chapter 6

The documents and photos made a thick stack, and the most striking one was a picture of a man and woman's bare backs. They both had large matching couple tattoos inked across their skin.

Those same tattoo designs showed up in quite a few of the other intimate photos too.

"What the hell is this?" Vincent's face went ice cold, and he threw the photos at Serena.

"Didn't you tell me you did everything you could to save our matching tattoo? And that your husband beat the crap out of you and threw you out because of it?"

"That's not me." Serena rushed to defend herself. "You can't just doubt me because of a few photos. And besides, you can't even see the woman's face clearly in some of them..."

Before she could finish her sentence, there was a loud ripping sound.

Vincent had grabbed the back of Serena's shirt and torn it open, exposing a fireworks tattoo that looked almost exactly like the one I used to have on my back.

The cold air hit her bare skin and made her whole body shudder.

But Vincent looked completely obsessed as he carefully compared the photos to the tattoo right in front of him.

Then he slapped her hard across the face, and Serena collapsed sideways onto the ground with her hand pressed against her cheek.

He let out a cold laugh. "This tattoo is fresh. If you look close enough, you can still see traces of the old couple tattoo underneath it...

"And all those women in the photos—whether their faces are showing or not—they're all you. I recognize that mole behind your ear."

At this point, it didn't matter what excuses Serena tried to come up with anymore.

The evidence was right there in front of us, and when Vincent's rage exploded, all she could do was cry her eyes out and hope he'd feel sorry for her.

But this whole thing had hit Vincent way too hard. The tears weren't going to work on him this time.

"Stop crying and answer me!" he shouted. "Tell me the truth right now!"

"When you left me and got married overseas, did your parents actually force you to do it or not? And if they did force you, then why the hell would you get matching couple tattoos with your husband? And who are all these other men in these photos?"

"Vincent, just calm down and let me explain, okay?" Serena reached for his sleeve, trying to act sweet, but he yanked his arm away hard.

"Back then you were almost bankrupt, and I couldn't see any future for us... Then this rich guy started chasing after me, so I just..."

"So you just ran off and married him overseas?"

"Yeah..." Serena bit her lip and couldn't get any more words out.

Vincent let out a bitter laugh. "So that whole story you told me about your suspicious husband beating you so badly you lost the baby, and then kicking you out of the house because of the tattoo—that was all a lie too?"

Serena pressed her lips together tight and refused to answer, but tears were streaming down her face.

"Is this really that hard to figure out?" I suddenly spoke up. "You saw those intimate photos of her with other men, right? If a private investigator could dig those up, her ex-husband could've found them too..."

Vincent's eyes went wide, and all the color drained from his face. He just stood there frozen like a puppet with cut strings, completely unable to move.

"So everything you said about playing the victim—all that crap about how you never stopped thinking about me these past few years, how you picked the wrong guy but still wanted to come back to me—you made all of that up?

"You only came crawling back because I finally made something of myself and you thought your life was worth living again. You were so desperate to push Avery out of the picture that you convinced me to set that fire, didn't you?"

Vincent's face was twitching while he said all this, and he looked absolutely crushed.

"No, that's not it. I really couldn't forget about you, that's why I—"

"Shut up! I don't want to hear a single excuse from you."

Vincent closed his eyes in despair, and his face twisted in agony as bloody tears started streaming down his cheeks again.

"I'm only going to ask you one question. That day at the wedding venue—the chandelier... who was it that cut the rope?"

Serena's face went white with terror, and she jerked her head up to look at him.

Her lips kept moving like she was trying to come up with some kind of defense, but no words came out. Finally, she just clenched her jaw and admitted it.

"It was me."

The second those words left her mouth, a dark figure rushed right past me.

By the time Christy and I realized what was happening, Vincent and Serena were already going at each other.

It was pretty obvious that Serena didn't stand a chance against him.

All she managed to do was scratch a few red marks across his face with her nails before she went down hard.

The funeral home was closing up for the day, and I wanted to jump in and pull them apart, but Christy shook her head and held me back.

When the cops finally showed up, Serena had already been beaten half to death.

Vincent was sprawled out on the floor next to her, completely wiped out but still muttering curses under his breath.

"This is all your fault, you bitch! If it weren't for you, Avery and I would be married by now. She wouldn't have gotten her face destroyed, and she wouldn't have died on that damn operating table.

"Everything's on you. You could die ten thousand times and it still wouldn't bring Avery back!"