On the day Fiona Starr and Mark Zimmer tied the knot, his childhood friend jumped off the Starr family's thirty-story apartment and was reduced to pieces.
The wedding wasn't called off, but in the ensuing three years, Mark's poker face became even more creepy, even though he would do everything Fiona asked.
Then, when Fiona was three months pregnant, she was told that her father had gone missing.
But instead of taking her to file a police report, Mark took her up the peak of the mountain, where Fiona saw her father.
His whole body was swollen and bleeding everywhere, and he was barely alive as he lay on the ground. There were puddles of his blood everywhere, after someone tied him to a car trunk and dragged him up along the mountain road.
That was when Mark gave Fiona the same treatment, even though she was pregnant with his child.
As his car dragged her up and down the mountain, her legs were reduced to bloody stumps, but she didn't die there.
So she locked her up in a basement in the company of rats that nibbled and devoured her legs.
She despaired, her mind breaking until she eventually stopped breathing too…
But she opened her eyes again and found herself returning to the day before she married Mark, whom everyone called the Starr family's live-in son-in-law.
Smiling through her tears, she told herself that she wouldn't choose him again in this life.
In the bathroom, Mark Zimmer was pinching Fiona Starr's waist and quickly left her fair skin reddened.
Seeing no reaction from her, he moved on top of her, biting her shoulder, his sharp canines breaking skin and soon drawing blood.
Fiona jerked awake from the abrupt pain and shoved him away forcefully when she saw who it was.
Caught off guard, Mark was sent slamming into the wall behind, his eyes flashing viciously when he looked up.
It only lasted for a brief second, but Fiona still shuddered in fear.
That was when he growled, "I've done as you said. Don't bother me for the next two weeks."
Fiona's eyes widened in disbelief at the topless man—his voice remained familiar, but it was also strangely youthful.
She looked around and realized that it was not a dark basement infested with bugs and rats!
She quickly raised her hands as she remembered, her tears gushing when she saw that all her fingers were intact.
Mark could see what she was doing and frowned in confusion, not to mention that he was still worried since she wasn't responding.
Keeping a straight look, he put his long fingers on her nape, but she cringed as if afraid and pushed him away again.
His patience at its limits, he scoffed, "You're the one who wanted to do it, and then you're pushing me away? What on earth do you want?"
"Get out!" she snapped, doing her best not to let her voice crack.
Mark's brow creased in surprise, staring at her wet shirt and shuddering form.
Still, his phone was ringing the next instant, and a voice was yelling over the other end, "Mark! Get over here—Sue's in trouble!"
Mark was out of the bathroom in a split second, not even stopping to close the door.
Fiona watched as he left, unable to keep standing anymore.
Dropping to the floor, she sat and wept, her tears covering her cheeks—never could she have expected that she had returned to the day before she married Mark.
-
Mark was taken into the Starr Household at fourteen.
Fiona's father Norman Starr had a charitable heart, and always sponsored kids with good grades.
He didn't spare any expense and would give them the best he could afford. However, there were those who would claim that he was grooming them, eventually choosing the best of them to be his future son-in-law since he didn't have a son.
There was no question that Mark was the most successful and smartest of the children, and the one whom Fiona fell in love with.
She chased him like stars chasing the moon, but it was hopeless.
Since their youth, Fiona kept wooing him year after year, and he would reject her on every occasion, never once caving even though she was the daughter of his sponsor.
That was until he suddenly proposed to her.
Fiona agreed to it without hesitation. Her mind was at once consumed by bliss, and she presumed that her affection had finally warmed his heart.
But on the day of their wedding, they were told that Sue Levine—Mark's childhood friend—had jumped off her family's thirty-story apartment, ending up in pieces.
And the ring that should've been put on Fiona's finger fell off, rolling off the floor to who knows where.
But the wedding was never called off, and in the ensuing three years, Mark would do everything Fiona asked.
The wedding wasn't called off, but in the ensuing three years, Mark's poker face became even more creepy, even though he would do everything Fiona asked him to.
Then, when Fiona was three months pregnant, she was told that her father had gone missing.
But instead of taking her to file a police report, Mark took her up the peak of the mountain… where Fiona saw her father.
His whole body was swollen and bleeding everywhere, and he was barely alive as he lay on the ground. There were puddles of his blood everywhere, after someone tied him to a car trunk and dragged him up along the mountain road.
That was when Mark gave Fiona the same treatment, even though she was pregnant with his child.
As his car dragged her up and down the mountain repeatedly, she bled from her crotch, both her legs covered in blood.
The pain was unbearable—she couldn't stand, while the searing sun kept her from even opening her eyes…
Suddenly, Fiona lifted her hand from her chest, gasping for air, her tears gushing even as she laughed, "This time, I'm not choosing Mark Zimmer."
As Fiona shambled out of the bathroom, her pale face made her look just like was terribly sick.
She then heard a loud humming and was surprised to see that Mark had left his backup phone.
Picking it up from the couch, she swiped it and was left staring at a passcode panel.
She didn't hesitate and typed Sue's birthday, which surprisingly unlocked the phone.
There were over ninety-nine notifications coming from a chat group, and Fiona recognized each of the thirtyish members in it—they were all elites whom her father had sponsored, labeled by everyone else as her sponsored suitors.
Swiping through it, she found out that Mark had rushed out because someone was molesting Sue at the hotel where she worked part-time.
Someone had a photo and even uploaded it to the work chat group by mistake.
Still, Fiona kept swiping upward when she noticed a certain sticker made from her own face with distorted facial features to make her look monstrous.
And the sender was Noris, who was always hovering around Mark.
[Guys, don't you think it was Fiona?]
[No way! She doesn't even know that Mark had used her father's position to get Sue a job.]
[Actually, you never know. Y'all know how obsessed she is with Mark. Who knows, she might have people watching and found out about Sue. I mean, who else would hate Sue so much and want to humiliate her? Doesn't Fiona see that it's going too far for a fellow woman?]
[The way I see it, it definitely was Fiona! Both she and her father are so full of themselves just because they're rich. What, do they think the world is theirs? How deluded are they, grooming us to be her suitors? Bleh, dream on! Not even a mongrel would want her!]
[Hahaha…]
As Fiona kept reading, shaking with rage as she stood, she discovered that the sponsored suitors had made many other stickers out of her or her father's faces.
When they were younger, they were all going to starve to death, if not die from illness—survival was questionable for them without her father's sponsorship.
And yet, here they were, mocking and slandering her without evidence, as if she was not a woman just like Sue.
Never could she have expected Mark to throw all caution to the wind for Sue's sake, even having the balls to keep Sue right under her nose.
Just thinking about his name left her feeling like she was being repeatedly stabbed with a blunt knife—it didn't kill, but each stab left her with utter agony!
That was when her father called her—he was busy with a project abroad and couldn't make it home.
As Fiona quietly wiped the tears away from her eyes, she vowed to herself that it was the last time she would cry over Mark.
"What's wrong? Who hurt you?" her father's familiar voice asked over the phone.
Just hearing his voice left Fiona firmly biting her own lip, as she seemed to see the way her father bled from head to toe—a well-dressed man reduced to a bloody pulp because of Mark's torture.
Still, there was no hiding her pain from her father despite her silence, and she took a breath to calm down before speaking. "It's fine, Dad… the wedding will go on as scheduled, but I'll be marrying Yves Warren instead of Mark."
"What? Yves?!" Norman exclaimed in shock on the other end. "I thought he left his family to volunteer as a Doctor Without Borders. Why would you suddenly want to marry him?"
"Just trust me on this," Fiona replied, looking downward at Mark's phone screen where more insulting messages were popping up. "I know what I'm doing… Also, I'll start work at the headquarters."
Though Norman had no idea what Fiona was planning, he had always loved his only daughter.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have spent a king's ransom grooming Mark, giving the latter special treatment and privileges he didn't afford the other sponsored suitors.
And it was all because Fiona liked Mark.
Still, Norman didn't dwell on it and sighed. "Just do whatever you want. Even if it's the wrong call, I'll see through it to the end with you!"
Fiona's vision was clouded with tears even as she took another deep breath, sniffling as she said, "Yeah."
As she hung up, another message popped up in the chat group—this time from Mark.
[If it really was her, I'll make her suffer!]
Caught in a flood of memories, Fiona kept her eyes glued to Mark's backup phone screen even after it darkened.
It was really hard to reach his heart—he never laughed, barely talked, and only sat in a quiet corner all day, reading books.
The first time she celebrated his birthday, he didn't even look surprised, instead knocked the cake she had baked off her hands and threw away her present.
"No one asked for it," he snorted, and left.
Even so, she stayed by the cake and cried for the longest time—not just because of Mark's cold rejection, but because she knew her father would get upset with Mark if she went home crying.
Still, after everyone went to bed very late into the night, Mark showed up again, quietly cheering her up with his little hand sewn dolls.
Putting up a puppet show, he told her indirectly that because his parents had died in an accident on the same day, he had never celebrated his birthday ever since.
Since then, Fiona learned that Mark wasn't cold—he just needed time to warm up to anyone.
She just had to take her time to slowly overcome those obstacles in his heart, convincing him to trust her and fall for her.
Never could she have expected that doing that would cost her everything.
-
Mark only found out that Fiona was starting work when he saw her at the office and was at once frowning.
"Do you think this is a playground?" He snorted, clearly convinced that she was just a pretty face when she clearly wasn't.
On the other hand, Fiona never looked at him at all, as her eyes remained fixed on his 'assistant'.
Eventually, Mark turned toward her as well, twitching uncomfortably but only for a brief second.
"A new employee?" Fiona eventually asked.
"She's just an intern. You can go home now if you have no other business here," Mark replied shortly.
Fiona snorted—he really couldn't wait to chase her away to protect the woman behind him.
Still, she asked, "Why should I leave? The Starr family owns this company."
Mark glowered right then, and Fiona knew she had hurt his swelling ego with her words.
Labels like 'sponsored suitors' or 'one of Fiona Starr's husband candidates' were always a sore spot for him—he had already accomplished his own achievements, but all of it remained eclipsed under the Starr family's fame.
However, hurting Mark was exactly what Fiona wanted to do, not to mention that wasn't even a fraction of how much he had hurt her in her past life!
As Fiona turned, seemingly leaving, Sue was already reaching out, ready to pat Mark on the back.
That was when Fiona turned around again, and Sue's hands were left hanging in the air.
Even so, Fiona kept staring at her calmly, leaving her instantly pale and flustered in guilt, until Mark passed her a document folder and said, "You can go."
Fiona felt as if a hand clenched around her heart.
Mark's tone was so tender that even he probably didn't notice—it just went to show how protective he was toward Sue.
Then why didn't he just reject Fiona for Sue, even going on to marry Fiona?
It definitely wasn't the Starr family's fault that Sue killed herself, but ironically, Mark blamed Fiona and her father anyway.
Soon after Sue left, Mark's phone jingled.
Fiona was going to leave too when she felt a vice-like grip around her waist abruptly and frowned.
When she turned, she cringed and shuddered when she saw Mark's sinister glare.
It was as if he had shed his skin and revealed his true malicious nature, just as he did in her past life!
Shoving his phone at her face, he growled, "Did you do this?"
Fiona couldn't free herself and eventually gave in and looked at the phone and saw that it was the photo of Sue being molested.
Seeing how calm she was, Mark immediately made up his mind that she was guilty, not bothered to listen to what she had to say.
His hand clenched so hard around Fiona's wrist. Her tears welled up in her eyes, while the corner of her eyes reddened, but she gritted her teeth and fought against the impulse to cry out.
Because she refused to cry for Mark ever again.
"It! Wasn't! Me!" She snarled every syllable through her teeth!
