Chapter 4

It was Zachary.

The top-tier venture capital tycoon who moved the markets on Wall Street, my father's biggest sponsor, and the man who had silently pursued my mother for years, loving her to the bone.

Zachary slammed his wine glass down heavily. "Miss Smith," he said, pinning his gaze on Camilla without any disguise. "I poured fifty million dollars into this tour. Now, go out to the terrace and play for me for two full hours!"

Terrified, Camilla shuddered all over, her eyes instantly welling up with tears.

Like a frightened white rabbit, she burrowed desperately into my father's embrace, her hands tightly clutching her slightly bulging belly.

"Nelson, it's raining outside! I'm so scared, and our baby will be scared, too!"

My father immediately tightened his arms in distress, shielding her against his chest.

He turned to face Zachary, forcefully suppressing his anger to squeeze out an apologetic smile. "Zachary, she's pregnant. She absolutely cannot handle the freezing cold. For my sake, don't make things difficult for a pregnant woman."

"For your sake?"

Zachary let out a cold sneer, pressing forward step by step. His voice boomed loud enough for the entire hall to hear. "If you don't do this for my sake, all of our sponsorship contracts will be voided on the spot tonight!"

My father froze in place.

The fifty-million-dollar sponsorship, along with his global touring empire—those were the things he valued as much as his own life.

He looked down at the delicate, shivering Camilla in his arms.

The next second, he abruptly turned his head and looked at my mother, who was so weak she couldn't even straighten her back.

"Jamie," my father's voice was utterly devoid of warmth. "You go. Play in Camilla's place."

I lunged forward like a madwoman, gripping my father's suit jacket with all my might.

"Are you crazy?! Mom is sick! The doctor said that right now, even a breeze will cause her agonizing pain! She will die!"

"Shut up!" My father shoved me away viciously. "Becky, put away this pitiful, fake-illness act you and your mother are playing!"

He strode over, roughly grabbed my mother, and forcefully dragged her toward the rain-drenched terrace.

Zachary violently shoved his chair aside and lunged forward to stop him, but my mother desperately caught his gaze. Through the chaotic downpour, she gave him a firm, unmistakable shake of her head. It was a silent, agonizing command: Do not interfere. This is the final, irreplaceable step of my revenge. Zachary froze dead in his tracks.

Gale-force winds, mixed with freezing rain, lashed against the terrace like a whip.

Wearing only a thin haute couture gown, my mother was forced down in front of a piano that was already soaked through by the storm.

Zachary stood not far away, his eyes bloodshot, his hands clenched so tightly into fists that his nails nearly dug into his flesh.

For two whole hours.

The bone-chilling freezing rain pelted against my mother's back. I could even hear the despairing wails escaping from the crevices of her bones every time she pressed a piano key.

Until, with a muffled thud!

My mother finally couldn't hold on any longer. Like a puppet with its strings cut, she toppled heavily from the piano bench and crashed into the muddy water.

A suppressed gasp erupted from the entire hall.

But my father only felt that he had been completely humiliated.

He charged into the rain and hauled my mother up by brute force. "How much longer are you going to play dead and embarrass me?!"

He dragged my mother all the way back inside and threw her to Jack. "Take her home and lock her up!"

"Since you love acting like you have a terminal illness so much, you can stay locked up and act to your heart's content!"

Leaving behind those heartless words, my father turned on his heel, strode back into the banquet hall, and swaggered off with the frightened Camilla in his arms.

Zachary and Zoey, who had been enduring this the entire time, grabbed me and swiftly tailed Jack back to the house.

By the time we got home, Jack had already locked my mother in the third-floor piano room and driven back to the banquet hall. Seizing the opportunity of his absence, we quickly found my mother.

My mother lay prone on the floor, crimson blood having completely soaked through her white dress.

"Hurry, we're running out of time," she directed Zachary outside the room, her voice hoarse through the glass.

"Is the explosive base set up? You must ensure the remote detonator is perfectly synced so that the moment the button is pressed, this layer of explosion-proof glass will shatter instantly."

Kneeling outside the door, Zachary trembled and cried convulsively while frantically finalizing the remote detonator.

Zoey covered her mouth tightly, massive teardrops smashing onto the ground.

At the final moment when the mechanism was completed...

Trembling, my mother fished out the pure white pill Zoey had prepared in advance from her inner pocket.

Without a single trace of hesitation, she tilted her head back and swallowed it.

Agonizing pain began to dilate her pupils, her life force draining away rapidly, yet the expression on her face was one of unprecedented peace and relief.

"There shouldn't be... any flaws now."

Through the thick glass door, she looked at me deeply. "Becky, remember every single word Mom taught you, and take back everything that belongs to you."

"Goodbye, my baby. Mom will love you forever..."

Her voice grew weaker and weaker until, finally, it vanished completely into the air of the piano room.

My mother died.

Zachary's fists smashed the stones on the ground to pieces, and Zoey broke down weeping in the rain.

Yet I stood rooted to the spot, staring blankly with wide eyes, without dropping a single tear.

Tears were the most useless garbage.

She had used her life to pave a blood-soaked path of revenge for me, and I absolutely could not let her lose!

I turned around and quietly returned to the living room.

Sitting on the pitch-black sofa, like an infinitely patient hunter, I fixed my eyes dead onto the clock on the wall. My father was obviously so impatient to indulge his lust that he had prematurely abandoned the celebration gala he once treated like his own life, just to rush home and revel with Camilla.

Until the electronic lock on the front door let out a soft beep.

My father returned, holding Camilla in his arms.

I stood up immediately, picked up the glass of warm water I had prepared long ago, put on an obedient and timid expression, and went to greet them.

"Dad, you're back. Have some water."

Inside that glass of water was a slow-acting drug Zoey had acquired. It was a colorless, odorless drug that would lead to permanent infertility.

Completely off-guard, thinking I had finally become obedient and stopped bringing up my mother, my father took the glass and drained it in one gulp.

After drinking, he scooped Camilla up into his arms. With a coquettish hum from her, they headed straight for the master bedroom on the second floor.

Directly above that master bedroom was the glass piano room that imprisoned my mother's corpse!

Wearing a revealing silk nightgown, Camilla wrapped herself tightly around Nelson's body like a water snake in heat.

The door to the master bedroom wasn't closed tightly, leaving a slight crack.

Concealed in the blind spot of the dark hallway, Zachary and Zoey stared fixedly at the movements upstairs with bloodshot eyes.

I stood in the shadows of the staircase, too, watching expressionlessly at this pair of sinners who were about to plunge into hell. The small, ice-cold remote control rested heavily in my palm.

As their passion thickened, clothing scattered all over the floor.

My father pinned Camilla roughly onto the bedroom sofa and was just about to tear off her final piece of clothing.

But Camilla suddenly extended her finger, gently and softly pressing it against his chest.

Her gaze landed on the ring finger of my father's left hand.

By the faint light of the hallway sconce, I clearly read the words spitting from her vicious lips: "Darling, take off the wedding ring."

"Don't you want to throw everything aside and feel our baby ahead of time?"

My father let out a low chuckle and, without a moment's hesitation, yanked off the diamond ring that symbolized his ten-year marriage to my mother.

Like discarding a pile of foul-smelling garbage, he casually tossed it onto the floor.

Then, he flipped over violently, pressed Camilla firmly against the sofa, and began his intense movements.

Under the extreme impacts, the sofa let out groans of being completely overwhelmed.

And at the exact moment their actions reached the absolute climax—

I stared with dead, unblinking eyes at their entangled bodies. Without a single trace of hesitation, my thumb pressed down hard on the detonator.

BANG!!!

A deafening, earth-shattering roar of an explosion!

The ceiling above the master bedroom shattered with a crash!

Immediately following, accompanied by Camilla's throat-tearing, bloodcurdling scream...

A pale, twisted female corpse fell from the sky, viciously smashing through the floorboards.

And landed solidly, heavily, right smack in the middle of the adulterous couple who were entangled in the throes of passion!