The guard’s pupils shrank sharply, his vigilance slowly turning into reverence.
Before long, the lights inside the compound blazed on. Several men in black hurried over.
The man leading them walked with steady, forceful steps. Yet the closer he came to me, the more his pace slowed.
He stared at my bloodstained face, as if struggling to confirm an impossible truth.
At last, he reached out with a trembling hand and gently touched the blood letter in my grasp. The bloody handprints on it pierced his eyes.
“You… you are Brother Cyrus’s child, aren’t you?”
His voice carried an emotion he could not suppress.
“Isadora, all these years… we never dared to contact you. We were afraid of affecting your undercover mission.”
That name, Isadora, struck my heart like thunder.
Uncle Arlo forced down the redness in his eyes and managed a strained smile.
“Do not be afraid. Uncle Arlo is here. Your parents saved my life. Your business is my business.”
The guards beside him stepped forward one after another, each of them showing instinctive respect.
“Isadora, get up first. Everyone here is your parents’ friend.”
“Your parents gave their lives to protect us all. We are your real family.”
“Do not be afraid. With us here, no one will dare bully you.”
“Your parents entrusted you to us. We will never let you suffer injustice.”
Their voices were like beams of light, illuminating my pitch black world bit by bit.
I lifted my eyes blankly and looked at them.
Deep in my memory, the figures from old photos taken with my parents slowly overlapped.
My parents were gone, but the light they left behind had never gone out.
I had crawled all the way here. The broken bones had long pierced through flesh. The pain had nearly taken my consciousness.
Yet I had not shed a single tear.
Until this moment.
When I heard the word child, I could no longer hold back. My tears burst free.
“Uncle Arlo…”
My voice choked so badly I could barely continue. “I want you to uphold justice for me…”
“I was illegally detained. My legs were beaten until they broke. I crawled from daylight to nightfall just to reach this place.”
Emotion surged, my voice hoarse and breaking.
“I only want the child whose heart was cut out alive… to leave in peace.”
“I only want those who abused their power… to pay the price they deserve.”
When the words fell, deathly silence spread around us.
The next second.
Uncle Arlo froze, shock and fury crashing over him at once.
He had meant to help me up, but my words left him rooted in place.
The air itself seemed to carry the stench of blood.
The searchlight shone on me again.
My legs, twisted, broken, already blackened and festering, were fully exposed.
Uncle Arlo raised his hand sharply, covering his eyes.
He did not want me to see him, a man of iron and steel, shedding tears.
“Stretcher. Now. Get her to the hospital immediately.”
The guards lifted me with reddened eyes, minimizing every jolt as they carried me away.
Inside the hospital,
“This is outrageous!”
Uncle Arlo’s roar nearly shattered the ceiling. “Who gave them the nerve to treat a Gu family child like this?”
“Leaking an undercover identity is a capital crime. And cutting out a heart alive… are they even human?”
He was shaking with rage, like a lion provoked beyond restraint.
The doctor standing by my bed clenched his teeth. After hesitating for a long time, he finally spoke.
“Sir, there is a high concentration of banned substances in her system.”
“The side effects are extremely severe. After her legs were broken… she will most likely never stand again.”
Uncle Arlo shuddered violently.
As if this hurt him even more than hearing of Jasper’s death.
I only smiled faintly.
“I know.”
“He fed it to me for a year.”
The doctor stared at me in shock.
My gaze fell on my legs, fixed with steel pins. My smile was as bitter as a final breath before death.
“If Xander saw me like this now…”
“He would probably be very satisfied.”
“He finally got what he wanted.”
“I can no longer… stand between him and Anais.”
On the day my stitches were removed, the rain outside stopped.
I sat by the hospital bed, my fingers lightly tracing the thin document in my hand. On the white paper were two glaring words.
Divorce Agreement.
Simple. Cold. Leaving no room for hesitation.
Uncle Arlo’s people had already secured the evidence in the internal archives ahead of time.
All that remained for me was to sever every tie with the past.
Suppressing the ache in my chest, I slipped the agreement into an envelope. When I signed my name, my hand did not tremble at all.
“Xander, what you owe me, I will make you repay it little by little.”
Half an hour later, I had special agents send the letter by registered mail to Xander’s workplace.
No note.
No explanation.
Only one signature at the end.
Isadora.
