Chapter 7

Summer Lynn POV

I walked out of the private room. The air in the corridor was cold and cutting.

I rubbed my painfully squeezed wrist and didn't wait for Ethan. I walked straight toward the club's exclusive elevator.

I had just pressed the down button when the elevator doors opened.

Just as I was about to step in, urgent footsteps sounded behind me.

Ethan strode over with a dark expression, Cherry following closely beside him with reddened eyes.

The three of us, one after another, walked into the narrow elevator car.

The elevator doors slowly closed and began descending smoothly.

Cherry seemed like she wanted to say something to break the awkward silence, but after glancing at Ethan's grim profile, she swallowed her words.

Just as the elevator numbers hit the twentieth floor, a violent explosion shook the building.

BOOM.

The entire structure shuddered.

The lights in the car instantly went out completely. The overhead ventilation fan made a piercing shriek before stopping entirely.

Immediately after came a terrifying sensation of extreme weightlessness that made hearts leap into throats.

The elevator was out of control.

The entire car, in complete darkness, plummeted downward at a horrifying speed!

"AH"

Cherry let out a piercing scream.

I was thrown against the elevator wall by the sudden jolt. The pain made my vision go black.

In the darkness, weightless and disoriented, survival instinct took over. I reached out, trying to grab anything to steady myself.

I grabbed the nearest thing. The hem of Ethan's suit jacket.

After dropping for more than ten floors, the elevator's emergency safety clamps finally locked onto the tracks with a death grip.

The car was like it had hit an invisible wall, abruptly suspended in midair.

The massive recoil force threw us all heavily to the floor.

In the pitch darkness, I could only hear heavy breathing.

Above our heads came the sound of metal scraping as steel cables snapped. The car swayed precariously in midair."Ethan..." Cherry curled up in Ethan's arms, crying uncontrollably.

I leaned against the cold metal corner of the elevator car.

My right ear was filled with Cherry's crying and the terrifying sound of steel cables about to snap.

My left ear existed in absolute, dead silence.

This extreme sense of being torn between half noise and half silence instantly pulled me back to that fire from five years ago.

In the old villa five years ago, after the flames died down, it was this same suffocating darkness.

The collapsed beam pressed on my back. I had shielded Ethan beneath me. I waited for rescue in that narrow, scorching, suffocating rubble.

Since then, I'd developed severe claustrophobia.

Whenever night fell, whenever I was in an enclosed space, I would uncontrollably tremble all over, break into cold sweats, even have difficulty breathing.

So for these five years, in the villa's living room, a lamp was always left on for me.

At this moment, the claustrophobia was completely triggered in the darkness.

My whole body began trembling. Cold sweat instantly soaked through my back.

I opened my mouth, desperately trying to draw in the thin oxygen in the elevator car.

I don't know how much time passed.

Suddenly, the roar of an electric saw cutting through metal came from the elevator ceiling.

The top panel was forcibly pried open, creating an extremely narrow gap.

A beam of blinding flashlight pierced down through the gap, cutting through the darkness inside the car.

A rough rescue rope was thrown in.

"Listen!"

The rescue personnel shouted with all their might from above. "All the load-bearing cables have snapped! The opening is too narrow. We can only pull one person up at a time! Quickly put the safety harness on yourselves!"

Suddenly, the elevator dropped sharply downward.

Ethan didn't hesitate at all.

He grabbed the rope and without a second thought secured it around Cherry, locking the safety clasp tight.

Then he forcefully lifted Cherry upward.

"Pull her up! Hurry!" Ethan roared toward the opening at the top.

The people above began pulling. Cherry's body was gradually hauled out of the car bit by bit.

Ethan kept his head tilted back, his hands constantly supporting Cherry's waist until he confirmed she was completely safe. Only then did he turn his head.

In the faint remaining light of the flashlight, he looked toward me curled up in the corner.

"Summer, wait another ten minutes. They'll lower a second rope right away."

Ethan showed not a trace of guilt toward me.

"Cherry developed severe claustrophobia from the fire scene years ago. She can't stay in the dark. I have to send her up first."

I leaned against the cold elevator wall.

The flashlight's beam shone on my face, illuminating the absurdity and desolation in my heart.

The person who risked her life to shield him in that burning villa back then. It was clearly me.

The one who truly developed claustrophobia. It was me!

But Ethan had believed Cherry's lies.

I lowered my head.

In the residual light of the flashlight, I looked at my own hand.

From extreme fear and the instinct to survive, from the moment we started falling, I had been desperately clutching the hem of Ethan's suit jacket.

My knuckles had turned white from excessive force. Even my fingernails had drawn blood.

I looked at that wrinkled corner of fabric I'd been gripping, and suddenly felt that my persistence over these five years was nothing but a joke.

What exactly was I clinging to?

Why did I love a man who didn't even care about my life?

Why did I continue to maintain a marriage built on lies and humiliation?

The elevator shook violently again.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

Then I gradually loosened my fingers.

I released that corner of fabric I'd been desperately clutching.