“Anais, are you not afraid of retribution?”
“Aren’t you afraid that one day Xander will learn the truth and make you pay with your life?”
Halfway through my words, her smile suddenly froze.
But very quickly, her cold gaze swept past me toward the stairwell beside us.
“He will never know.”
“And before that happens, I will make sure you are silenced forever.”
The moment those words fell, the air turned icy.
She took a step forward, murderous intent clear.
Thud.
Just a second before the door was pushed open, Anais suddenly threw herself backward, her body crashing down the stairs.
Blood spread along the steps one by one, the sight horrifying.
Xander’s face went deathly pale. He rushed over, almost screaming.
“Anais. Anais. What happened to you?”
He knelt beside her, his hands shaking so badly he could barely hold her arm.
Blood bubbled at the corner of Anais’s mouth. Her breathing was so weak it seemed ready to stop at any moment, yet she forced herself to look up at Xander.
“Xander… don’t blame Isadora… her child just died… she is emotionally unstable…”
“Just take it… take it as my atonement… the debt you owed my parents… is repaid now…”
Before she finished speaking, her head tilted to the side and she fell into a deep coma.
Xander completely lost control.
The next second, he lifted his head and looked at me. There was no reason left in his eyes, only madness, rage, and hatred.
“Isadora, what do you want from me?”
He was almost roaring. “Is everything I have done still not enough for you? Do you only feel satisfied when you force Anais to her death?”
He pulled out his baton and advanced toward me step by step, tears hanging at the corners of his eyes, his expression on the brink of insanity.
“You forced me. You forced all of this!”
The baton came down.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
By the fifth strike, the pain was so overwhelming that I could not make a sound. My knee felt as if it had been smashed into gravel.
He was panting, his hands trembling, yet he still clenched his teeth and stomped down hard on my already broken leg.
“When you hurt Anais, you are hurting me. Do you hear me?”
I was dragged back home like a criminal being dealt with, locked into a room by his own hands.
The moment the door closed, he looked at Anais on the ambulance below. His eyes turned completely cold.
“When you come to your senses, I will let you out.”
“I owe you, and I will repay it. But you have no right to harm Anais.”
Bang.
The door was locked shut.
I curled up on the floor. The pain of shattered bones tore at my will again and again.
But that pain slowly brought clarity instead.
Dragging my crippled body, I crawled to the study, pried open the panel beneath the desk, and pulled out a safe that had been sealed away for years.
The password was my parents’ date of death.
Beep.
The box opened. Dust rose into the air, revealing stacks of old remittance records.
Recipient name: Xander.
From the time he was eight years old until he entered the police academy.
Every cent was the hope my parents had poured into him.
Beside them lay all the property my parents had left behind.
And a letter written in blood.
Inside was the path my parents prepared for me.
I was my parents’ proudest child.
I was an undercover agent for five years, surviving countless brushes with death.
I was not someone meant to be locked in a house, waiting to die.
I had to stand up.
For Jasper.
For myself.
I tore the bedsheets into strips and knotted them into a rope. Dragging my broken legs, I crawled inch by inch toward the window.
The wind on the tenth floor cut into flesh and bone like knives.
I clenched my teeth and relied on the strength of my arms, lowering myself bit by bit.
My skin was scraped raw, split open, flesh torn and bleeding.
My hands were worn down until bone nearly showed.
From daylight to nightfall, from brightness to pitch black, I did not know how many times I fell, or how many times I forced myself to hold on again.
Until I finally saw the iron gates of that compound.
The moment the searchlights turned on, I could no longer hold myself up and collapsed to my knees.
Trembling, I pressed my parents’ memorial photos to my chest and laid the blood letter on the ground.
At last, I raised my head toward the massive gate, my voice hoarse yet shaking the entire night.
“I, Isadora, served as an undercover agent for five years and was awarded first class merit multiple times!”
“Now I have been framed, my legs shattered, my child murdered. My family destroyed!”
I clenched my teeth and used the last of my strength to roar.
“I ask only for justice!”
That cry tore through the night sky.
At that moment, no one could remain unmoved.
The compound was especially guarded in the dead of night.
I dragged my festering broken legs all the way here, my body covered in blood, miserable to the point of terror.
The guards immediately raised their guns at me, eyes cold, alert and severe.
Until the searchlight illuminated the blood letter in my hands.
That was honor bought with life.
That was the path my parents secured for me with their lives.
