I Was Sent to the Casino Tycoon as Debt Repayment Chapter 06

I Was Sent to the Casino Tycoon as Debt Repayment Chapter 06

The doctors filed out, and for the first time since I’d woken up, I really looked at Victor.

Dark circles carved hollows under his eyes. His hair — always perfect, always controlled — was wrecked. He was still wearing the same coat from three days ago.

Stubble shadowed his jaw.

“When was the last time you slept?”

He blinked, as if the question surprised him. “Three days. You were out for three.” His voice was matter-of-fact, as if the answer were obvious. “I wasn’t going to sleep until you opened your eyes.”

Something ached behind my ribs that had nothing to do with the wounds. I pulled him down to sit on the edge of the bed.

“You can’t do this to yourself, Victor.”

His eyes were bloodshot, and beneath the exhaustion I saw something worse — the kind of fear that only hits after the danger has passed.

“Elena, this is on me. I never should’ve left you alone in this city.”

“I shouldn’t have sent you to Riverlet. If I hadn’t, the Sterlings never would’ve found you.”

“And none of this — none of it — would’ve happened.”

“All of it. My fault.”

—

Something nagged at me — the way Marcus had dismissed my ring, like he’d been warned in advance. And the way Stella had been waiting in that room, ready for me. None of it was random.

“Victor — is Stella really your cousin?”

Victor was quiet for a beat. “No.”

“Her real name is Stella Hayes. She’s Julian’s younger sister.”

My breath caught. “Julian — the one who died saving your life?”

Victor nodded. “His last words were about her. He made me promise to look after his sister.”

“So I brought her into the Mercer family — put her under my aunt’s name, sent her overseas for school, gave her everything she needed.”

“I never thought she’d do something like this.”

“Her brother saved my life, and I gave her twenty years of my protection for it. That debt is paid.” His voice went flat. “She’s yours to deal with. However you want.”

The memory of that blade pressing into my skin flared white-hot. I could still feel it.

“Bring her in.”

Victor pulled out his phone and spoke a single sentence into it.

Five minutes later, two men dragged Stella into the room. She was stripped down to her underwear and slicked with blood.

Victor’s men had strapped a heavy, iron weight to her stomach —

—

distended and grotesque, a mocking mirror of a woman at full term.

Every wound she’d carved into me had been given back to her. Exact copies, down to the placement.

She collapsed on the floor, shaking so hard her teeth chattered. Her wounds were swollen, angry and red, and her hair hung in matted clumps over her face.

She lifted her face to me, contorted with pain. “Mrs. Thorne, I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

She dragged herself to my feet and clutched at my ankles.

“I swear I didn’t know it was you. I didn’t know who they were sending.”

“I wasn’t thinking — I made a terrible mistake. I lost my mind.”

“Please, Mrs. Thorne — just this once. I’ll never do it again. Please forgive me.”

I watched her, unmoved. She was good — the trembling, the tears, the perfectly pitched desperation. Walk in blind and you’d think I was the monster in this room.

“I told you you’d regret it, Stella. Why didn’t you listen?”

“Did you think I was in so much pain I wouldn’t remember what you said to me?”

“You told me you set the whole thing up. That you brought me here to kill me.”

“Or did you forget that part?”

—

Terror swallowed what was left of Stella’s composure. She shook her head, sobbing. “That’s not — I didn’t — I swear I didn’t know it was you.”

“I wasn’t in my right mind! It was a moment of insanity! Please, Mrs. Thorne — I’m so sorry.”