Fallen
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SW-3
🕑 Added 2025-10-04 20:46:25 +0000 UTCChapter 3
“Now that’s more like it. This is the attitude you should’ve had when we’re negotiating. Earlier this morning you showed up with a cop at your side that wasn’t negotiating, that was ganging up on me,” Redhead said with a sly grin as he saw Lu Yao return to his ward alone. Leaning back in bed, he lit a cigarette and puffed leisurely, his expression one of false amiability. “I’m not an unreasonable guy. If you’re here honestly to talk, then I’ll be willing to settle.”
“Just stop beating around the bush and say it: how much money do you want to settle?” Lu Yao asked sternly. She had no interest in trading pleasantries with a man like him. All she wanted was to get her husband out of that detention cell. As long as the price wasn’t outrageous, she intended to agree immediately. Scum like him, she never wanted to see again for the rest of her life.
“Actually… this isn’t about money,” Redhead said with eyes narrowing lustfully. Since she had come without the officer this time, he was bolder, more brazen. His gaze ran shamelessly over her body, clad today in a sleek black dress that outlined her every curve. Lingering on the smooth lines of her waist and hips, he let his grin widen. Behind his expression, he was already scheming how best to toy with the stunning married woman standing before him.
Though young, Redhead had already seduced and toyed with more than a dozen married women. He especially relished breaking wives women bound by family ties and morality. He knew their minds, their weak spots. And this time? Lu Yao was without question the most beautiful, elegant, and sensual wife he had ever encountered. With her husband’s fate squarely in his hands, he certainly wouldn’t let her go easily. In fact, already that morning when she first showed up, he had mapped out exactly how he would break her.
“Then what is it you want?” Lu Yao snapped coldly. His eyes, his leer, shamelessly drinking in her body with lust it made her skin crawl with rage. She feared what demand he would make next.
“I want…” He deliberately slowed his words, allowing his gaze to trace down her neckline and rest deliberately on her chest, his tongue slithering out to lick his lips. He held her waiting in disgust and fury until, at last, he spoke lazily: “I don’t want more money, gorgeous. I don’t want to extort you. All I want… is for you to take care of me while I recover in hospital.”
His smirk widened at her visible shock. “You heard what Officer Sun said before. My family is just me and my grandma. She’s too old to handle this. I haven’t even told her about my injuries it’d break her heart. But with my arm busted, I can’t manage by myself. So you, Mrs. Lu… you just take care of me during my hospital stay. When I’m healed up, that’s when we sign the settlement papers.”
“Impossible!” Lu Yao’s refusal burst out instantly. The very thought made her sick. Just his sleazy grin was enough to disgust her, let alone the suggestion of attending to him every day. Never.
“How about this: I’ll hire a caretaker for you a professional nurse aide. They’ll attend to you far better than I ever could anyway. Name any price, I’ll pay it. And of course, I’ll cover all your hospital costs too. That’s fair, isn’t it?” She was nearly shaking with revulsion, ready to storm out, but forced herself to calmly present a reasonable counter.
“No. Not acceptable. I want you to do it. If it’s not you then no deal. No settlement.” Redhead’s refusal was instant, firm.
“You !” Furious, Lu Yao spun on her heel, ready to leave this shameless man for good. But behind her, his voice drawled again, deliberately slow, deliberately cruel:
“My injuries already qualify as serious minor injuries. If this goes to court, your husband… would be looking at three years, at least. Now, I’m patient. I can wait. But can your husband?”
Her steps faltered. She turned back. Her eyes burned with hatred so fierce it could scorch him alive. Yet Redhead only smirked wider, placing another cigarette between his lips, inhaling deeply before releasing a thick cloud that drifted toward her.
“Beautiful lady… think carefully. If your husband goes to prison, your family, your child’s future they’ll all be destroyed. Is that worth it?” he taunted, tongue clicking in mock sympathy.
“You !” Rage shook her, her teeth biting down so hard her jaw ached. Yet she also knew… he wasn’t bluffing. She couldn’t let her husband be jailed.
“But I… I don’t have time to look after you!” Desperation bled into her voice. “I work full-time during the day, and at night I need to care for my son at home. Where can I find time for you?”
Lu Yao had never begged anyone before. To bow her head to this leering lowlife, the same brute who yesterday dragged her by the hair and struck her face it shredded her pride. Hot humiliation raced up her neck, flooding her face red. But for her husband for the man she loved she had to bow low to the one she most despised.
The shame seared her. If a mirror had been before her, she’d have seen her face glowing scarlet with anger and humiliation.
“No. That’s my only request. If you don’t agree, then get lost,” Redhead said flatly, waving her toward the door with degrading dismissiveness, as though confident she’d come crawling back.
“You…!” Tears of frustration pricked her eyes. She shot him a venomous glare and stormed out, heels clacking like hammer blows, slamming the ward door behind her.
On the bed, Redhead calmly puffed his cigarette, lips whispering, “One… two… three…” He counted leisurely up to twenty. By the time he reached it, the ward door burst open again.
There she was back. Lu Yao, eyes blazing with shame and fury, stood frozen in the doorway, chest heaving. She sucked in two deep breaths, then growled: “There really is no other option?”
“None,” he grinned. “Absolutely no room to negotiate.” His eyes drank in the sight of her flushed face, the rise and fall of her chest. He was thrilled. Nothing pleased him more than watching a married woman once proud, now desperate being forced into submission. He knew: get her to bend once, and after that, she was his.
“I truly can’t come during the day,” Lu Yao bit out, voice taut with fury she barely suppressed. “Why must it be me? Why only me?”
“Because it was your husband who did this to me!” Redhead laughed cruelly, eyes gleaming. “Only by having you serve me will my desire for revenge be satisfied.”
“Sick… pervert,” she hissed inwardly.
She steadied her breathing, then asked, “So if I agree to come here during your hospital stay… you’ll sign the settlement now?”
“I didn’t say that,” he smirked.
“You bastard!! How dare you toy with me!” Her patience snapped. Her blazing eyes pinned him.
“I’ll sign after you’ve served me until I’m discharged. What if you agree now, then change your mind after tomorrow? I’d be the fool then. No. When I recover, then we sign.” He leaned back, satisfied, savoring each word as he took another slow drag from his cigarette.
“No! You must sign first. Otherwise, my husband stays locked up indefinitely what if you simply never check out of the hospital?” she retorted through gritted teeth.
“I swear,” she desperately added. “Once I promise, I never go back on my word. If you don’t trust me, I’ll sign a separate agreement guaranteeing it. If I fail, you can use that to void the mediation.”
She swallowed hard, then continued: “But here are my terms. I can only come in the evenings. I cannot be here during the day. I have to work, I have a child. And one more thing: during the nights I attend to you, you cannot do anything inappropriate to me. If you do, the agreement is void!”
Redhead tilted his head, unbothered. “So many terms… and I get no say?” He smirked. “Fine. I’ll compromise. You don’t come during the day. But at night? You stay until I sleep then you can leave. That much, at least.”
“…Fine,” Lu Yao spat through clenched teeth. She had fallen into his trap without seeing it. Yet she also added fiercely: “This stays secret. No one else can know. Especially not anyone you know. And my husband he must never hear of this. If it gets out, it’s over!”
“Relax, gorgeous. I’m not the bragging type. I’ve got nothing to gain by spreading this.” His grin broadened wickedly.
“Stop calling me that! Use my name.” Her face burned hotter each time he said it, in that mocking tone.
“Then tell me. What’s your name? Can’t keep calling you ‘hey, you,’ can I?” Redhead chuckled, flicking ash into a makeshift tray.
“…Lu Yao. My name is Lu Yao. From now on, that’s how you address me,” she growled, then added sharply, “I’ll draft the agreement. Later today we’ll sign it along with the mediation papers.”
“Lu Yao… what a lovely name.” He chuckled darkly. “Lu Yao… slowly the road is known, in time the heart is revealed…” On the last phrase, he drew out the word “day” in a lewd way, making it an obscene innuendo.
Her fists clenched. She ignored him, stomping a heel sharply against the floor, and stormed out again.
Half an hour later she returned, her face stony. She and Redhead together signed both the mediation document Officer Sun had provided earlier, and the new written agreement she’d drawn up, guaranteeing her nightly attendance until the end of his hospital stay.
She left a copy with him, grabbed the mediation paper, and rushed to the station. With trembling hands, but unstoppable determination, she submitted the agreement finally securing her husband’s release from detention.
