You Had Me, You Lost Me, You'll Never Find Me novel Chapter 93

For a split second, Ashton looked as though he had been struck with a baseball bat, or like he had just swallowed pure poison.

He was completely speechless.

Noticing his unnatural expression, Luke Zane asked in surprise, "You really didn't know?"

Luke hadn't known either until recently. He was currently chasing a girl, and he had overheard her friends gossiping about it. Since Sylvia used to be Ashton's flavor of the month, plenty of people were soaking up the schadenfreude of her downfall.

If you asked Luke, it was just pure jealousy.

Ashton didn't reply. He grabbed his phone and searched for news about Sylvia.

For the past few days, he had intentionally muted her name, forcing himself not to care.

He hadn't checked in a while, and though a lot of the online noise had been suppressed, searching the keywords still pulled up the initial reports.

There was a blurry video of Sylvia walking toward her van. Suddenly, someone lunged at her, splashing liquid in her direction. If a security guard hadn't shoved the attacker away at the absolute last second, she would have been doomed.

The video had massive viewership and was pinned to the top of the feed. The screen was flooded with comments, almost all of them dripping with malicious joy.

"They missed? Wow, talk about incompetent."

"You had one job! Aim better next time."

"That's what home-wrecking sluts deserve. I hope she miscarries and gets hit by a car."

...

Then there were the photos and video of Ashton carrying Sylvia back to his apartment. The comment section under those was an absolute cesspool, repeating slurs like "bitch" and "whore" endlessly. The moderators couldn't even keep up with the deletions.

A suffocating wave of despair crashed over Ashton.

The comments were vile. Just reading them made him feel physically sick.

He couldn't fathom how Sylvia had survived it.

She was always so delicate. Whenever they argued and she couldn't win, she would cry out of sheer frustration for hours.

He remembered the faint, trembling sob in her voice when she had called him that day, and his chest tightened to the point of agony.

Realizing things were spiraling, Tristan intervened. "Is this really worth it over some actress? Ash, don't ruin our friendship over this. She's just a woman. If you like that type, we'll find you a dozen more."

Blinded by fury, Ashton slammed his fist into the wall. The impact split his knuckles, and blood smeared against the designer wallpaper. A shard of flying glass had grazed his hand earlier, leaving a jagged, bloody cut.

"Screw this! Who the hell is your friend!"

He shoved the booth door open and stormed out.

Tristan stared at the shattered wreckage on the floor, feeling thoroughly exhausted. He hit the service bell for someone to clean it up.

Everyone in the room was left shaken. No one had expected Ashton to explode like that.

They had broken up, and Ashton had acted like he didn't care. Who could have predicted this visceral reaction to her being in danger?

Luke was especially stunned. He and Ashton had grown up together and rarely ever fought, but now they were at each other's throats over Sylvia.

The only person unaffected was Connor. The instigator simply smirked, patting Luke on the shoulder in mock sympathy.