Chapter 3

In the days that followed, he started to neglect me.

But I no longer cared. In three days, I would take Leo and leave for good.

But the day before we were scheduled to leave, Seraphina went missing again.

Victor Kaine practically turned all of Veridian City upside down, but still couldn’t find Seraphina.

He angrily smashed his phone and suddenly looked at me.

“Baby, tell me, where is Seraphina?”

I shook my head, “I don’t know… I truly don’t know…”

It wasn’t the first time he suspected me because of Seraphina, but my heart still felt a raw, bleeding pain.

Someone handed him Seraphina’s phone, which had been found before she disappeared. The last call was to me.

Victor Kaine rubbed his temples, which were throbbing.

“Elara, the evidence is all here. Are you still going to deny it?”

I sneered, “Just because of one phone call, you suspect I arranged for Seraphina to be kidnapped?”

I remembered the call Seraphina made to me before she disappeared.

“The allergy was my own doing, including the easel; I loosened it. Knowing it wouldn't actually hit me, I deliberately threw myself in front of you.”

“A man’s concern and guilt are the most enduring forms of love. I wanted Victor Kaine to soften little by little, to feel guilty and compensate me, until I completely replaced you.”

Her ambition on the other end of the line was completely undisguised.

“Elara Vance, I know you and Victor Kaine have a child together. Want to make a bet?”

“A bet on who matters more in Victor Kaine’s heart: you and your child, or me and the baby in my belly.”

So Seraphina’s kidnapping and disappearance were all her own elaborate scheme.

But Victor Kaine simply wouldn’t believe me.

He looked at me with disappointment, “People’s lives are at stake, Elara. When did you become like this?”

As night fell and the dispatched men still hadn’t found Seraphina, Victor Kaine completely lost his patience.

“Seraphina mentioned you adopted a child from the foster care system.”

My spine suddenly stiffened.

Victor Kaine raised a hand, and someone dragged in a sack. Inside, something alive thrashed continuously.

He picked up an iron bar nearby, his expression ruthless, “Elara, I’m giving you one last chance. If you don’t speak, this child won’t make it.”

“Leo!” My eyes instantly turned bloodshot. I lunged forward, but someone roughly pulled me back.

Victor Kaine raised the iron bar high and brought it down hard.

“No!!” My pupils dilated, my vision filled with red, as if the bar had slammed hard onto my own back.

A whimper came from inside the sack. The person inside jolted, then fell back down, becoming still.

A pool of bright red blood seeped from the sack.

“Ah!!!”

I felt like I was going insane, the whole world was blood-red.

The second blow was raised high again.

“Stop, please! That’s your child, he’s your son!”

I was being dragged back, screaming hysterically.

Tears mixed with blood, my eyes filled with despair.

Victor Kaine’s raised hand paused. “Baby, stop joking. We haven’t had a child all these years. Why would you lie to me with such words?”

I couldn’t care about anything else anymore. I struggled and crawled to Victor Kaine, my face drenched in tears as I pleaded, “He really is your child, Leo truly is your son… Please… let him go, quickly call a doctor, save him…”

Victor Kaine leaned down and cupped my chin. “Good girl, tell me where Seraphina is, and I’ll let him go.”

I shook my head frantically, tears streaming down my face, “I don’t know, I truly don’t know. Please, let Leo go, I beg you, let him go.”

Victor Kaine’s eyes suddenly turned cold, and he brought the bar down hard again.

A muffled groan came from the sack, and then it fell completely silent.

“Ah… no… ah…”

I suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood, my whole body convulsing violently.

The third blow…

The fourth blow…

Ten blows in total. There was no longer any sound from inside the sack.

“Leo…”

Watching as there was no movement from the sack, and the ground was stained a vivid red.

I collapsed to my knees, my body stiffening as if electrocuted, then shaking uncontrollably.

I vomited another mouthful of blood.