Chapter 393: Chapter 393: Thrown to the Wolves

Melody Summers stood at the door to 1603, silently examining the smart lock.

Back when Melody Summers bought the apartment, Tate from property management had told her that the unit’s smart lock had a hidden keyhole.

Following Tate’s description, Melody Summers carefully felt around the lock and, sure enough, found the keyhole in a small recess. She then took out her key and cautiously inserted it.

With a soft CLICK, the lock opened.

Through the crack in the door, Melody Summers saw that apartment 1603 was brightly lit. There was no one in the living room, but it was piled high with all kinds of supplies.

Melody Summers took a deep breath, slowly walked into the apartment, and then gently closed the door behind her...

...

「Ten minutes earlier.」

Leopold Lowell walked up to the door of the spare bedroom, holding two sand vine cakes. He took out a key, unlocked the door, pushed it open, and went inside.

To save energy, the three Lowell brothers were all crammed into the master bedroom. The stove wasn’t lit in the spare bedroom, so it was frigid. The room was also piled with trash and dirty clothes.

In the very center of this pile of trash lay a single, slightly cleaner blanket.

Leopold Lowell bent down and yanked the blanket away, revealing Maisie Lynch curled up on the floor.

Maisie Lynch looked as if she had been beaten. Her face was covered in black and blue bruises. The cheekbone under her left eye and her right cheek were both severely swollen.

Her hands and feet were bound with hemp rope. She wore a padded cotton jacket, but the room was so cold that her lips had already turned a faint shade of purple.

Feeling the blanket yanked off her, Maisie Lynch struggled to lift her head, her gaze meeting Leopold Lowell’s.

Seeing Maisie Lynch’s weakened state, Leopold Lowell tossed the sand vine cakes from his hand beside her mouth and said gruffly, "Eat up!"

Leopold Lowell had expected Maisie Lynch to refuse, but to his surprise, the moment she saw the sand vine cakes, she looked as if she’d seen the most delicious food on earth. She eagerly scrambled over, snatched the cakes off the floor with her teeth, and began to devour them.

Seeing Maisie Lynch wolfing down the food, Leopold Lowell clicked his tongue. He smirked and said, "See? Would’ve been easier if you’d just been this obedient from the start. What was the point of a hunger strike? You’re just a glutton for punishment, always asking for trouble..."

Hearing the blatant mockery in Leopold Lowell’s voice, Maisie Lynch remained completely unfazed, continuing to chew and swallow the sand vine cakes with large bites.

The three Lowell brothers had captured Maisie Lynch the previous night. In protest, she had immediately gone on a hunger strike. She hadn’t eaten anything since then and was now unbearably hungry.

The will to survive is an instinct etched into human genes. When a person is on the verge of starvation, they simply cannot refuse food; they would eat even poison without a moment’s hesitation.

So Maisie Lynch could no longer be bothered with protesting or hunger strikes. Her mind was consumed by a single thought: ’I have to eat!’

After finishing the two sand vine cakes, Maisie Lynch let out a long sigh. Then, as if completely drained of energy, she collapsed back onto the floor.

The room was frigid. Since Leopold Lowell had taken the only blanket, Maisie Lynch could only huddle on the floor, her body beginning to tremble uncontrollably from the cold.

Seeing Maisie Lynch like this, a smirk played on Leopold Lowell’s lips. He said slowly, "You’ve been freezing in here for a day. Thought it over yet? As long as you’re obedient and take good care of me and my brothers, you can go back to the master bedroom and warm up by the stove. No need to freeze to death in here."

When Titus and his brothers had first brought Maisie Lynch back the day before, they’d put her in the master bedroom. After all, having gone to the trouble of capturing a woman, they didn’t want her to freeze to death before they could properly... enjoy her.

But to their surprise, while the three brothers were asleep, Maisie had managed to struggle over to the coal stove and kick it over!

If Titus hadn’t been so alert, the entire master bedroom might have been burned down by the scattered, red-hot coals!

After that incident, the three Lowell brothers gave Maisie Lynch a vicious beating, then threw her into the spare bedroom to fend for herself.

Leopold Lowell hadn’t planned on bothering with Maisie Lynch anymore. Since she was resisting to the death, wasting more time on her seemed pointless. There were plenty of other women in the apartment building; one of them was bound to be willing to join them.

But just a few moments ago, Leopold Lowell had learned that his older brother, Titus, and his younger brother, Drake, had dragged another woman back from apartment 1601.

Leopold Lowell went over to take a look and was disgusted to find that the woman was in her forties!

Leopold Lowell had made his way in the city and seen plenty of pretty girls, so his standards were higher than his brothers’. He didn’t share his younger brother Drake’s taste for older women, nor was he as indiscriminate as his older brother Titus. Just looking at this new woman made his stomach turn!

Leopold Lowell couldn’t understand his two brothers. ’There must be something wrong with their heads,’ he thought. ’We already have a young girl like Maisie Lynch, so why bother dragging back some old woman?’

In any case, after seeing Yvonne York, Leopold Lowell suddenly appreciated Maisie Lynch’s appeal again. He was now willing to spend a little more effort persuading her to give in.

Watching Maisie Lynch tremble violently from the cold, Leopold Lowell frowned. "Well? Say something! Are you going to give in or not? Do you really want to freeze to death?"

Under Leopold Lowell’s stare, Maisie Lynch curled into a tighter ball and rasped, "...No... You... let me go..." 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Seeing that Maisie Lynch still refused to yield, Leopold Lowell flared with irritation.

He snorted coldly. "You’re a fucking whore to begin with, so don’t you dare try to act all high and mighty with me. Weren’t you the mistress of that brat from 1602? What’s the difference between being with him and being with the three of us?"

At his words, Maisie Lynch’s lips trembled. She gritted her teeth and retorted, "...No... I’m not... He’s my husband..."

Leopold Lowell sneered. "What’s so great about that spineless wimp of a husband? Last night, we hadn’t even said we wanted you before he was pushing you forward, offering you up to us. And you’re trying to stay faithful to a man like that?"

His words were a knife to the gut, making Maisie Lynch’s breath catch. The memory of the previous night came flooding back—

The previous night, the three Lowell brothers had burst into 1602. They had dragged Maisie Lynch and Ivan Warren from their sleep, hauled them out of bed, bound their hands, and thrown them to the floor.

Before Titus and his brothers had even said a word, Ivan Warren, as if frightened out of his mind, scrambled up and began kowtowing repeatedly, begging for mercy.

Ivan Warren even offered to give them Maisie Lynch, pleading only that they let him go.

Maisie Lynch was stunned by Ivan Warren’s actions. She couldn’t believe her own husband would say such things.

She confronted Ivan Warren, asking him why he would do this to her, but he just started screaming at her, calling her a worthless bitch who had thrown herself at him.

And so, the three Lowell brothers had dragged Maisie Lynch to 1603.

Maisie Lynch knew she had fallen into a den of wolves. She struggled and cried, screaming for help in the hope that someone would save her, but all her struggles were in vain. Nothing she did helped.

She had screamed until her throat was raw, but no one had come to save her...

When Maisie Lynch remained silent, Leopold Lowell walked over and kicked her hard. He scowled and snapped, "I’m talking to you, are you deaf? Playing dead for me, are you? You want to find out if I’ll actually kill you right here?"