Kneeling for a Second Chance Novel

---- Chapter 449 "'No way! You're lying to me. You have to be lying. Valeria can't be our daughter! This must be some story Sebastian made up to save her," Wendy shot back. "Wendy, don't you see? She looks so much like me," Alexander reminded. That one sentence was enough to shatter Wendy. Screaming , she fumbled to start the car, trembling so hard that her body barely worked. Her panic spiked into full-blown hysteria. She couldn't breathe as her face went numb and her chest tightened. Her mouth hung open, drool spilling as she gasped, fighting for air. Her mind blanked.

She slammed the gas pedal, the car lurching forward until it crashed into a boulder across from Jackson's clinic. Stumbling out, disheveled and pale, she staggered toward the building . That was when she saw the clinic suddenly erupt in flames. Wendy froze, then suddenly bolted straight inside. Meanwhile, the scalpel glinted against Valeria's pale skin. Jackson's hand trembled. He had never cut into a living donor ---- without anesthesia. Beads of sweat slid down his forehead. "Dr. Lowell!" his assistant urged.

Jackson took a deep breath, steadying himself, and just as he was about to slice, chaos broke out in the hall. A rush of footsteps, followed by panicked shouts in Velrian. "Oh no! There's fire!" The operating room doors burst open, and smoke billowed in. An assistant grabbed Jackson's arm and said, "Dr. Lowell, we have to go!" Whenever lives were at stake, the surgery didn't matter anymore. They covered their mouths and noses with wet gauze and hurried out through the choking smoke. The blaze downstairs roared, swallowing everything in sight.

'The room was now vacant, with only Valeria strapped to the table. She stared up into the glaring surgical lights. She closed her eyes as smoke seeped in, coughing hard, twisting against the straps that held her down. The heat thickened. She coughed until her chest burned, twisting to the side, and then she saw him. The man strode into the operating room. His leather boots pounded, the silver chains rattling at his ankles and arrogance hanging off him. Each step rang heavy, the metallic jingle echoing . Through ---- Valeria's dazed eyes, he looked like the Grim Reaper walking in.

As he drew closer, it was as if smoke billowed in behind him. He stopped at the edge of the operating table, looming over Valeria. Without a word, he reached down and tore the tape from her mouth. Her lips split, beads of blood rising after a night of being sealed shut. She gasped, startled. "Lucas? Is that you?" Lucas clicked his tongue at the sight of her strapped to the table, then smirked. "Are you surprised?" Valeria coughed at the acrid smoke still hanging in the air." The place is on fire!" She didn't bother asking how he got there.

At that moment, she only wanted him to free her before the flames swallowed the room. "What can you give me in return if you need me to help you?" Lucas spoke calmly, almost lazily, as if the flames meant nothing. He leaned in and shifted to a negotiating tone as he called out to her, "Jane." Valeria froze, her struggle stilled. Then, she answered, "Y- You know me." "TI recognized you the first time I saw you at the Grant residence. You're still beautiful -your eyes, your mouth.

Just like when you were a kid, only older now." Lucas smiled as he walked through his memory lane, but it sent a chill straight ---- through Valeria. "Have we met before?" she asked. Her wrists were bound above her head, the plastic straps biting into her skin as she struggled. Her eyes were fixed warily on Lucas. "You went to Gratham Elementary School in Verdanci District. You were in Class 6,"' Lucas said as he leaned closer, bracing one hand on the table. "Back then, nobody wanted to sit with me. Nobody but you," he added. Lucas was Joseph's illegitimate son.

His mother had been sick and bedridden for years. One afternoon in second grade, he came home from school and found her dead. He was too young to understand what to do. He had no relatives . So, it was the neighbors who had arranged the funeral. From then on, he cooked for himself, heating leftover food, and scraped by on the kindness of neighbors. He never had new clothes. He wore the same dirty uniform year-round. Winters were the worst as his sinus infection left him sniffling constantly .

The other kids refused to sit with him, saying he was just the boy who lived off other people's trash. Only one girl had agreed to sit with him-and she happened to be the prettiest one in class. She had her hair in a ponytail and wore a pink puffer over her ---- uniform.