Chapter 422 Grace Framed Hunter
A throng of people squeezed through the narrow doorway.
Ariel steadied Shane in front with Riley by their side.
Jeremy, Sebastian, and Martin followed closely behind.
A few nosy women joined from the sidelines as the rest remained downstairs, munching and sipping away.
At the instant the door swung open, everyone caught sight of the room's tableau, drawing a collective gasp.
Hunter was pinning Grace beneath him.
Her clothes were torn to shreds, exposing her flesh marred by welts from a belt, varying in severity.
The worst of her wounds were open and bleeding, staining both her garments and the carpet red.
Unrestrained by their sudden intrusion, Hunter continued to whip Grace's delicate skin with his belt.
Sweat dotted Grace's pained face, but upon seeing Shane, she saw a savior.
"Grandpa, please save me, please... it hurts so much, I'm in so much pain..." She whimpered while grasping at the bedsheets, giving them a fierce tug.
With a loud crash, a bottle of perfume on the bed hit the floor and shattered.
As the scent spilled out, a faint fragrance instantly permeated the room.
Ariel and Patricia instinctively covered their noses.
They sensed something odd about the scent but didn't dwell on it.
Shane, visibly shaken and trembling violently, remained speechless until the sound of the broken perfume bottle jolted him back to reality. He surged forward, wielding his cane and bringing it down hard on Hunter's back.
"You bastard, what the hell are you doing? Get off her!"
Jeremy snapped to action, rushing over to kick Hunter off Grace, mounting his back and grabbing his shirt, his fists raining down mercilessly on Hunter's face.
"You bastard, we invite you into our home and you try to defile my sister? I'll beat you to death today."
Anger blazed in his eyes, his handsome face turning a shade of crimson with each forceful punch.
Hunter took a brutal beating, enduring two solid hits.
Grace’s cheeks swelled rapidly, and a cut at the corner of her mouth began to bleed.
She tried to get up from the ground.
The slightest movement caused her to break out in a cold sweat from the intense pain.
Yet, she endured, managing to get onto her knees and curl into a ball.
Riley watched in silence, not intervening. His gaze inadvertently drifted towards Patricia, whose calm, composed expression was unsettling.
It was as if the man Jeremy caught attempting to assault Grace wasn't her husband but a stranger.
This reaction only confirmed the suspicions he harbored inside.
Patricia and Hunter had a rocky relationship, to say the least.
It was downright toxic.
With an impassive face, Patricia watched Hunter take a beating, not showing a shred of sympathy but rather a sense of unprecedented relief.
She even wished Jeremy would hit him harder.
She'd be free of Hunter if he never got up again, able to reunite with Martin and the kids.
But then...
Patricia glanced at the weeping and curled-up Grace on the floor.
Something about the whole affair felt off to her.
She had begun to suspect a collusion between Grace and Hunter.
And now, this drama unfolds: what was the reason behind this?
Had she been mistaken before?
Or had the tables turned, with the conspirators now at each other's throats?
Martin's silence was equally disturbing.
He watched the scene unfold as if the woman being assaulted wasn't his fiancée but a stranger.
Just then, someone bumped his shoulder gently.
Martin turned to see Sebastian.
Looking for an explanation with just a glance.
Sebastian, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses, whispered, "Your fiancée's in such a state, and you're not rushing to cover her with something, to hold and comfort her?"
After a moment of silence, Martin picked up a sheet and draped it over Grace.
Just draped it.
Like he was ticking off a box.
No comforting embrace, no urgent examination of her wounds.
Feeling hurt and resentful, Grace cried and tried to lean into Martin's embrace, but he stepped aside.
He stood aloofly to the side, neither approaching her nor walking away.
Riley's frown deepened at the cold response, his gaze shifting back to Patricia as he started to suspect something was off.
Watching the bruised and nearly violated Grace, Shane's eyes blurred with tears of rage. She flinched away when he crouched down and reached out trembling to touch her face, her expression etched with terror.
The sight twisted Shane's heart into knots.
He pushed Jeremy aside and swung his cane at Hunter with full force.
By then, Hunter's face looked like it had been worked over by a sledgehammer—a patchwork of bruises swelling blue and purple, with blood still oozing from his more delicate injuries.
Whether it was Jeremy's fists or the scent of perfume that did it, Hunter's lust-fueled haze was doused as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over him, the fire within extinguished completely.
But the effects of the aphrodisiac were too overpowering; his body went limp, and it took several tries before he could manage to stagger to his feet.
"This is all a big misunderstanding," he uttered weakly, sounding as though he hadn't eaten in days.
Jeremy's fists ached from the beating, but he still felt unsatisfied, hammering another punch down into the mattress.
"All these eyes saw what happened; what misunderstanding could there be? You filthy bastard, professing your love for Patricia and then doing this to my sister—playing us both, you scum."
In that moment, Jeremy couldn't tell whether he was more furious for Grace's sake or Patricia's.
All he knew was he was livid, feeling like he was about to explode.
He just wanted to kill Hunter to quell his anger.
Dodging Shane's cane, Hunter slumped against the wall, wiping the blood from his lips with a sneer. "I was framed! Think about it. Even if I harbored any ill intentions, I wouldn't choose such a crucial occasion to act on them and risk getting caught. That would be suicide!"
His words silenced everyone, as they started to see the logic in his argument.
Seeing that he had their attention, Hunter continued, "Someone deliberately lured me here and drugged me with something. I'm sure of it. If you don't believe me, get a blood test done."
Despite the rage seething within him, Shane, accustomed to high-stakes situations, furrowed his brow at Hunter's explanation, struggling to contain his anger.
After a moment of composure, Shane had to admit there was a ring of truth to Hunter’s words.
He was too clever to do something so rash on such an important day.
And to get caught in such a foolish way.
Otherwise, why would he be so bold as to suggest a blood test?
Seeing the doubt creeping into everyone's minds, Grace, with a sly twinkle in her eye, suddenly burst into tears, shattering Shane's train of thought.
"Grandpa, don't believe him!" she sobbed. "He's lying to you! He just confessed his love for me, said he wanted to be with me, and promised to divorce Patricia—all to convince me to call off my engagement with Martin and to be with him—"
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