Chapter 196 Falling into the Sea
After this disruption, Cecilia completely lost her interest in driving and chose to take a taxi instead.
The Hensley Group's headquarters building was still brightly lit in the deep night, its massive structure casting a silent shadow in the city center.
Following Stefan's instructions, she found the safe in the hidden compartment on the wall of the lounge behind the study.
With a soft click, the safe opened.
Inside were several neatly arranged documents.
Cecilia quickly found the one Stefan had mentioned. After carefully checking that the clauses and page numbers were correct, she put it in her handbag.
The whole process went surprisingly smoothly.
Leaving the Hensley Group building, Cecilia hailed a taxi on the roadside.
She gave the address and got in.
The driver was a middle-aged man in his forties, wearing a black baseball cap pulled extremely low, almost covering half his face.
He just mumbled a response and started the car.
The vehicle smoothly merged into the nighttime traffic.
Cecilia leaned against the window, watching the neon lights rapidly retreating outside, but her mind didn't relax.
Today's encounter had put her on alert.
A thought flashed through her mind, and she suddenly sensed something was wrong.
This road...
This road wasn't the way back to the hospital! The car was leaving the main city roads, heading toward the coastal elevated highway leading to the suburbs!
Cecilia's heart sank.
"Driver, did you take a wrong turn?" Her voice sounded calm, but her fingers gripping the bag strap had already tightened.
The driver didn't turn around.
In the rearview mirror, a pair of cold eyes reflected the streetlights, with not a trace of warmth in that gaze.
"No mistake," his voice became hoarse, completely unlike his earlier mumbling. "This is the right road."
"Stop the car!"
Cecilia commanded sharply. At the same time, her hand had secretly reached for the door handle.
"I'd advise you not to waste your energy." The driver let out a low, cold laugh.
As soon as he finished speaking, a sickly sweet scent mixed with chemical fragrance suddenly poured out from the air conditioning vents.
Drugged air!
Cecilia held her breath instantly, but the first breath she'd taken already caused severe dizziness in her brain.
She immediately used the leather strap of her handbag to cover her nose and mouth tightly, while her other hand unhesitatingly pulled out a metal-cased lipstick from her bag and smashed it with all her strength against the car window beside her.
The window only shook slightly, completely intact.
Bulletproof glass!
The intense dizziness seized her consciousness, and the scene before her eyes began to distort and spin.
Her body's strength was rapidly draining away.
Before completely losing consciousness, her mind was left with only an icy blank, and that sickly sweet scent.
She didn't know how much time had passed.
Cecilia was awakened by the bone-chilling sea wind and the roar of waves.
She opened her eyes abruptly and found herself lying on a patch of slippery black rocks.
Her hands and feet were tightly bound with rough hemp rope, leaving burning pain marks. Her mouth was also sealed tightly with industrial tape, and she could only make desperate whimpering sounds.
Not far away was the sea with its churning dark waves, roaring in the night with heart-stopping intensity.
The waves crashed against the rocks one after another, splashing cold water that instantly soaked through her clothes.
Several burly men in black T-shirts were gathered together smoking, talking in low voices in dialect.
The crimson sparks flickered in the darkness, illuminating their numb yet fierce faces.
"It's about time. The employer is still waiting for our call."
"What's the rush? Wait for the tide to rise a bit more, then just throw her in. Won't even make a bubble, and no one will know."
One man looked back at her, his eyes filled with undisguised lust: "This woman is really good-looking. It's kind of a waste for her to die like this."
"Shut up! We're paid to do a job. Shit! Don't get yourself in trouble! Forgot the rules?" The leader barked in a low voice.
Their conversation drifted into Cecilia's ears in fragments.
Employer? Who wanted her dead?
Cecilia's heart sank to the bottom.
Rufus? Stefan's other business rivals? Or Anna, with whom she'd just had a conflict?
Or perhaps in some place Cecilia didn't know about, she'd offended some even more terrifying existence?
She began to struggle hard, making muffled sounds in her throat, trying to attract their attention.
The man who'd shown lustful interest noticed her movement. Cigarette in mouth, he walked over and looked down at her from above, his eyes showing the playfulness of a cat toying with a mouse.
"Awake?"
He squatted down and roughly tore the tape off Cecilia's mouth.
She coughed violently, greedily breathing the salty, damp air, forcing herself to calm down in the shortest time possible.
"Who sent you?"
The man was stunned, clearly not expecting her to be so composed.
"How much did he pay you?" Cecilia's gaze swept over the men before her, burning their features into her memory. "I'll give you double! No, triple! As long as you let me go, the money will be transferred immediately."
This was the only lifeline she could grasp at this moment.
Hearing this, the man burst out laughing as if he'd heard the biggest joke.
"Triple? Girl, you really don't know how this works."
He reached out his rough, calloused hand and grabbed Cecilia's chin, forcing her to look up.
"We're not getting some simple hush money."
"We're getting a buyout fee for your life. We took the money, so we have to make you disappear. That's the rule on the street, understand?"
Cecilia's heart went completely cold.
"Murder is a serious crime!" she said sternly. "Do you think you can get away with it? Once I go missing, the police will investigate, everyone connected to me will be investigated! You can't escape!"
"Crime?" Another man also walked over, stepping on a nearby rock with one foot, sneering. "This place is deserted, not even an animal around, let alone surveillance cameras. Throw you in this sea, and tomorrow's news will at most report 'young woman slips by the sea, body never found.' Who's going to know it was us?"
"Stop wasting words with her!" The leader crushed out his cigarette butt, looking extremely impatient. "The tide's rising, get to work!"
Two men immediately stepped forward, one on each side, roughly lifting Cecilia from the cold rocks.
"No! Let me go! Let me go!"
Cecilia struggled frantically, twisting her body with all her strength, her feet kicking wildly on the slippery rocks.
But her strength was so insignificant before two burly adult men. They dragged her, step by step, toward that bottomless black abyss.
The terror of death, mixed with the smell of cold seawater, instantly overwhelmed her.
The memory of being burned alive in her previous life overlapped with the current despair of being about to be swallowed by the sea, nearly tearing her sanity apart.
No! She couldn't die!
She had finally been given a second chance at life; she couldn't die here so senselessly!
As they spoke, they had already reached the edge of the rocks.
One of the men lifted his foot and kicked hard at the back of Cecilia's knees.
Cecilia's knees buckled, her entire body lost all balance, and she traced a desperate arc through the air.
In her ears were the howling wind and the unrestrained wild laughter of those men.
A huge splash.
Cold, dark, boundless seawater instantly swallowed her entire body, dragging her toward the suffocating, endless abyss.