With that, he put the key into the hole and began to turn.
However, as much as she dreaded it, Ben’s key fit perfectly into the padlock, and the doorknob turned.
Ben could feel the resistance as soon as he pushed the door.
He burst into a sinister laugh. “I knew it-you’ve been hiding in here all along, Gwen!”
Gwen placed her entire weight against the door, trying to stop Ben from coming in, but it was no use.
The discrepancy between a man’s and a woman’s strength was already striking enough, not to mention the fact that Gwen was petite, whereas Ben was tall and muscular.
She was no match for him at all!
Although Ben did not manage to open the door initially, bit by bit, he was still able to inch it slowly open.
“Gwen!” finally, he caught sight of Gwen’s face from the crack in the door. A glimmer of malice flashed through his eyes as his lips split open in a gleeful grin. “I knew I’d find you! Have you been hiding here all along? Have you been eavesdropping on me the last time I was here with that woman?
“Is it exciting to eavesdrop on your ex-husband doing it with another woman? Is this the kind of thrill you’ve been seeking?”
Ben’s eyes were filled with lustful malice.
Gwen’s body was still pressed against the door as she snapped, “You’re an animal, Ben Zeller! Bastard!”
“Why are you surprised?”
Ben cackled. “This isn’t even the worst side of me–I’ll show you who’s boss!
“My beautiful ex-wife, have you been feeling lonely ever since Luke died? I wonder how thirsty are you? Would you want me to be your first taste of masculinity after so long?”
His sleazy tone was evident as he stared intently at Gwen. “I wonder if you and Luke have done it as many times as we have when we were married? Who do you think is better in bed; me or Luke?”
Gwen bit her lip, her fingers digging into the door so hard that they were now beginning to bleed. She glared at him and snarled, “Get away from me!”
“What will happen to you if I do?”
Ben snickered, then turned to stare at her lustfully. “Have you forgotten how much fun we had in the past? Do you want to kiss me and be reminded of all our fun times?
“Come on. Let’s have one last hurrah before I take you to Tyson. If you do a good job, I might consider letting you off easy and keep you to myself for a few more days before handing you in. That way, you’ll live a few days longer! What do you say?”
With a thud, the door was flung open from the outside with such force that Gwen was slammed against the wall behind her.
An excruciating pain shot down her back, but this was not the worst-the next moment, Gwen felt a hard tug on her scalp as Ben grabbed hold of her hair.
She bit her lip and reached out to grab hold of the broom hidden behind the door-
“Ow!” a bloodcurdling wail echoed through the house as the broomstick made contact with Ben’s head with a loud thump.
With no time to think, Gwen did the only thing she could think of doing at this moment; closing her eyes and bringing the broom down on him over and over.
She finally stopped, panting for breath, when the sound of Ben’s cries died down.
Gwen lowered the broom and slumped against the wall behind her, still clutching the handle tightly.
After a few moments of catching her breath, she finally glanced at the man before her.
Ben was sprawled across the ground in a grotesque position, bleeding from a wound in his head. She could not tell whether he was dead or just rendered unconscious.
This sight shocked Gwen greatly, and she instinctively took a small step back. She was so preoccupied with defending herself against Ben that she never once stopped to see what was happening.
Now that he was unresponsive, she felt her chest tighten, and the broomstick clattered onto the ground.
Did she perhaps beat him to death?
At the thought of this, Gwen kneeled and reached out to feel for Ben’s breathing.
As much as she wanted to escape from him, she never once intended to kill him!
However, the moment she reached out her fingers, Ben leaped up from the ground, grabbed hold of her arm, and tackled her to the ground.
By the time Gwen finally realized what was happening, she was already pinned to the ground.
“How dare you attack me, you bitch?”
Ben did not seem to notice the blood spilling down his face and instead reached out to tug at Gwen’s shirt. “How dare you do this to me?
You’re going to pay the price for this!”
After a moment’s stupor, Gwen started clinging desperately to her shirt. “Get away from me, bastard! I thought.”
“You thought you killed me, so you put down your broom to come to check on me, didn’t you?”
Ben sneered but did not pause in his motion. “Do you think I’d be so easily killed, not to mention by someone like you? You’ve underestimated me, Gwen!
“Not only am I as healthy as a horse, but I’m going to make you pay the price for hurting me!”
As he said this, he tugged even harder at her shirt, and with a loud rip, her shirt was torn open.
Gwen instinctively covered her chest, then glared at Ben with a murderous look. “Don’t you dare lay a finger on me! I’ll get you back for this!”
“Get me back for this? With what? You’re barely able to cover for yourself!”
Ben sneered. “There’s no way you can escape now, Gwen! After having fun, I’m going to turn you into Tyson and get a nice, hefty reward! He’s going to use you as leverage to climb to the top!
“He said that he’s just pretending to take revenge on you; the truth is, he’s going to kill you and dispose of the heart Luke has given to you, that way, every last trace of Luke will be erased from this earth!”
Gwen froze when she heard this, staring at Ben with a dazed look.
It turned out.
It turned out that Tyson was not after her at all, but the heart that was beating in her chest.
Although Luke always treated Kurt better than Tyson, he was still a decent boss, and she never once thought that Tyson would go to such sickening lengths to climb to the top.
“You’re just as beautiful as I remember.”
Ben narrowed his eyes and cackled as he stared at Gwen’s partially shielded bosom. “I wonder if you taste the way you used to.”
With that, he lowered his head.
“No-“
Just as his lips were about to make contact with her skin, Gwen let out a bloodcurdling scream.
At the same time, the front door was flung open with a slam.
“Gwen!”
Bethan’s worried voice rang out through the empty house. “Are you okay?”
She and Brettley arrived just in time to hear Gwen’s scream, and she immediately stormed into the house without even waiting for the rest to follow.
Gwen felt every last fiber of her being relaxed when she heard Bethan’s voice. As her vision started to blur, she could only vaguely make out the sight of Brettley and Bethan sprinting toward her.
“Bethan!”
Finally, she closed her eyes and passed out.
When she finally came to, Ben was already tied up and kneeling before her.
“Gwennie.”
Bethan brought her a glass of water when she noticed Gwen waking up, “are you okay?”
The cool water soothed her hoarse, raspy throat greatly. Gwen closed her eyes and let out a sigh of relief, then turned to glance at Bethan. “You came just in time.”
“We were still too late,”
Bethan sighed and handed the empty glass to Brettley, who placed it on the table next to him, “if we arrived sooner, you wouldn’t have gotten injured.”
With that, she glanced at the bruises around Gwen’s neck from where Ben held her in a chokehold, then sighed. “If only we didn’t get caught in the jam. It never used to be so congested when I was here, and none of us thought we would get so unlucky today. What a shame.”
Gwen could not help frowning when she heard this. She paused, then lifted her head to glance at Bethan. “That traffic jam was no accident. Someone planned for it to happen!”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.