The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 508

The light was dim, and the air was thick with the metallic stench of gasoline mixed with the salty sea breeze.

A woman was chained to the narrow iron bed, her wrists bloody and rubbed raw as the heavy metal links dug deep into her broken skin.

Her shirt was torn open, revealing bruises mottling her bare shoulders and collarbone. A trail of dried blood crusted at the corner of her mouth, and her hair lay tangled and matted against the pillow.

Her eyes were swollen shut like bruised walnuts, but the moment she saw the figure in the doorway, a faint light flickered in them—weak, trembling, like a match about to be snuffed out in a hurricane.

It was Sloane!

At that moment, Grant's hand was still wrapped tight around her throat.

The moment Garrison saw the scene inside, his blood ran freezing cold.

He had anticipated she might be kidnapped, but seeing her chained to the bed wiped his mind completely blank, replacing every coherent thought with a suffocating wave of despair that seared his chest.

"Let her go!"

His gun was aimed squarely at the space between Grant's eyes, a blazing fury burning in his gaze.

Grant turned his head, a flash of surprise crossing his features before it slowly morphed into a cold, amused smirk.

"Garrison," he straightened up slowly, his tone entirely too casual, as if greeting an old friend. "Long time no see."

"You got here faster than I expected."

"Take your hands off her." Garrison's gun remained dead steady, locked onto Grant's forehead.

When Grant stayed up until three in the morning in the lab, Garrison had already published two top-tier papers. When Grant ran the same data verification ten times, Garrison secured the Young Researcher of the Year award with a hypothesis he brainstormed over a weekend.

But why?!

He could work himself to the bone, pull endless all-nighters, and keep the lab lights on until dawn, but he could never earn the look Professor Sterling gave Garrison—the look that said, "He is my true successor."

Grant looked at him and slowly smiled.

"Take my hand off?"

Instead of letting go, he tightened his grip around Sloane's throat, his knuckles turning white as his fingers dug into the soft skin of her neck.

Sloane's breathing instantly hitched, her lips turning a faint shade of purple as a muffled, agonized groan tore from her throat.