Chapter 7
Amid the sound of shattering glass, Vincent staggered and knocked over the desk.
But he quickly steadied himself, glaring viciously at Declan. “Speak clearly, Declan!”
Declan struggled to get up, blood streaming from his temple. “After you got me drunk that Christmas, I forced myself to make it home. Through the surveillance footage, I saw you holding your daughter, crying while reaching toward another little girl’s chest!”
Declan suddenly let out a heart-wrenching laugh. “That girl was wearing a pink sweater-the birthday gift I bought for Ashley!”
Vincent flew into a rage, his bloodshot eyes rolling with animalistic fury. “You bastard! Who gave you permission to investigate me?”
“Investigate you?” Declan showed a maniacal smile. “Your daughter told me herself. She’s afraid of you because you actually reached for her underwear! You even wanted to trick Ashley into leaving so you could imprison her…”
Declan was seething with rage, breathing heavily.
Vincent completely dropped his facade, blowing smoke rings with a cold laugh. “Blame your family’s good genes. Your sister’s
daughter, your daughter—they’re all so pretty.”
Before he finished speaking, he suddenly grabbed Declan by the throat. “You killed my daughter! I’m going to throw you into the mines and make you watch your precious daughter get violated!”
Declan’s eyes were bloodshot from lack of oxygen, but a smile of near-relief spread across his lips. “Do you even have the life left to do those things?”
The pen tip suddenly pierced through his windpipe, and bloody foam mixed with saliva poured from Vincent’s mouth.
He stared at Declan, his fingers futilely clawing at the pen lodged in his neck.
Vincent’s blood sprayed across Declan’s face as his eyes gradually lost focus. “You lowlife, how dare you…”
In his final moment, Vincent pulled out the pen and viciously stabbed it toward Declan’s chest.
“You’re dying with me!” Vincent spoke his last words.
I crawled out of the cabinet, my trembling fingers touching Vincent’s wide-open eyes.
Declan suddenly grabbed my wrist, pulling me tightly into his arms as blood continued pouring from his body.
“Why?” My voice was ice-cold. “If you knew the truth, why did you still beat me?”
“Because Vincent said he wanted to take you away to ‘develop feelings.”” Declan’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “On your thirteenth birthday, the dress he gave you had a tiny camera sewn inside. I beat you until you had broken bones and sent you to the hospital -that’s the only way I could make him temporarily give up the
idea.”
So he didn’t beat me to abuse me, but to protect me in the most twisted way possible.
Vincent had always wanted to do unspeakable things to me.
To prevent me from falling into Vincent’s clutches, Declan could only choose to beat me until I couldn’t get out of bed. At the same time, he doted on Ariana, desperately trying to awaken Vincent’s paternal love.
But what he awakened wasn’t Vincent’s paternal love—it was his bestial desires.
It turned out Ariana’s paternity test showed she was Emma’s daughter.
Emma had always been tormented by her past, only able to maintain her life through medication.
After seeing the paternity report, learning that her daughter was being coveted by a demon, remembering her unbearable past, she could no longer bear it.
She provoked Vincent, putting both her daughter and niece in danger, and finally jumped from the building in grief and anger, dying to atone for her sins.
After Monica learned of Vincent’s intentions, she was also devastated and could only steel herself to beat me, making me infertile so I could avoid the fate of being entangled with
Vincent.
And those originally uninvolved people who chose to change their testimony after seeing the paternity report were only trying to keep me with my parents for protection, to prevent Vincent from taking me away.
After all, Vincent had built his fortune on pharmaceuticals-he had plenty of methods. The moment I left Declan’s side, Vincent would immediately take me away.
Declan’s voice grew weaker and weaker, his body slowly sliding to the ground, finally collapsing in my arms.
Only then did I notice a corner of yellowed paper sticking out of his shirt pocket—it was a family photo from when I was little, folded and refolded so many times that the edges had become frayed.
“Ashley,” he grabbed my hand, blood dripping onto the back of my hand, “I was too stupid. I could only think of this way to protect you.”
Suddenly, sirens wailed outside the window.
Declan’s pupils gradually dilated, using his last bit of strength to tear off the necklace around my neck-the Christmas gift Ariana had given me, with a tiny GPS hidden in the pendant.
The reason Monica killed Ariana was also because she discovered Ariana was conspiring with Vincent, wanting me to become Vincent’s plaything, and this pendant was the evidence.
It turned out Declan knew everything. He knew Vincent’s every scheme, knew Monica’s misunderstanding, knew Ariana’s disgust, knew all my hatred.
He spent twenty years building a cage in hell, turning himself into a demon, just to make me seem less tempting.
“Go see your mother. You have to live well.” After saying this, his head tilted to one side, and he stopped breathing completely.
Tears burst from my eyes, and in an instant, the world spun and collapsed.
The sirens grew closer, but Declan could no longer hear them.
Declan was dead.
