The Hidden Empress Stripping Her Secrets After Divorce novel Chapter 432

Shangri-La Paris, Room 1705.

The blackout curtains were drawn tight, leaving only the dim, amber glow of a bedside lamp to fight off the heavy darkness. Piper slowly peeled her eyes open. She stared blankly at the ceiling for several minutes, her brain thick and sluggish, heavy as lead.

She pushed herself up on trembling arms, but a vicious wave of vertigo immediately sent the room spinning. She gripped the edge of the mattress, squeezing her eyes shut until the nausea passed. When she finally looked down, she did a frantic sweep of herself—her clothes were perfectly intact, there was no physical pain, and she was tucked neatly beneath the duvet.

A ragged sigh of relief escaped her lips, though it shook with barely contained panic.

She raised a hand and hit the side of her head, desperately trying to force her brain to boot up. It felt stuffed with thick cotton wool. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to rewind through the haze of the afternoon—the bistro, the juice, Serena smiling sweetly as she said, 'The juice here is fresh-squeezed', taking a sip, then another, and then the world tilting on its axis.

Everything after that was fragmented, terrifying flashes. Being dragged. Trying to scream, but her jaw was locked shut, paralyzing her vocal cords. Fighting to thrash, but her limbs were completely deadweight, pinned by massive, suffocating forces. And then... a total, terrifying blackout.

Piper's fingers dug violently into the bedsheets.

The broken shards of memory slashed at her sanity—someone hauling her up by the arm, rough hands gripping her waist, the sickening scrape of her own shoes dragging lifelessly against the pavement. She remembered her mouth opening in a silent scream, the air refusing to leave her lungs. She remembered fighting to open her eyes, but her lids felt glued shut.

And then, the suffocating darkness had swallowed her whole.

She had zero idea what had happened in that void. She didn't know how she got back to the luxury suite. She didn't know how long she had been dead to the world. She had absolutely no idea what those men had done to her unconscious body.

A violent tremor seized Piper's hand. It shot from her fingertips up to her wrists, tearing through her arms until her entire body was convulsing. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, curling into a tight, defensive ball on the mattress.

"Ah—!"