Chapter 3 Clumsy Performance

Emily's POV

This must be the assassin team Douglas mentioned, the ones who took the hit on Bruce.

I got up and felt my way through the darkness to the wall, pressing the hidden compartment. Silenced palm gun, tactical folding knife, bracelet with hidden poison needles—these survival tools I'd hidden for eight years were now needed to deal with trouble brought by the man who betrayed me.

Consider it repayment for eight years of meals. After tonight, we'd be even.

I shut off the main power, using the complete darkness to hide myself, pressing against the wall and listening to sounds outside the window.

Just as the assassin picked the lock and was about to slip inside, my phone screen suddenly lit up—the monitoring app had caught a new signal!

Even though the light was weak and brief, it was blindingly obvious in the pitch-black night, instantly exposing my general location.

Silenced gunshots rang out immediately, bullets grazing my ear and embedding in the wall.

I instinctively rolled to dodge. At the same time, as the signal connected, Zara's sweet voice and Bruce's casual responses came through my earpiece, creating an absurdly bizarre contrast with the life-or-death gunfight in the room.

"Bruce, I'm so happy you could come see me."

"Silly girl, I love you more. Eight years together has gotten so dull, how can it compare to how you make my heart race?"

"Then Bruce, can you not go back tonight? Stay with me, okay?"

"Be good, I have to go back tonight. Emily is an easy woman to fool, she never checks on me, but I always feel like those cold eyes of hers can see right through everything. I need to go back and keep her stable."

Intimate breathing, flirtatious words—they pierced through my earpiece straight into my eardrums, stabbing at my nerves.

I took a deep breath of the rain-scented air, channeling all the surging pain in my chest and the fury of betrayal onto the assassin before me.

Draw, shoot, close combat—muscle memory took over everything. I didn't even need to think. Every move in the darkness was precise and ruthless. Their laughter still played in my earpiece, but my hands never trembled once.

In less than three minutes, the fight was over.

When I turned on my flashlight to interrogate them, I discovered that the assassin I'd left alive after dislocating his jaw had already bitten through the poison capsule hidden in his back molar and died on the spot, giving me no chance to extract information about who was behind this.

I dragged my exhausted body, stuffed the three corpses into waterproof bags, threw them in the bed of my modified pickup, and drove thirty miles to the cliffs over international waters.

The rocks there were sharp, the undercurrents fierce—the perfect dumping ground. The bodies sank down, and soon, nothing was visible. I stood at the cliff's edge. The wind was strong, but my mind was strangely empty.

After I finished cleaning up everything, dawn was breaking.

I rushed back to the villa to clean up the blood, but the smell of gunpowder from the intense fight inside lingered. That hypocrite Bruce could return at any moment. To avoid exposing my identity, I walked straight to the kitchen and turned on the gas valve.

Watching the pungent gas spray out, I calmly lay down on the floor, closed my eyes, and faked the appearance of gas poisoning.

I didn't need his sympathy. I just needed the identity of a victim and a reason to leave this house.

Before long, the door was pushed open forcefully.

Bruce's cry of alarm rang out, with just the right amount of panic: "Emily! What happened to you?!"

As his hurried footsteps approached, even through the thick smell of gas, I could still detect Zara's perfume on him. Pungent and nauseating.

The oxygen deprivation mixed with gas made my brain heavy. In the last second before losing consciousness completely, I only felt incredibly desolate and absurd.

When I woke again, I smelled the distinctive disinfectant of a hospital.

Slowly opening my eyes, I saw Elizabeth sitting by the bed with red, swollen eyes, and standing nearby with a face full of "concern" was actually Zara.

This scene was ironic to the extreme.

Zara was holding Elizabeth's hand, her tone weak and sweet, playing the perfect caring junior: "Mrs. Howard, please don't worry too much. The doctor said Emily just has mild carbon monoxide poisoning, nothing serious, she'll wake up soon."

Elizabeth wiped her tears, her voice choked: "Emily is usually such a careful child, how could something like a gas leak happen... If anything happened to her, how could I go on?"

I squinted, just catching something that flashed in Zara's eyes—quickly covered by a docile expression, but in that instant, I recognized it. That wasn't concern.

I opened my eyes fully, my gaze falling on Elizabeth, and my nose tingled. These eight years, only Elizabeth had truly cared for me, giving this orphan the maternal love I'd never had. She was also the only reason I was still enduring, trying to maintain this family.

But I would never, ever share a man with another woman.

"Elizabeth... water, I want water." I spoke hoarsely.

Seeing me awake, Elizabeth nodded excitedly and quickly got up to pour me water.

At the same time, Bruce walked into the room with a doctor. Seeing I was awake, he immediately pushed past Zara to rush to the bedside, gripping my hand tightly.

"Baby, you're finally awake! You scared me to death. Thank god I got back in time after finishing my business meeting last night, otherwise the consequences would have been unthinkable..." His expression was anxious and affectionate, acting worthy of a best actor award.

I didn't look at his hypocritical face. Instead, my gaze went past his shoulder and landed directly on Zara's wrist.

I froze, my pupils contracting sharply.

On Zara's delicate wrist was a limited edition diamond bracelet, gleaming conspicuously. It was the seventh anniversary gift Bruce had given me last year, the only one of its kind in the country.

I treasured the real one so much I rarely wore it, keeping it carefully stored at the bottom of my bedroom jewelry box. What I wore was always the poison needle weapon I'd made myself as a replica.

No one but Bruce could open that jewelry box.

He hadn't just betrayed me—he could actually take the anniversary gift he'd given me and use it to please his mistress without batting an eye! And he even let his mistress wear it and brazenly parade it in front of my hospital bed to provoke me!

Eight years together, a seventh anniversary gift—in his eyes, it was all this cheap.

Elizabeth turned around with the water glass, following my gaze, and also noticed what was on Zara's wrist. Her expression changed, and she immediately scolded: "Zara, isn't that the seventh anniversary gift my son gave Emily? How is it on your hand?!"

The air in the hospital room instantly froze.

Bruce's body stiffened. He guiltily lowered his head, remaining silent, clearly planning to let Zara handle this mess.

A flash of panic at being caught crossed Zara's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by hidden triumph. She immediately bit her lower lip, putting on a weak and wronged expression, fumbling to remove the bracelet, her tone soft and tearful.

"Emily, Mrs. Howard, I'm sorry, it's my fault, I made you misunderstand..."

"Last night, when I heard Emily had an accident, as a colleague, I rushed over to help. Mr. Howard was so anxious, I was afraid he'd drop such an expensive bracelet, so I held it for him. Because we were rushing to get Emily into the ambulance, I just put it on my wrist..."

Tears welled in her eyes as she held the bracelet out to me, her expression innocent and pure: "I was so rushed I forgot to take it off, I really didn't mean to. Emily, please don't be mad at me, okay?"

What a perfect excuse. What a two-faced scheme.

I looked at that bracelet, then at Bruce beside her, gazing at Zara with eyes full of apology and affection.

My last shred of precarious trust and attachment crumbled completely in that moment.