Chapter 15
The assistant’s voice came through the phone:
“Mrs. Bennett was diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease five months ago. The doctor said she has less than a year to live.”
The phone slipped from Reed’s hand, hitting the floor with a sharp crack.
He stood frozen, his mind completely blank.
Soon, his assistant delivered the medical report.
The diagnosis date was five months ago-the very day he had staged that car accident and pretended to lose his memory.
The report fell from his hand, landing on the floor as his entire body trembled uncontrollably.
When she learned she had less than a year to live, he had chosen to fake amnesia, chosen to hurt her for another woman.
Reed assembled the world’s leading experts, frantically researching everything about Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
When he read the symptom description, his heart nearly stopped beating.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, commonly called mad cow disease, was incurable-memory confusion, cognitive disorders, eventually forgetting everything, dying in endless suffering.
Reed recalled that ranch visit seven years ago when Avery had pushed him out of the way of a mad bull and been injured. He remembered how she was covered in blood yet still worried about whether he was hurt.
She had exchanged her life for his.
While he, during the countdown of her life, had personally pushed her into an even deeper hell.
When she needed him most, what had he been doing?
He had been playing the devoted lover with Victoria, repeatedly torturing Avery’s already broken heart in the cruelest ways.
Reed couldn’t imagine how she had endured it all.
He suddenly remembered the taxi that had passed by his wedding motorcade.
In that brief moment when their vehicles crossed, he had seen her.
Those eyes that had once been full of starlight and love now held only the stillness of dead water, looking at him as if he were a complete stranger.
He had thought it was the coldness of a heart that had died.
But now he understood-perhaps in his Avery’s world, Reed Bennett no longer existed.
“Puh-”
A mouthful of scalding blood erupted from Reed’s mouth, shockingly red.
Tears fell like broken strings of pearls, one after another.
These hands that had once vowed to shelter her had pushed her into hell.
This man who had sworn to love her until death had become the final knife that killed her.
Reed began torturing himself savagely while also cruelly tormenting Victoria.
13:05
Faking Amnesia to Dump His Dving Wife? Challenge Accepted!
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“Didn’t you say you had a terminal illness?” Reed’s voice was utterly devoid of warmth.
“Then let me help you experience what a terminal illness really feels like.”
He took out a bottle of slow-acting poison, dripping it into Victoria’s mouth drop by drop.
“This poison will gradually rot your internal organs. You’ll wish for death, but it won’t come quickly.”
Victoria’s eyes widened in horror as she shook her head frantically, unable to utter a word.
“Want to know what Avery experienced these past months?”
Reed then took out a packet of tulip pollen, sprinkling it over her body.
Victoria immediately began having a severe allergic reaction-her entire body covered in angry red hives, her breathing labored.
Just as she was about to suffocate, Reed had doctors inject her with the antidote.
“Your suffering, my suffering-compared to Avery’s, they’re nothing…”
A month later, Victoria had gone completely insane.
She pointed at Reed, laughing maniacally.
“Hahaha… Reed Bennett, I just wanted to KILL Avery Walsh! This is all YOUR fault!”
“You knew I wasn’t sick, so why did you agree? If you loved Avery so much, why fake amnesia for me?”
“YOU gave me hope! YOU made me think I had a chance with you! It’s all YOUR fault! Why don’t YOU just DIE?”
Every word pierced Reed’s heart like a steel needle.
Victoria was right.
It was all his fault.
If he had rejected Victoria from the beginning, if he hadn’t given her any hope, if he hadn’t chosen that idiotic plan… Avery would never have suffered all this pain.
Reed sank deeper into self-destruction and suffering, day after day, seeing no daylight.
One month after Avery left, his assistant finally brought definitive news.
“Sir, we’ve found Mrs. Bennett’s whereabouts.”
“She’s in Switzerland.”
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