Chapter 6
Chapter 6
“Find her. Now.”
Calix massaged his temples, his expression darkening with each passing second,
Despite her young age, Karina was perceptive enough to grasp the situation from the fragments of conversation she’d heard. Now understanding something terrible had happened, she began crying in distress.
“Mommy! I want my mommy!”
Calix knelt down and gathered her into his arms.
“Uncle, let me comfort Karina while you search for your wife,” Sylvia offered with sugary sweetness. “I’m fantastic with kids.”
As she reached for the child, Karina shrank back, her tear–stained face contorting with anger. “Stay away from me, you horrible woman! You said mean things about my mom and cut off her finger! I’m telling the police to arrest
you!”
This simple, childish declaration froze the entire room. All eyes turned to Karina in stunned disbelief.
Sylvia had only insulted one person. Only one person had lost a finger.
Like a choreographed dance, the wedding guests simultaneously backed away from Sylvia, creating a wide circle around her as if she carried a deadly contagion.
The color drained from Sylvia’s face as the horrifying realization hit her.
“Sir, we found your wife,” Calix’s assistant called out, pushing through the crowd. “She’s over here.”
I had been discarded in a corner, semi–conscious, with blood pooling around my unbandaged hand.
Calix knelt beside me, his fingers hovering just above my deathly pale face, almost afraid that touching me would cause more damage.
“Sir, the ambulance is on its way,” his assistant said quietly. “We’ve dispatched security to search for the finger.”
Calix nodded, carefully removing his jacket and draping it over me like a protective shield.
When he looked up again, his face was terrifying in its controlled fury. “You had the audacity to cut off my wife’s finger.”
His voice was barely above a whisper, yet the temperature in the ballroom seemed to plummet instantly
Ronan stood there white as a ghost, his expression cycling through disbelief to dawning horror. “Uncle, this has to be some kind of sick joke. Anya can’t possibly be your wife. She must have blackmailed you or something. What did she offer that made even you play along with this insanity?”
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Chapter 6
The assistant couldn’t contain himself. “Young Mr. Quinn, do you honestly believe anyone on this planet could manipulate Mr. Calix Quinn into playing along with anything? Stop kidding yourself”
“Our Mrs. Quinn is indeed the woman whose finger you just severed. Instead of questioning her identity, you should be worrying about your own future. After what you’ve done to her, I’d start considering legal representation”
Watching how tenderly Calix handled me, the jealousy festering inside Sylvia erupted like acid. Without thinking, she lashed out.
“Uncle Calix, don’t fall for her act! You don’t know her like I do. That innocent face hides a conniving, manipulative slut. Back home, she had different men in her bedroom every weekend. She’s nothing but trash-
Her venomous words were cut short by a vicious slap across her face.
“Shut your damn mouth!” Ronan shouted, his eyes red with rage. “Anya was never like that. You’ve always been jealous of her, constantly spreading your poisonous lies.”
As if suddenly coming to his senses, his gaze swept across the crowd until he spotted the man who had been spreading the horrific trafficking story, now trying to slip away unnoticed.
Ronan grabbed a champagne bottle and smashed it over the man’s head.
Faced with Ronan’s unhinged fury, the man ignored his bleeding scalp and dropped to his knees, pleading “Mr. Quinn, it wasn’t my idea! Miss Sylvía paid me a hundred grand to make up that story about the trafficking ring! She wanted to create panic so she could harm your ex–fiancée without consequences–I swear I was just following
orders!”
“You’re talking absolute nonsense! I’ve never even met you,” Sylvia sputtered, desperately attempting damage
control.
But her panicked expression and trembling hands betrayed her completely.
The man crawled toward Calix, repeatedly banging his head against the floor in desperate supplication. “Mr. Quinn, I made a terrible mistake. Please have mercy. I don’t want the money anymore. This has nothing to do with me. It was all Sylvia’s plan! She started the rumors. Ronan cut off your wife’s finger–everyone witnessed it! If I’d known the target was Mrs. Quinn, I wouldn’t have dared breathe in her direction, not for all the money in the world!”
Calix gave a chilling smile. “So if she wasn’t my wife, harming her would have been acceptable?”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant-”
Calix had no patience for further excuses. With a slight nod, his security team clamped a hand over the man’s mouth and dragged him away.
His assistant rushed over with something wrapped in cloth. “Sir, we recovered the finger. The ambulanc outside.”
vaiting
Only then did Calix lift my semi–conscious body into his arms. His gaze swept across the ballroom as if surveying a collection of insects. To his assistant, he simply said, “Stay and handle this. Make sure everyone understands exactly what the price is for my wife’s finger.”
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Chapter 6
As the ballroom doors closed behind him, a line of security personnel formed an impenetrable wall.
Everyone who had entered today would not be leaving in the same condition they arrived.
– Lifo
