Chapter 168
Chapter 168
A muffled explosion detonated at the other end of the villa.
Fire borrowed the wind's force; the wind fueled the flames. What had been burning only at the corridor's far end transformed into a fire dragon with gaping jaws, ravenously devouring all of Sapphire Hill Estate!
Rolling thick smoke surged up the stairwell, flooding the second floor.
The acrid burning smell and blinding smoke choked the air, making it impossible to keep one's eyes open.
Scarlett looked at Thaddeus collapsed in a pool of blood, tears streamed endlessly down her face.
"Thaddeus... Thaddeus! Wake up!" Scarlett's trembling hands pressed against the knife wounds on his back, blood still gushing out. Scalding blood stained her hands—no matter how hard she pressed, she couldn't stop it. "Don't die... I don't want your life! Get up!"
She'd thought she hated and wished him dead.
But when he actually collapsed before her, she discovered the bone-deep panic and despair were even more violent than five years ago.
Just then, a faint coughing sound came!
Scarlett's entire body jolted.
Orla! Arthur!
The safe room's independent ventilation system needed electrical power to function. Now that the transformer station was destroyed and the villa had lost all power, if the exhaust vents were blocked by smoke...
The two children in that sealed underground space would suffocate to death!
"Orla! Starry!" Scarlett scrambled up from the floor like a madwoman and staggered toward the study!
However, the fire had spread completely.
In the second-floor corridor, burning floorboards and crystal chandelier debris kept crashing down, blocking the path.
Heat waves rolled, scorching skin painfully. Every breath felt like inhaling scalding blades.
Scarlett coughed violently from the smoke, tears streaming, but still charged forward recklessly.
A burning beam suddenly broke and crashed down in front of her!
Scarlett cried out. A blood-covered large hand reached from behind and yanked her back!
Thaddeus had somehow regained consciousness.
His handsome face was deathly pale from blood loss. Without a word, he shielded Scarlett behind him, grabbed a cleaver one of the attackers had dropped, and hacked away the burning debris blocking their path!
"Follow me!" Thaddeus clenched his teeth hard. The wounds on his back tore open again from violent movement, blood dripped steadily onto the floor.
But he felt nothing. Only one thought filled his mind—to save his children! To save the woman he loved!
The two stumbled into the study.
The reinforced steel password door originally hidden behind the bookshelf had been heated red-hot, and the bolt was jammed.
"Orla! Arthur! Are you in there?"
"Mommy... Mommy, we're here..."
From the door crack came Orla's weak crying and Arthur's suppressed coughing.
The ventilation system had completely failed. The oxygen inside was growing thinner.
Thaddeus looked at the deformed bolt, ruthless resolve flashing in his dark eyes.
He pulled Scarlett aside and, under her horrified gaze, grabbed the scalding bolt with his bare hands!
"Thaddeus! What are you doing? It's too hot—your hands will be ruined!" Scarlett screamed, trying to pull him away.
With a roar like a trapped beast, veins bulged on Thaddeus's forehead. The muscles in his arms trembled violently from extreme exertion!
The sound of flesh meeting high-temperature steel was especially clear and piercing in the sea of flames.
The air was even filled with the smell of burning flesh.
But he didn't let go.
Not only did he not let go—he applied even more force with insane determination!
Finally, the deformed bolt was torn off. After a teeth-grinding sound of metal scraping, the door opened just wide enough for one person to pass!
"Quick! Get them out!"
Scarlett was already sobbing uncontrollably. With no time to think, she squeezed through the gap Thaddeus held open, rushed into the safe room, and carried out the two children who'd fallen semi-unconscious from oxygen deprivation.
"Go! To the lawn outside!"
Thaddeus staggered, nearly falling.
Using his last breath, he protected the mother and children as they stumbled out of the villa that had become a sea of flames.
Cold autumn rain and fresh air hit their faces.
Scarlett collapsed onto the damp lawn at a safe distance, holding the two children, gasping for air.
Thaddeus also knelt on one knee, covered in blood. Heavy rain washed over his pallid face. Looking at the mother and children safe and sound, his lips finally curved into a weak but relieved smile.
"Thank God... you're alright... that's good..." He murmured, his body swaying precariously.
Suddenly, the roar of a car engine exploded through the rain.
Scarlett's head snapped up!
A black SUV was racing at insane speed straight toward her and the children!
Blinding high beams cut through the rain and the night, striking Scarlett's pallid face.
Through the windshield, Scarlett clearly saw the face in the driver's seat.
Lavinia!
Her face twisted with madness, her eyes burning with suicidal mania.
"Scarlett! All of you—die!"
The SUV's speed was too fast! Scarlett only had time to push the children out of the vehicle's path before closing her eyes in despair, preparing to meet death.
The expected crushing pain never came.
Scarlett only felt a massive force shove her away. She rolled several feet across the ground.
She opened her eyes wide and looked back.
The man who'd saved her and the children from the flames—like a withered autumn leaf—had been struck by the SUV and sent flying through the air in an arc before crashing heavily to the ground.
Blood poured from his mouth and nose, instantly staining the grass beneath him red.
"No... Thaddeus..." Scarlett crawled and scrambled toward him.
The SUV also completely lost control from the impact, ultimately crashing into the stone wall at the estate's perimeter. The fuel tank exploded. Soaring flames and violent explosion sounds burst across Sapphire Hill Estate's sky.
Raging fire instantly consumed the vehicle, transforming the SUV into a hellish inferno.
"Help! It's so hot! My face! My face!"
From within the flames came Lavinia's piercing screams.
She was trapped in the deformed driver's seat, watching helplessly as flames licked her skin and burned her hair.
This was the karmic fire she'd lit with her own hands. Now, it dragged her into endless hell.
Accompanied by sharp sirens, several police cars with flashing lights—along with a convoy of mercenaries Sawyer had brought—finally roared into Sapphire Hill Estate through the storm.
When police and firefighters used high-pressure water cannons to extinguish the fire on the SUV and pried open the car door with breaking tools—
Everyone gasped.
The woman dragged from the vehicle was nearly unrecognizable as human.
Her entire body was severely burned, skin and flesh charred black, emitting a nauseating smell of cooked meat.
She wasn't dead.
As if Heaven deliberately meant to punish her, she remained conscious.
Like a piece of charcoal, she lay on the stretcher, her throat producing helpless keening sounds.
What awaited her would be endless suffering more terrible than death, and the desperate torment of spending the rest of her life in prison and a hospital bed.
This was the cruelest punishment for her.
Not far away, Scarlett knelt in a pool of blood, holding the blood-covered man.
"Thaddeus... wake up... please wake up..."
"I don't want your life anymore! I want you alive!"
"Get up... get up and look at me... look at your children..."