Four Childhood Heroes For Her? Fine, I Cut Off The Four Who Betrayed Me Chapter 01

Four Childhood Heroes For Her? Fine, I Cut Off The Four Who Betrayed Me Chapter 01

I’d been considered slow since I was a child. The first time I traveled to France, my four childhood friends, who were fluent in eight languages, acted as if they needed to keep me glued to their sides.

Even when my best friend, Ava, hit a pedestrian while driving without a license, they refused to let me get out of the car, insisting they would handle everything.

Yet when the police arrived, the four of them put Ava on a motorcycle and rode off, leaving me alone to face the interrogation.

I couldn’t understand a word. I tried using a translation app, only to realize my phone didn’t even have an international SIM card installed.

I had to pledge the gold locket my mother left me just to secure temporary release.

When I rushed back to the hotel and begged my four childhood friends to help me redeem the locket, I was met with cold refusal.

“Emma, you’re being so tedious. Our Schengen visas expire today, and we have to fly back to New York this afternoon.”

“So what if someone was hit? You weren’t the one driving. You just need to explain the situation clearly..”

I told them I couldn’t speak the language and that my translation app didn’t work, but Ethan interrupted me impatiently.

“Are you stupid? You’ve been exposed to French for years, and you couldn’t learn a sentence?”

“Ava is right. We spoiled you too much, and now you have zero independence.”

“Handle this yourself. Nobody is going to help you.”

In the end, Ethan, my fiancé, softened up and promised to help me retrieve it.

Yet when the plane was about to depart, I was detained at French border police because of the unresolved hit and run.

Not only that, the airline staff informed me that my return ticket to New York had actually been rebooked for Iceland.

Watching the five of them walk through the boarding gate together, I wiped away my tears and called my attorney back in New York.

“Connect me with an attorney over here, someone who speaks fluent French.”

“Also, that full-time conversion approval for them that I signed? Cancel it.”

***

The attorney arrived quickly. After proving that I had nothing to do with the accident, the police released me.

When I asked to reclaim my gold locket, the officer looked at me in utter confusion.

“Your fiancé took the gold locket hours ago. He showed me a photo of you two together and said how important it was to you.”

The officer produced the sign-out record. The signature on the document belonged to Ethan.

I called Ethan immediately, but he hung up on me.

I called again, and his phone was turned off.

Unwilling to give up, I tried calling the other three. The result was identical.

Three different people, three different phones, as if they had agreed in advance, were all switched off.

My attorney stepped closer with concern. “Would you like me to file a claim against the police department? Releasing your personal property to a third party without authorization is a serious administrative error.”

“However, your fiancé might be implicated or even face prison time…”

I thought it couldn’t be that serious. Perhaps Ethan had simply forgotten to give it back to me after picking it up.

The next second, my best friend Ava updated her social media feed.

[Returning from our trip with a surprise gift. Thanks to my four best friends for the thought!]

In the photo, a heavy gold bracelet rested on her wrist. The receipt shown in the picture displayed a weight of 19.99 grams, the exact weight of the gold locket my mother had left behind.

My head throbbed. I instinctively dialed Ava’s number and confronted her.

“How could you melt down my mother’s gold locket into a bracelet for yourself? You know that was the only thing she left me!”

Ava immediately tried to explain, “Emma, you misunderstood. The four of them pooled their money together to buy this for my graduation…”

I cut her off directly.

“A gift? Then why does its weight match my mother’s locket down to the exact decimal?”

“You used me as a scapegoat for your hit and run, and you worked with them to abandon me in a foreign country where I don’t even speak the language. Was that not enough? Why couldn’t you leave my mother’s memory alone?”

The line went silent. I thought they had finally realized what they had done.

The next moment, Ethan’s voice came through the speaker.

“We pooled our money to buy Ava the bracelet. Your locket is with me.”

“I know you’re upset about being left behind in France, but we did it to force you to stand on your own two feet.”

“The fact that you can call us right now proves Ava’s idea worked. You should be grateful to her instead of defaming her!”