He Bet My Life On A Table And Called It Justice For Her Chapter 01

He Bet My Life On A Table And Called It Justice For Her Chapter 01

After I was sent to the Black Gallery, I became the most expensive chip on the table.

They severed my Achilles tendons while the room cheered. The numbers burned into my skin kept multiplying.

They locked me in the center of an iron cage, where men placed bets, shouted prices, and lined up to inspect me like merchandise.

After the seventh time they dragged me back inside, I curled up on a rotten blanket. The scars across my back split open again, blood seeping through the torn skin.

Outside the door, someone laughed under his breath.

“Jesus. The idiot still thinks she was kidnapped.”

“Calder’s pampered little society girl, reduced to this. Mr. Calder really knows how to make a point.”

“He set the whole thing up to make his new ward feel better.”

“The Black Gallery belongs to the Calder family. The high rollers are paid actors. Even the dealer is Mr. Calder’s secretary.”

“She was burning up last night, mumbling for Uncle Thane to save her. That’s the funny part. Her precious Uncle Thane is the one who sent her here.”

Then they pushed the door open.

When they saw the blood all over the floor, their faces changed.

One of them fumbled for his phone. “Call Mr. Calder. Now. She’s not going to last.”

I lifted my eyelids just enough to see the name flashing across the screen.

Thane Calder.

In that moment, every inch of pain inside me froze solid.

So the two years of hell—the beatings, the assaults, the humiliation—had all been written for me by Uncle Thane himself.

Blood rose in my throat, thick and metallic. Just before my mind slipped away, a cold electronic voice cut through my skull.

“Host, do you wish to abandon the mission to win Thane Calder’s affection and return to your real world?”

***

With that cold voice, the memories sealed inside me collapsed all at once.

I remembered.

To save my brother after he nearly died falling from a cliff, I made a deal with the system outside the ICU.

It wiped my memory and sent me into this world as the girl Thane Calder took in to fill the hole his dead daughter left behind.

His ward.

The girl who called him Uncle Thane.

The system asked again, “Host, do you want to go home?”

“Your brother has recovered. He’s waiting for you.”

I wanted to go home.

I wanted it so badly my chest felt torn open.

But my throat was blocked. I couldn’t make a sound.

“It’s all right. You’ve done enough.”

For once, the system’s voice was almost gentle. “Thane Calder was never worthy of what you gave him.”

“As soon as this body dies, you can go home.”

Home.

That one word made me use the last of my strength to pull at the corner of my mouth.

But the blood only came faster.

A doctor pressed down on me in a panic and shouted, “She’s crashing! Mr. Calder is on his way. Keep her conscious!”

Slaps. Ice water. Electrodes pressed to my skin.

My body convulsed from the pain, but my mind kept sinking toward that warm darkness.

I was so close.

So close to seeing him.

My real family.

My brother, Bram Marlowe.

Then, right before I made it, a shot of epinephrine burned into my vein.

White light exploded in my eyes. Through it, I met a pair of bloodshot eyes.

“Auden!”

“…Uncle Thane?”

The second the name left my mouth, I knew it was a mistake.

The panic in Thane Calder’s eyes hardened instantly, turning back into that familiar disgust.

He threw my hand away like I had contaminated him.

“Who gave you the right to call me that?”

“The Calder family doesn’t keep vicious things like you.”

He shoved me off the bed.

My bones hit the cold floor with a dull crack.

For one second, he froze. Then his brows drew tight.

“How did you get this thin? You were in a place with food, weren’t you? Or are you trying to starve yourself just to make a scene?”

Food.

He used to say that too.

Back then, Thane Calder cut my food into tiny pieces and cooled each spoonful of soup before bringing it to my mouth.

I had been weak since birth.

When I was sixteen, acute kidney failure put me on the edge of death three times.

That night, Thane Calder was already the man everyone in the city knew not to cross. Still, he walked away from the underworld and donated most of his fortune to charity.

For seven nights, he stayed outside my ICU room, refusing to leave. He told every doctor to save me, no matter the cost, and begged anything listening to take him instead.

Everyone said the devil in a tailored suit had spoiled his little girl rotten.

Even I had been foolish enough to believe that kind of love could last forever.