Chapter 12
Reed grabbed his assistant’s collar, his eyes bloodshot.
“Tell me! Who exactly was that man?!”
The assistant’s face turned paper white. “Sir, it wasn’t… it wasn’t just one man…”
“What are you saying?”
The assistant’s voice trembled. “Mrs. Bennett was… at the abandoned building that day, she was… violated by those men.”
These words struck Reed like a thunderbolt.
He was completely stunned.
A moment later, he suddenly laughed.
“What nonsense are you talking? Those men were hired by her to target Victoria. How could they possibly touch her?”
He released the assistant. “This is just another fake story she’s spreading, right? Another attempt to provoke me, to make me ‘regain my memory,’ right?”
“Go find her now and tell her I remember everything. I want to remarry her.”
The assistant looked at him, his eyes full of pity. “Sir… it’s true.”
“That day, someone happened to be flying a drone near the abandoned building. Everything was recorded. I’ve obtained the original video and destroyed all other copies.”
With that, the assistant handed over a black USB drive.
“Would you… like to watch it now, or should I just destroy it?”
Reed’s mind went blank.
He didn’t even remember taking the USB drive from his assistant’s hand.
He only realized the cold object was clutched in his palm when he came to his senses.
He sat rigidly at the computer, trying several times to insert the USB drive, his hand trembling each time he pulled back.
The assistant’s words echoed in his mind like a curse-she was violated by those men.
He couldn’t bear to imagine what he would become if he actually saw it happen.
Finally, Reed took a deep breath and inserted the USB drive.
The video opened immediately, showing the interior of the abandoned building filmed through a broken window.
Avery was roughly tied to a table, her clothes being torn as she desperately struggled.
Reed’s hands gripped the chair armrests so tightly his knuckles turned white from the pressure.
In the footage, Avery suddenly stopped struggling. Her gaze turned toward the window, looking down at something below. The light in her eyes gradually extinguished until they became hollow and lifeless.
“No…”
Reed’s eyes bulged, his heart feeling like it was being crushed.
He forced himself to keep watching as those bastards, one after another…
Avery lay like a broken doll, letting them do whatever they wanted, her eyes devoid of any will to live.
At the end of the video, Avery slowly put her clothes back on, carefully arranged her tangled hair, then fell backward out the window, landing on the safety net below.
The video abruptly ended.
Reed sat motionless in the chair, his eyes blood-red, his entire body violently trembling.
He remembered his own words then: “She hired them, didn’t she? What’s there to worry about?”
4
All of this-he had orchestrated it himself!
2
After a long while, he slowly walked to the liquor cabinet, opened a bottle with shaking hands, and gulped it down.
The strong alcohol made him cough violently.
“AAAHHHH!”
A roar of anguish escaped him as he smashed the bottle.
Reed’s forehead veins bulged as he screamed, finally collapsing onto the shards of broken bottles.
Sharp glass cut into his knees, blood soaking through his pants.
But this pain was nothing-not even a fraction-compared to the agony in his heart.
After kneeling there for who knows how long, he shakily took out his phone and called his assistant:
“Whatever it takes, capture those bastards.”
