much. Even if I really died, he would probably take good care of you."
Natalia rushed forward and hugged him tightly. Then, she turned and shot me a venomous glare.
"Lucian, if anything really happens to Irvy, I will never let you get away with it!" she warned.
Then, she charged at me and kicked me hard in the leg.
Those legs, which had been atrophied for years but fully recovered now, kicked me so hard that my knees buckled. I stumbled and ended up kneeling on the ground with one knee.
I looked up at Natalia. She stood in front of Irving protectively with a stern expression. But back when I had cured her legs, she had said that the person she would protect for the rest of her life was me.
Natalia's legs had been paralyzed in a car accident. Because of her disability, the Stone family had given up on her. When we got engaged as per our families' arrangement, her eyes lit up with hope for the first time. She had said I would be the only person she would ever love.
Yet, she quickly changed her mind when she had only gotten to know Irving for three days.
Natalia took me back to the Stone residence. The four women all had different expressions as they looked at me.
Soon, Natalia pulled up a video on her phone and put it in front of me. Then, she tapped on the play button.
She said, "Lucian, if you hadn't fled the scene back and taken me to the hospital in time, I wouldn't have ended up paralyzed. I wouldn't have had to put up with all that mockery for so many years.
"When Irvy gave me this video, he begged me repeatedly not to bring this up with you and not to pursue responsibility. He even knelt to plead for you. Still, you kept hurting him over and over again."
Kimberly and the other two already hated me to the bone because Irving had been forced to leave. After hearing this, they glared daggers at me. The last traces of hesitation and concern in Mavis' and Shiloh's eyes vanished completely.
"This car belongs to the Caldwell family. You recognize it, don't you?" Natalia sneered as she paused the video.
Even though the license plate was obscured, the distinctive decorations were enough for me to recognize it at a glance. It indeed was the car Mavis had once given me.
But not long after I received it, Irving had taken it from me.
I explained evenly, "The car was indeed a gift from Mavis. But before I ever drove it, Irving took it."
As soon as my words fell, everyone's eyes turned to Irving. His expression had grown shifty the moment Natalia played the video. Now, his face was noticeably pale.
Even so, he denied it. "Nat, I did drive that car before. That was why I recognized it right away when I saw the video. But the person driving it that day wasn't me. You took the car out, didn't you, Lucian?"
I let out a cold laugh and picked up the phone.
I walked over to Mavis and said, "They might not know, but you should. I couldn't have driven the car, right?"
As if she realized that I genuinely didn't care anymore and wanted to die, Mavis bit down hard on her lip. Under everyone's questioning gazes, she slowly nodded.
"The person driving the car that day… wasn't Lucian."
In an instant, the other three women all turned to look at Irving in shock.
