Chapter 5

Before my voice could even fade, Laura’s hand whipped across my face.

Slap!

The force of the blow made my ears ring sharply.

Laura looked at me with deep disappointment. "Do you have to keep tormenting him, Davis? How did you become so heartless?"

It was almost comical. My ears were ringing so loudly that their shouting sounded like they were underwater.

Julian didn't have to do a thing.

All he had to do was sit in that chair and cry, and these three powerful women would fight his battles for him.

When Julian first became my assistant, he was like a shadow, following me twenty-four hours a day.

Whenever I hung out with Laura and the girls, Julian was always there.

The balance of our four-person group was completely shattered by his presence.

My dancing career was taking off back then, and within a year, I was headlining solo tours.

Because of this, I was barely in Boston.

Julian always found excuses to stay behind instead of traveling with me.

Though I wasn't happy with his work ethic, I didn't make a big deal out of it.

But gradually, I noticed that our active group chat had gone completely dead.

Soon, I found out why.

Julian had created a separate group chat with the three of them. They were talking and laughing in their new group every single day, leaving me completely in the dark.

I could accept Julian joining our circle, but I couldn't accept being pushed out of my own life.

Especially when one of those people was my girlfriend, Laura.

I had a massive fight with Laura about it. In a desperate attempt to get her attention, I used fake blood to stage an accident.

When she saw through it, her eyes were filled with disgust. "I never realized how crazy and manipulative you are, Davis."

That fight led to a cold war. I stopped talking to Laura, and I ignored Maria and Sophie too.

Then came my next tour. Julian tried to back out again, but this time, I insisted he come with me.

And during the dress rehearsal, disaster struck.

The opening act required me to descend from a harness fifty feet in the air.

When Julian was checking my harness, I felt something was loose. I repeatedly told him to double-check and tighten the straps.

But he smiled and assured me everything was perfect.

At that time, the rest of the crew had gone out for dinner. Only the two of us were in the arena.

Julian said, "Davis, if you're scared, I can put on a harness and go up with you."

But he only put on the gear; he didn't actually rise with me.

The moment I reached the highest point, the harness failed.

The safety latch snapped, and I plummeted fifty feet, crashing brutally onto the wooden stage.

That height was equivalent to a five-story building.

I didn't die, but my body felt like it had been shattered into a million pieces. My screams of agony echoed through the empty arena.

Instead of calling an ambulance, Julian dragged my broken body into a taxi and took me to a remote, poorly equipped hospital hours away.

Because of the delay in treatment, my legs couldn't be saved.

The day they amputated my leg was my twenty-eighth birthday.

And the only person by my side was Julian.

He told me Laura and the girls were too busy to come.

Though my heart ached, the physical pain was so overwhelming that I couldn't think straight.

Two days before I was discharged, Julian disappeared.

When I finally went home with my new prosthetic leg, the police were waiting for me.

Laura, Maria, and Sophie had teamed up to put me behind bars.

They claimed that out of jealousy, I had tried to murder Julian by rigging his harness, resulting in his permanent paralysis.

I was too broken, both physically and mentally, to defend myself. Before they dragged me away, I tried to show them my prosthetic leg.

But they looked at me with cold indifference, mocking my "disgusting lies."

I shook my head, trying to clear the fog in my brain.

With the massive blood loss and my weakened state, my body finally gave out, and I collapsed onto the floor.

Before darkness claimed me, I heard Laura's cold, mocking voice.