My Fiancé Shielded My Drinks; A Future Call Made Me Ruthless

At the engagement party, my fianc Eustace Cobb smiled that gentle smile of his and drank three rounds on my behalf.

My whole family said I'd married well.

After the banquet broke up, I rubbed my aching shoulder and went to the restroom.

My phone slipped to the floor, and somehow, on its own, it connected a FaceTime call.

The woman on the screen had a shaved head, sharp collarbones jutting out, and beneath the collar of a hospital gown, a PICC line for chemo.

"It's me. You, three years from now."

I nearly dropped the phone into the toilet.

She didn't give me time to react.

"Tonight at eleven-thirty, Eustace will show up at that woman's place in Building 7 at Azure Cove. Remember when he said he was away on a three-month business trip? Their child is already eight months old."

"The day after tomorrow, your dad goes to his company to demand an explanation, and he has security push Dad down the stairs. Fractured tailbone. Six months flat on his back."

"And you don't know any of it. You're still there waiting on his parents for him."

The hand holding the phone wouldn't stop shaking.

She wiped her face with the hand hooked to the IV.

"Tonight, take people to Azure Cove and gather evidence. Bring your cousin. Bring a lawyer."

"Then call off the wedding, and go take the exam you always wanted. Next March the state broadcaster is hiring reporters. One spot. That position was made for you."

"Madge Sullivan, I'm begging you. Don't walk the road I walked."

"Don't be like me, only waking up when it's already come to this."

The call cut off on its own. The screen locked, and my reflection stared back at me, white as paper.

I braced myself against the cold wall and started to gag.

"Knock, knock, knock."

Someone rapped on the restroom door.

"Madge, what's wrong? Did you have too much to drink?"

It was Eustace's voice, gentle as ever.

I steadied myself against the wall, stood up straight, and opened the door.

His eyes met mine, and his brow creased at once, all tenderness and concern.

"Why are you so pale?"

He reached out, that familiar warmth settling onto my aching shoulder, kneading it for me.

I flinched before I could stop myself.

His hand went still on my shoulder, and he studied me.

I forced down the churning in my chest and made myself smile.

"Might be low blood sugar."

I looked up and asked, as if it were nothing, "Oh, that place at Azure Cove, did we rent it out recently? My friend's looking to rent a big flat in the area and asked me about it."

Not a flicker crossed his face. He pulled me easily into his arms, chin resting on top of my head.

"Silly. That place is way out from the city, sitting empty and gathering dust. Why would I rent it out?"

My fingernails dug deep crescents into my palms.

He lied without so much as a hitch in his heartbeat.

"If it's not rented, that's fine. I'll tell her later."

I pushed him away gently, and the last thread of hope in me shattered completely, right along with his easy lie.

"I'll drive you home."

"No need." I stepped back out of his arms. "Didn't you say you had something urgent to handle back at the office? I'll just grab a cab."

Without a hint of hesitation, he pressed a kiss to my forehead. The warmth of it made my stomach turn.

"Then go straight home, and text me when you get in."

I watched him get into that black Bentley, its taillights vanishing into the night.

I called my cousin right away.

"Are you free right now? Find me a lawyer friend, the best one you've got for divorce cases, and get to the gate of the Azure Cove complex to wait for me. Now."

I hung up and flagged down a taxi.

"Azure Cove, please. Quick as you can."

The door opened.

What I saw in the entryway drove straight into my eyes.

A pair of men's leather shoes I'd bought, polished to a shine.

And beside them, snug against them, a pair of soft-soled slippers that were unmistakably a woman's.

Every sound around me went blurry.

My cousin and the lawyer saw it too, their faces darkening in an instant.

The bedroom door stood half open, warm yellow light spilling out.

A man's low, coaxing voice came through, clear as anything.

"Come on, stop fussing."

"Playing along with that block of wood Madge all day nearly killed me."

I didn't fall apart. I just calmly lifted my phone, filmed everything, and then kicked the solid wood door wide open.

"Bang! "

On the bed, Margot Simmons screamed and pulled the blanket tight around herself, her eyes terrified but somehow defiant too.

And Eustace, my perfect fianc, after one brief flicker of shock, showed no panic at all.

He slid into a silk robe without hurry and walked toward me barefoot.

Under the dim wall lamp his eyes were as gentle as ever, even carrying a doting sort of reproach.

"Madge, it's pouring out there. Why would you run all the way over here?"

He reached out, perfectly natural, to smooth the hair at my temples. "Dressed this thin, if you catch a cold it'll break my heart."

Looking at that devoted-good-husband face, I felt sick. I slapped his hand away hard. "Don't touch me. You're filthy."

Eustace's hand stopped in midair. He wasn't angry. He sighed softly, the way you'd indulge a child throwing a tantrum.

"Madge, don't sulk. Fine, I drank too much tonight, I got carried away for a bit. But you have to understand, she's nothing more than a distraction."

He leaned in slightly, his eyes so tender it was suffocating.

"The place of Mrs. Cobb belongs to you, Madge Sullivan, and only you. It always will."

"Be good. Don't let some person who doesn't matter come between us, all right?"

"Eustace... but I'm already carrying your baby..." Margot cried out, wounded.

That sentence shattered seven years of my youth and my trust into pieces.

He already had an illegitimate child on the way, and he could still talk to me about our wedding of the century without so much as changing his expression?

I looked at the man in front of me and laughed, cold and low.

The tears slid down, but my back stayed perfectly straight.

"Eustace, put away that revolting devotion. You think I want that reeking little seat of yours, this 'Mrs. Cobb'?"

I took a step back and tapped my earpiece. "Come in. Bring the lawyer."

Footsteps broke out beyond the door.

My cousin came in with Sheridan Law's lead attorney, and two bodyguards instantly moved to block Eustace.

"Madge Sullivan, have you lost your mind?" His gentle mask finally cracked.

"Lawyer Finch, the video I just took, is it enough to prove Eustace's major fault during the engagement?" I didn't even spare him a glance.

"More than enough." Lawyer Finch pushed his glasses up, all business.

"Under the supplementary clause of the prenuptial agreement, since the broken engagement results from the man's serious moral misconduct, the East End land parcel under Mr. Cobb's name will go to you as the contractual penalty."

I pulled the ten-million pink-diamond engagement ring off my ring finger and threw it down at Eustace's feet.

"Eustace, we're done."

Then I turned and walked out without a shred of regret.

No one behind me called me back.

I heard Eustace speak, gently.

"Madge Sullivan, do you really think you can walk away?"

Early the next morning, my father's voice held a panic and dread I'd never heard from him before.

"Madge, we're in trouble! Every one of the company's partners tore up their contracts overnight. The banks pulled our loans out of nowhere. Our cash flow is gone!"

My hands and feet went cold.

Before I could even surface from the shock of it, the doorbell rang.

Through the peephole, I saw Eustace Cobb standing outside in a full suit, two bodyguards behind him carrying large cases.

He seemed to know I was watching. Facing the peephole, he gave a gentle smile.

I didn't open the door, so he simply waited outside, patient.

Until my parents came out at the sound and opened it.

Eustace walked in as if nothing had happened, greeting my parents politely.

Then he had the bodyguards open the two cases.

One was stacked with neatly arranged cash. The other held a thick pile of rescue contracts.

He pushed the contracts across the coffee table, but his eyes went past my father and landed on me.

"Sir, ma'am, don't worry. As long as Madge stops throwing her tantrum, all these partnerships can be restored anytime."

His tone was light, offhand.

"This is just a little lesson for Madge. So she understands what a tantrum costs."

My father shook with rage.

He jabbed a finger at Eustace and swore at him. "You animal! What did you do to my daughter? And you dare come threaten my family? Get out! Get out of my house!"

Eustace's gaze stayed fixed on me, deaf to my father's cursing.

He even wore that doting smile, asking me gently,

"Madge, look. Over something this small, your father here has worked himself sick, and he might go bankrupt too. Doesn't it break your heart?"

He came toward me, reaching for my hand.

The blood in my whole body roared up to the top of my head.

I grabbed the glass off the coffee table and threw it at his forehead with everything I had.

The glass shattered on impact. Blood snaked down from his temple and dripped onto his expensive white shirt, blooming into a garish red flower.

He finally stopped.

My parents were both stunned.

I thought he'd fly into a rage, that he'd lose his mind.

But he only wiped the blood from his temple with his fingertip, unbothered.

He looked at me, that same gentleness still in his eyes.

"It's all right. I know you're upset."

"I'll wait for you to calm down."

"Our wedding goes ahead on schedule."

After he left, the house fell into dead silence.

I stared out the window at the black Bentley parked below around the clock, and cold washed over me in waves.

Over the next few days, all my deliveries were intercepted. When my parents tried to take me out, his bodyguards would politely stop us.

He even had someone cut our home internet line, forcing it under the excuse of "line maintenance."

I didn't sit there waiting to die.

I dug out everything I could find about the state broadcaster's reporter exam and threw myself into studying for it.

On the third night, through the window, I saw the Bentley's window roll down.

Eustace sat inside, looking up at my window.

The streetlight fell across his face, and he gave me a smiling look.

In that instant, a chill shot up from the soles of my feet straight to the crown of my head.

Just then, my phone buzzed.

A picture message from an unknown number.

I opened it.

It was a video.

In it, my father was being backed step by step to the edge of a staircase in an abandoned building by two burly men.

The instant I saw the video, my mind went blank.

Every sound, every thought, gone.

All that was left was my father's terrified face on the screen, and those two thugs closing in on him, step by step.

"Dad!"

I threw myself at the locked door like a madwoman, slamming into it with everything I had.

Shoulder, elbow, knee, over and over, until the door boomed under the blows.

My mother, terrified by the sight of me, grabbed me and sobbed, "Madge, calm down! What are you doing!"

I couldn't hear any of it.

I broke the door open and ran downstairs barefoot.

The motion-sensor lights in the stairwell flared on floor by floor at my pounding steps, then died out behind me.

The second I burst out of the building's entrance, I ran straight into a solid chest.

Eustace.

He'd been waiting in the car, and he caught me as I lost all control.

"Let go of me! Let go!" I fought him with everything I had.

"Let my dad go! I'm begging you, let my dad go!"

Tears poured out of me, unstoppable, blurring everything.

He only held me tighter, pinning down my struggling with a force that was almost gentle.

He took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped the tears from my face.

"Madge, don't cry."

"Your father just has a temper. He insisted on coming to make a scene at my company. It didn't look good."

"So I only had someone take him somewhere quiet, so we could talk it over properly."

His tone was calm, innocent, as if he were describing the most ordinary thing in the world.

And that calm sent a chill straight into my bones.

The car tore through the streets.

By the time we reached that abandoned building, my father was already fighting the two thugs for his life, refusing to let himself become my burden.

He shoved one of them away with all his strength, trying to get down the stairs.

In the middle of the scuffle, it happened.

His foot came down on empty air, his whole body lost its balance, and he tumbled down that two-story concrete staircase, rolling all the way to the bottom.

I watched, helpless, as he hit the ground littered with dust and gravel and lay there, not moving.

Bright red blood slowly seeped out from the back of his head.

The prophecy from the future had come true after all.

"Dad!"

A raw scream tore out of me, and I half-crawled, half-threw myself to his side.

My hand shook as I reached for him, but I didn't dare touch him. All I could do was scream helplessly, "An ambulance! Call an ambulance, now!"

Eustace stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at us.

There was pity in his eyes.

"Madge, all you have to do is agree. Put on the dress like a good girl, and the wedding goes ahead as planned."

"The best medical team in the world can be here in ten minutes."

I looked at the pool of blood spreading wider beneath him, at my father's breathing growing weaker and weaker.

Pure hatred and pure helplessness clamped down on my throat.

I bit down hard on my lip until I tasted the heavy tang of blood.

Slowly, I lifted my head.

At the demon in the tailored suit standing at the top of the stairs, I dragged out a numb smile uglier than crying.

"Fine."

"I agree."

Something flashed in Eustace's eyes, an undisguised burst of ecstasy.

He came quickly down the stairs, gently lifted me off the ground, and gathered me into his arms.

The wedding was set for half a month later.

That day, Eustace came for his bride with a luxury motorcade so long its end vanished from sight, sweeping up to my family's home.

He pushed open my bedroom door, triumphant, ready to greet his bride in her wedding gown.

Eustace's pupils shrank all at once, and every trace of color drained from that handsome face as he froze where he stood.