Chapter 3

The comments section went absolutely wild:

【How is this any different from treating the male lead like a dog?! This is literally abuse!】

【Liam is so tragic. He sacrificed everything for love, Seraphina Shaw, you'll regret this!】

Regret?

I coldly watched Liam's face, pale as paper and slick with cold sweat.

The butler, quick on the uptake, handed me a document.

It was Liam's lifelong employment contract, representing the highest position within the Shaw family, second only to me.

I tore the contract to shreds in front of him, along with his expensive clothes and custom weapons from his room, ordering them all thrown into the outdoor fire pit.

Flames shot into the sky, illuminating Liam's desperate and humiliated face.

"Throw him, and the woman behind him, out of the Shaw estate like trash."

I picked up a damp towel nearby and slowly wiped the side of my neck where his knife had rested.

"Get out of New York. Don't defile my territory again."

After Liam was thrown out, all the servants and bodyguards dared not speak, even breathing cautiously.

No one had expected that Liam, whom Seraphina had favored for ten years, almost universally assumed to become half the master of the Shaw family, would be crippled and discarded like this.

The butler, bracing himself, came forward to ask for instructions: "Seraphina, the head of the bodyguard unit is vacant. Would you like to promote someone from the deputies, or..."

"Prepare the car." I cut him off, tossing the used towel into the tray. "To the city's underbelly."

The butler was startled: "You want to pick someone yourself?"

There could be no vacancy by my side.

What's more, I didn't like using secondhand goods. The head bodyguard had to be someone I personally selected, an absolutely loyal dog.

New York's underground fight club reeked of blood, cheap tobacco, and sickening sweat.

This was the city's most chaotic, darkest, lawless zone.

The club owner, terrified by my presence, scrambled out to greet me, fawningly presenting a roster, recommending a large number of so-called top fighters and retired mercenaries.

I coldly watched the people in the iron cages, fighting to a bloody pulp for a few thousand dollars, flipping through more than a dozen pages of the roster without finding anyone suitable.

Too weak.

None of them were what I wanted.

Feeling annoyed, I stood up to leave.

Just as I was about to step out of the private box, a bone-cracking sound, so grating it made my teeth ache, suddenly echoed from the octagonal iron cage below. This was followed by a deafening collective gasp from the entire crowd.

I turned my head, my gaze falling.

Inside the iron cage, a blood-soaked man was like a wild beast, fiercely biting his opponent's throat.

His opponent was a behemoth weighing over two hundred pounds more than him, yet he was locked onto the ground in an incredibly twisted, utterly reckless posture, eyes rolling back, on the verge of asphyxiation.

The man's upper body was bare, his pale skin covered in dense, writhing black thorn tattoos.

They extended all the way up his neck, exuding an extreme wickedness and savagery.

"Seraphina, don't look at him," the owner quickly explained, wiping sweat from his forehead.

"That's just an untamed madman. He doesn't even have a name, just the codename 'Wild Dog.' He bites everyone, doesn't obey orders at all. He bit a handler to death just last week…"

The owner was still rambling, but I raised my wrist, cutting him off.

I walked to the edge of the iron cage, observing him.

Just then, the bloodthirsty madman seemed to sense something.

Under the blinding spotlight, I met a pair of dark, ruthless eyes, filled with an intense, almost obsessive focus.

He saw me.

In just one second of eye contact, the wild rage in his eyes miraculously subsided.

To the incredible astonishment of the entire audience, he crawled to the edge of the wire mesh, kneeling humbly on the ground before my high heels.