Chapter 379/Who the Fuck Are You?!
Chapter 379
Stella’s POV
I slammed Julie’s front door behind me, the air trapped in my throat like a hot iron. Every burning suspicion I had harbored instantly crystallized into a razor-sharp, lethal truth. My wounded pride absolutely refused to let this go. Moving in a panicked, breathless sprint, I chased after his massive frame and broad shoulders as he stormed down the dim pavement, his heavy strides dripping with raw, unchecked fury. Panting heavily, my chest bursting with sheer malice and an unyielding urge for vengeance, I closed the distance and unleashed a deafening, earth-shattering shriek.
"Jake!"
He locked up instantly, turning into a rigid, immovable mountain of granite before slowly pivoting his towering frame toward me. His dark brows knitted together in blatant disgust and absolute aversion. When he spoke, his voice carried a freezing, detached dryness that sent a violent shudder straight down my spine.
"Yes, Stella... what the hell do you want?"
I took a dominant, unyielding stride forward, pinning my tear-filled eyes directly onto his burning blue gaze as I delivered my words with the sharp, ruthless finality of a guillotine. "I know absolutely everything, Jake... Every single sickening thing going down between the two of you behind the scenes. Don’t you dare try to play your trash games with me."
His rugged, masculine features fractured for a mere fraction of a second in pure shock. Then, he aggressively whipped his face away, forcing a hollow, ice-cold composure that thoroughly contradicted the boiling magma vibrating underneath his skin. "What the hell is that garbage nonsense supposed to mean? I don’t understand a single word, and I am strictly not in the mood for your pathetic drama."
I twisted my lips into a scathing, deeply disgusted sneer, dropping my voice into a low, venomous hiss that sounded like a coiled viper. "I literally saw the two of you with my own eyes... You and Julie, locked in a position that leaves zero room for a single goddamn doubt."
His massive frame turned completely to stone, as if a live electrical current had just blasted through his spine. The thick veins along his neck violently bulged and flushed with immense tension. When he spoke, his voice was tight, gravelly, and desperately trying to forge a fake sense of calm. "What the living hell are you talking about?! I don’t understand a single syllable of your delusional fairy tales."
I violently closed the physical distance between us, stepping right into his personal space until I was staring directly up into his face with a piercing, predatory glare. "I saw you kissing her with that exact, forbidden lust! There is no goddamn reason to lie, hide, or pull your cheap, pathetic maneuvers, Jake... I saw everything with these two eyes last night!"
He drew a massive, violent breath like a predatory beast on the absolute verge of an explosion. He ground his teeth together with an audible, terrifying crunch before locking his gaze onto mine in a state of naked, ruthless defiance dropping his mask completely. "Fine... let’s say your ass did see something. What the fuck does it have to do with you? Who the hell appointed you as our moral guardian?"
Pure, unadulterated jealousy and rage began to claw at the strings of my heart. I shrieked back in a muffled, explosive panic, desperately trying to keep the neighbors from overhearing our shouting match. "What does it have to do with me?! Is Julie not the biological sister of your absolute best friend and brother, Steve, you hypocrite?! Where the hell did your strict rules, your garbage principles, and your absolute loyalty to friendship go? Or did her cheap, slutty nature make you wipe your entire brain?!"
He aggressively ran his massive palm over the back of his neck in a sharp, near-hysterical burst of pure agitation. He spat his next words out with an evasive dryness. "It was a mistake. A temporary, fleeting lapse in judgment born strictly from the moment."
A loud, hysterical, and mocking laugh tore from my throat, echoing sharply down the frozen concrete of the empty street. "A mistake?! Hahaha... Are you kidding me right now, or are you just actively insulting my intelligence, for Christ’s sake?! The kiss I witnessed was absolutely not a mistake it was a deeply buried, desperate craving!"
Completely fed up with the interrogation and the confrontation, he leaned his massive torso forward, invading my chest line with an explicit, lethal threat as his eyes blazed with live sparks of fury. "Stella... wrap this fucking circus up right now. What exact answer do you want from me?"
The hot, trapped tears finally overflowed, streaming down my face in pure, unbridled humiliation, defeat, and a burning jealousy that was physically tearing my chest to pieces. My voice trembled violently with raw pain. "I want you, Jake! I want your ass to look at me with that exact, unhinged passion and intensity... I want you to kiss me and hold my body the exact way you were swallowing her lips! I am a million times more deserving of you than that bitch could ever be!"
He took a rapid, disgusted step backward, his expression turning into an ice-cold winter that completely ripped my heart out of my chest. He delivered his verdict with rigid, unyielding finality. "I can never, under any circumstance, provide that to you, Stella... Not you. Put a permanent end to your pathetic delusions."
A raging fire erupted inside my chest, and I screamed in pure, helpless agony. "You can only provide it to her! Only that strange, disgusting slut gets your goddamn attention and your passion!"
He whipped his eyes away in absolute boredom, exhaustion, and utter revulsion at my toxic obsession. He took off down the pavement with wide, heavy, and rapid strides, throwing a final, careless comment over his broad shoulder. "I don’t have a single second of time to waste listening to this garbage, sick, and emotional insanity... I’m going about my business."
His massive silhouette disappeared past the edge of the darkened curb within seconds. I stood there, slowly turning back toward my house with heavy steps that were weighed down by pure, unadulterated malice. Sick thoughts, dark conspiracies, and demonic plots began to flood my brain in a chaotic surge. I began plotting the most graphic, destructive, and flawless way to completely obliterate this relationship and permanently sever the connection between them... The time had officially arrived to execute the grand plan of total vengeance. It would swallow everyone alive and leave Julie as nothing but absolute ash, even if I had to burn this entire goddamn village to the ground with everyone inside it.
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Julie’s POV
I opened my eyelids with immense, heavy difficulty, a sharp wave of physical pain and nausea washing over me from the lingering effects of the chemical sedative. The world greeted me with a thick, impenetrable, and pitch-black void. I frantically tried to twist my head left and right to process my surroundings and figure out where the hell I was, but a sudden, icy terror froze the blood solid in my veins.
A thick, tightly wrapped cloth blindfold was completely secured around my eyes and head, entirely blocking out every single shred of light and vision.
The memory of the chemical cloth and the pungent stench flashed through my mind with the speed of a lightning strike. In an instant panic, I instinctively tried to throw my hands forward to rip the blindfold off my face, but a bitter, crushing disappointment and shock violently crashed over my soul. The distinct, harsh clinking of metallic restraints echoed loudly through the dead silence.
My wrists were aggressively bound, handcuffed, and tightly locked behind my back with heavy ropes that dug so deeply into my skin they were practically cutting my flesh.
I could feel the freezing, rigid texture of luxury leather beneath my bare skin and the ridiculously short crimson dress. With the heavy, rhythmic vibration of the frame and the extreme speed of the vehicle, the terrifying reality solidified I was still trapped, locked away inside the belly of that pitch-black SUV as it tore down an open road toward an absolute unknown destination.
Desperately trying to sit upright despite the excruciating pressure on my bound limbs, I kicked my legs out with massive force to gauge the space until the edge of my shoe violently struck the rigid back of the front driver’s seat. It was the final, lethal confirmation: I was buried in the rear of a kidnapping vehicle.
In those dark, terror-fueled seconds, a wave of horrific, sick thoughts invaded my mind like predatory monsters devouring my remaining sanity. Damn it... damn this absolute garbage luck! Had Robert actually tracked my grid, pinpointed my exact location this quickly, and sent his hounds to drag me back? Or had that psychotic bastard Thomas successfully executed this abduction just to rip my liver out and serve it to his monster of a grandson?
But the most alpha, blood-chilling thought of all completely shredded my remaining courage, causing my frozen limbs to vibrate with pure, unadulterated panic.
It was the terrifying probability that Robert himself with his signature sadistic smirk and unhinged malice was sitting right next to my body in this pitch-black silence right now, waiting to personally torture me for escaping his grip.
I swallowed with immense difficulty, my throat feeling as dry as desert dust. I forced my voice into a sharp, defiant baritone, desperately trying to mask the violent tremor of my impending breakdown.
"Help! Is there anyone fucking there?! Get me the hell out of here right now!"
Absolute silence answered my screams, save for the low, smooth hum of the massive engine and the steady roll of the tires against the gravel road. Then, completely out of nowhere, without a single syllable of warning, a set of long, freezing, and anonymous fingers lightly brushed against my cheek. They began to move across my shivering skin with a terrifying, agonizing softness.
I violently convulsed in pure horror, throwing my entire frame backward with explosive force until my spine slammed flat against the SUV’s door. I ground my teeth together, unleashing a breathless, savage challenge.
"Who the hell are you?! Get your filthy, disgusting hands off my goddamn body before I personally murder you!"
The presence beside me didn’t make a single audible sound. The entity didn’t utter a single goddamn word to reveal its identity or motive. Instead, it remained entirely motionless, sitting like a mummified corpse in the deep shadows while its freezing, slow breaths steadily hit the bare skin of my exposed neck.
I clenched my bound, aching fists behind my back until the ropes threatened to slice completely through my skin. I breathed in a chaotic, near-hysterical pattern, forcing a strict, commanding authority to hold onto the final shreds of my strength.
"Speak, damn you and whoever the hell sent your ass! What exactly do you want from me?! Why did you abduct me in such a cheap, cowardly way like a goddamn rat?! Who the fuck are you?!"