Chapter 1 The Disguised Calmness

Emily Johnson's POV

On the screen, my fiancé of eight years was impatiently tearing off another woman's underwear.

"You're the one I want to marry, my baby..." The man's frivolous panting drilled into my eardrums through the speakers.

"Bruce, you and Emily are getting married in a couple of days. Won't she be mad that you're here with me behind her back?" In the video, the woman coyly nestled into the man's arms.

Bruce Howard let out a cold snort, his face full of contempt: "If my mom hadn't pressured me with our eight years together, forcing me to marry her, I never would've agreed to this wedding. Emily's got a poker face all day long. Not like you—you actually care about me."

In the footage, their intertwined figures were painfully glaring.

A tendon on the back of my hand suddenly tensed. My nails dug into my palm. Something in my chest was growing colder bit by bit, until I couldn't feel anything anymore.

Douglas Campbell, sitting across from me, smiled with amusement: "Don't look at me like that. I just did some digging. Who would've thought? The legendary top-ranked killer 'Lily' from The Zenith Class rankings, the one who single-handedly wiped out the Shadowmoon Council's leadership—lost in love, looking this pathetic."

"You came to see me today just to mock me?"

I suppressed the violent rage churning in my chest, my fingertips trembling slightly beyond my control.

Bruce had cheated. With Zara Jenkins—someone I'd personally promoted and personally placed by his side. A year ago when he said he wanted to give her a promotion, I'd even been happy for her.

Douglas dropped his playful smile and got straight to the point: "Lily, the organization was wiped out. Almost everyone in the core is dead. But for eight years, I've been reaching out to the old contacts scattered across the world—rebuilding the channels. I need you back."

I froze for a moment.

That superior who'd betrayed me eight years ago for profit, who'd pushed me into a death trap—he was actually dead? How ironic.

But these past eight years, I'd long grown used to peace. Used to Bruce's fake tenderness, used to his mother Elizabeth Howard's care. I'd even naively thought I truly had a family. Rising from secretary to design department head—this was the stable life I'd built with my own hands. Now, compared to cold weapons, I was more familiar with blueprints and proposals.

"I can't go back." I looked up at Douglas, my tone calm but firm.

The old me had no place to call home, but the current me had a home and was about to get married. I wouldn't allow anyone to destroy everything I'd worked so hard to have. Even if this "everything" had just disgusted me on that screen, I should be the one to handle it myself.

"Eight years ago, if I hadn't risked my life to warn you about your superior's betrayal, you'd already be a floating corpse in international waters!" Douglas tried to appeal to emotion. "Sure, a hitman's first lesson is to cut off all feelings, but I've long considered you a friend. Do you know how much I've sacrificed these eight years looking for you? Now you're going to abandon your former partner for some cheating scumbag?"

Before he finished speaking, my body had already moved—my consciousness hadn't caught up yet, but my dagger's edge was already pressed against the major artery in his neck.

Douglas didn't panic. Instead, he laughed softly: "See? Your body can't lie. Deep down, you crave the kill. You're a natural-born assassin."

"So? You were testing me just now?" I looked at him coldly, the blade pressing closer. "If this were eight years ago, you'd already be a corpse."

"It's cold, the knife's too cold..." Douglas raised both hands in surrender.

I snorted coldly, withdrew the dagger, and stepped back half a pace.

Douglas stood up, tapped a few keys on the keyboard, and projected three hidden surveillance videos onto the screen.

"Five years ago, Bruce was attacked at a press conference. A bomb was planted under his car. You discovered it in advance and killed the assassin, taking a knife to your abdomen. You were hospitalized for a week. You told him it was just appendicitis removal. Over these eight years, you've quietly eliminated assassins targeting him three times."

Douglas stared at me intently: "You haven't been worn down by so-called stability at all. You're still Lily."

My pupils suddenly contracted.

I hadn't expected Douglas to have investigated my background so thoroughly over these years. In the underground world, having someone who knew all my weaknesses and secrets still alive was taboo in itself.

Killing intent flashed through my eyes.

"Want to kill me to keep me quiet?" Douglas saw right through my thoughts, his smile unchanged. "Lily, you know I never do anything without certainty."

I remained silent, my fingertips casually spinning the bracelet on my wrist.

It was a seventh-anniversary gift from Bruce. Actually, this was an identical replica—I couldn't bear to wear the real one, and this one had a poison needle coated with powerful neural paralytic hidden inside. With just a light press of the micro-carved mechanism, I could instantly incapacitate him.

"Is that so..." I softened my tone, deliberately lowering his guard, my fingertip already on the edge of the mechanism.

But the next second, Douglas threw out a sentence that made my movement freeze mid-air.

"Someone wants to kill Bruce."

"What did you say?"

Even though just a second ago I'd witnessed that disgusting betrayal with my own eyes, hearing that someone wanted to take his life, I still couldn't remain calm. Years of devotion and invested emotions weren't something I could simply cut off at will.

"Your fiancé's got some nerve. He hijacked a foreign cargo ship in international waters, worth two hundred million dollars." Douglas spoke deliberately. "The other party hired 'Mole,' ranked fifteenth on the assassin list, to take his head. You should know how valuable this intel is."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The image of Bruce and Zara's intimacy flashed through my mind again, sending a dull pain through my heart.

But when I opened my eyes again, the last trace of warmth had been completely erased, leaving only the cold clarity that belonged to the assassin "Lily."

"Tell me, what do you want me to do?" I looked at him coldly. "I'll help this one time. Consider it repaying the life-saving favor from back then, plus the fee for this intel."

Douglas curved his lips, his smile deepening and becoming inscrutable.

"A week from now, Bruce will privately sell off that cargo." He paused, speaking seriously. "My target is that cargo."