Chapter 2

I rose to my feet and lifted the hem of my shirt with my handcuffed hands.

Oscar lunged toward me to stop me. "Eric, this is an interrogation room. What do you think you're doing?"

With one arm chained, I gripped my shirt with the other and twisted my body the other way.

A loud rip cut through the silence as the fabric gave way.

Oscar stood frozen, staring at my body. The scars covered me like melted wax that had cooled and set into something grotesque.

I smiled at my reflection in the glass.

"Enya, do you really think the person who tried to burn someone alive would end up more badly burned than the victim?"

The burns from six years ago had spread from my ankles to my jaw, leaving more than 90% of my skin destroyed.

I had almost died in that fire, and now they were telling me that I had been the one who started it.

I couldn't tell what Enya was thinking behind that mirror.

Oscar, however, noticed the direction of my gaze and immediately ordered the guards to take me away.

Enya rushed out from the adjacent room.

"You orchestrated all of this, didn't you? The fire, the scars, everything—just so Ryan would take the fall. How far were you willing to go?"

Before things could escalate further, Oscar shoved me into another room and yanked the door shut.

The police officers hurried Enya out.

When the commotion faded, Oscar rubbed his face tiredly.

"That was my bad. I didn't know that Ms. Taylor was watching."

He then turned to me. "Tell me what actually happened."

I studied him closely. "That fire is just the last piece of a much bigger puzzle. You need to know what came before—and I'm the only one who can tell you that."

It was a fact that Ryan had always been there for me, but nobody had ever paused to wonder why. He did everything of his own free will because he was repaying a debt.

The truth was, our paths were never meant to cross.

It all began with a donation drive at school. I donated some old books and supplies, and without even realizing it, I had written my address inside one of them.

A week later, I got my very first thank-you letter. It came from Ryan, the child who had received my things.

I was so excited that I wrote him back immediately. He shared stories about rural life, and I told him what it was like in the city. Eventually, he invited me to stay with his family during the summer.

When my parents and I arrived by car, I saw something that stayed with me ever since.

At the entrance of the village, Ryan's drunken uncle had Ryan by the hair and was hitting him with a broom.

"You invited guests?" he had shouted. "Your parents died and left you in our hands. We took care of you for 12 years. Isn't that enough? And now you have the nerve to bring strangers here?"

The next blow landed with brutal force, and the broom broke in two with a sharp crack. Ryan crumpled to the ground, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

That day, I begged my parents through tears to adopt him. For 20 thousand dollars, they bought Ryan's freedom.

My parents, however, insisted that he remain nothing more than my friend.

Back then, I was too young to understand why.

For a fleeting moment, I saw a trace of unwillingness flash in Ryan's eyes. Then he lowered himself to his knees and thanked my parents.

"Mr. and Mrs. Beckett, I'll spend the rest of my life repaying your kindness. I'll do anything for Eric."

My parents quickly helped him up.

"Ryan, you owe us nothing," Mom said gently. "We did this for Eric's sake."

That day, I felt incredibly proud of myself. I believed with all my heart that I had saved a boy from a life of misery.

After that day, I gave him all the help and support I could. To protect his dignity, I made sure none of our classmates ever found out about his past.

Whenever anyone asked why Ryan was always taking care of me, I would laugh and say we were best friends.

What I didn't know was that everyone else saw me as nothing more than a spoiled rich kid bossing Ryan around.

And I certainly never imagined that my ex-wife, Enya, shared that same opinion of me.