Chapter 308

Chapter 308

Milo clutched his disconnected phone and slammed his fist into the steering wheel.

What he didn't know was that after he left, Kate hadn't gone to bed.

She retrieved another phone from a hidden compartment in the bathroom.

The screen lit up. A message popped up.

The sender was Ace.

The message contained a video just recorded—Milo holding her phone, his expression shifting unpredictably.

Ace had added a comment: [You miscalculated. Milo actually looked. Men are all the same. Not one of them is any good.]

Kate slowly typed out a reply.

[I didn't miscalculate. I was betting he would look.]

Kate paused, then added another line.

[Because he's a man first, and my boyfriend second. Logic always comes before emotion with him.]

The night had grown late.

On Lucas's tablet, an encrypted file transfer notification appeared. Sender: Clarence.

Lucas accepted it and entered a long, complex encryption key.

David's tech team and Clarence's people had practically resurrected the phone's digital ghost from the grave.

At the end of the file, Clarence had attached a brief note—concise and direct, like a case file summary.

[Kate. Orphan. Adopted at age eight by Owen from a border-region welfare facility, along with nine other children, all subjected to inhumane training. Code name: 'Nightingale.' Due to outstanding performance, became one of Owen's most capable operatives. Her subsequent 'reunion with ancestors and family' was merely a strategic move by Owen to legitimize her identity. Her approach to Juliana's mentor was also part of the plan.]

[This person is Owen's sharpest blade. But recently, she's been operating frequently outside Owen's sphere of control. Suspected possibility of rebellion.]

Lucas closed the tablet and walked to the bedroom door.

Juliana wasn't asleep yet. She was propped against the headboard, reading a medical journal.

Lucas approached. "From Clarence."

When she saw the contents, her fingers tightened around the tablet.

Owen.

"An assassin…"

She continued scrolling. The recovered data logs read like a disturbingly detailed diary, documenting Kate's every 'betrayal.'

Which day Kate had sent Lucas's schedule to Owen?

Which day Kate had leaked a bidding floor price？

Juliana's gaze moved line by line through the cold text.

She read on, then her brow suddenly furrowed.

"Here," she said, pointing at a section of the log. "Something's off."

Lucas leaned in.

It was an operation log marked 'high-risk.'

The log showed that Kate had been ordered to activate a dormant program at exactly midnight to steal all core data from a new energy technology the Sharp Group was developing.

This was something that could shake the Sharp Group to its foundation.

"Look at the timing," Juliana said, sliding her finger across the screen.

The order was issued at 9:03 PM.

But the log recorded that the program was activated at 1:27 AM.

Over four hours later.

"Maybe she ran into technical problems," Lucas said.

"No. Look at the system records during that time. From ten PM to one AM, this phone's backend registered seventeen 'network connection interrupted' error codes and eight 'command conflict' alerts. But the intervals between each interruption and alert were precisely controlled—three to five minutes—and cleverly avoided the system's automatic warning threshold."

Juliana looked up at Lucas.

"This doesn't look like an accident. It looks more like…"

"Like deliberate stalling. Kate was using what appeared to be technical failures to drag her feet."

"Look—the final transmission result is 'failed.' The report shows that due to multiple connection interruptions, only about thirty percent of the core data packet was transmitted, and the data was corrupted during transfer, making it unreadable."

Juliana raised her eyes. "If she really wanted to get that data out, with her abilities, she would never make such a rookie mistake."

Unless Kate never wanted the plan to succeed at all.

Lucas stared at the tangled code on the screen. Silent.

What is she trying to do?

The room was quiet, only the tablet's soft glow illuminating their faces.

"She bet Milo would look at her phone," Juliana suddenly said, her voice soft. "So she left behind traces of that 'Plan B' email, deliberately letting us find it. She pushed her own identity—half-truth, half-lie—right in front of us."

"And then?" Lucas picked up her thread. "She also calculated that we'd recover all the data, see every one of her betrayals, but also see this one time… her deliberate failure?"

It was like a high-stakes gamble.

Kate had pushed all her chips—herself—onto the table.

She was betting they would understand this one hint of goodwill, buried beneath countless betrayals.

"You can't trust a single word from someone who can deceive everyone. But her actions? Maybe those we can."

Milo drifted through the entire day like a ghost.

At some point, he walked into a 24-hour convenience store on the corner and grabbed two cans of the strongest beer they had.

Back home, Kate was there—unusually.

"You've been drinking," Kate said. A statement.

Milo reeked of alcohol. "Why?"

Kate said nothing, just stepped aside to let him in.

Milo stumbled inside.

"I'm asking you why! That email—you left it for me to find on purpose, didn't you? You knew I couldn't resist checking, being a cop and all!"

"Who are you, really? Kate? Or that assassin code-named 'Nightingale'? Getting close to me, charming me—was that all part of the plan too? What's next? Use me? Or kill me?"

Kate finally looked up.

"Yes. I bet you'd look."

"You…" Milo was shaking with anger.

Suddenly, all the fight drained out of him.

"I don't care… I don't care if you're Nightingale, if you're some weapon… I don't care what you've lied to me about…"

Milo lifted his head, his bloodshot eyes locking onto hers.

"Kate, I'm only asking you one thing. Did you ever—even once—feel anything real for me?"

She was silent.

But Milo seemed to find his answer in that silence. He laughed bitterly.

"I like you. No matter who you are, no matter what you've done, I accept it. Through hell and back—I'll go with you."

"I won't hand you over to anyone. Not Owen. Not my dad. Not anyone."

"What are you doing?" For the first time, Kate looked genuinely startled.

"Going to find someone who can fix this. This whole thing started with the Sharp family—it has to end with the Sharp family. Life or death, we need answers."

Milo didn't give Kate any chance to respond. He simply pushed her into the car.

The engine roared to life, merging into the empty late-night streets.

Kate sat in the passenger seat, watching the neon lights streak past the window, then turned to look at the tight profile of the man beside her.

Logic always comes before emotion with Milo.

That's what Kate had told herself.

But now, this logical cop was about to ram headfirst into the most fortified fortress—dragging her, the 'evidence,' along with him.

For a reason so foolish it was almost laughable.

Kate slowly lowered her head, burying her face in her palms. Her shoulders trembled—barely perceptibly.

The car finally came to a smooth stop beneath Lucas's penthouse apartment building, the one with a view of the entire city at night.

"I'm Owen's," Kate said, breaking the silence. "Since I was eight. My job was to infiltrate, gather intelligence, become whatever pawn he wanted, wherever he wanted me."

"Including getting close to you, getting into the Sharp Group…"

"I'm tired of it." Kate's voice was sudden.

"I'm tired of being a mindless blade. Tired of being controlled. Tired of living a lie." Her gaze swept across Lucas and Juliana. "I watched you both. Watched him…"

She meant Milo.

"I started wondering what it would be like if I wasn't Nightingale. If I was just Kate."

Milo's head jerked up. "So you deliberately left traces of the email. Deliberately let me find it. Deliberately let me bring you here?" His voice was hoarse. "You're asking them for help?"

"I'm not asking for help. I'm making a trade."

She turned back to Lucas.

"What do you want in exchange for that chip?" Lucas asked.

"Freedom."