Chapter 155 I Am Really Useless
She opened the box with obvious excitement, picked up the small fork, cut off a large piece, and held it toward the empty chair across from her.
It seemed that in her fantasy, the person opposite had refused her offer. Caroline pressed her lips together in dissatisfaction.
Alexander guessed she was imagining herself sitting across from her.
Then Caroline stuffed that large piece of cake into her mouth.
Within seconds, her brow furrowed tightly, and clear physical discomfort appeared on her face.
But she did not stop. Instead, she forced herself to keep going, mechanically swallowing that sickeningly sweet cake, bite after bite.
Her movements grew increasingly frantic, as if compelled by some grim obligation.
Finally, after eating more than half the piece, her expression twisted.
She covered her mouth and rushed to the nearest bathroom.
A few seconds later, muffled and painful retching sounds could be faintly heard.
Moments later, she walked out with an ashen face, sat back down on the sofa, picked up the fork again, and continued eating in large bites.
Then Alexander noticed her lips were moving, but he could not hear what she was saying.
The technician immediately amplified the audio.
After a burst of static, Caroline's hoarse voice came through clearly.
"This is what Edith loved to eat..."
"I have to eat it... have to get used to it..."
"What Edith liked... I have to like too..."
"That way... I will be more like her... right?"
"I am sorry... Edith... I am so useless... I cannot even eat the cake you liked..."
"But... I will try harder... I will become you... I will..."
The living room door was pushed open. The servants walked in together, wearing casual clothes and carrying shopping bags, as if they had just come back from the street.
They saw the mess in the room and Caroline's dazed expression. The heavyset maid rushed over and slapped her hard across the face.
"Stop eating!" The maid knocked the cake to the floor. "What is the point of pretending? Mr. Hamilton is not home! What good does it do to act like Ms. Edith Neville? We are not watching your performance!"
Caroline screamed and lunged to protect the cake, only to be kicked in return.
"Disgusting! We finally get one day out, and we come back to clean up this mess!"
So these maids would sometimes leave on their own, and Caroline would stay in the empty house like this, alone, playing Edith with no audience.
In the video, Caroline grabbed the smashed cake and, while enduring the maid's punches and kicks, stuffed the cake into her mouth.
Alexander could not watch anymore.
He slammed his fist on the coffee table.
"Turn it off!"
Liam was already in tears. He quickly waved at the technician, who frantically tried to close the video.
But just as he was about to click close, he accidentally touched the touchpad, and the progress bar jumped back a large section.
The scene changed.
It was the stairway to the basement again. Two bodyguards were dragging a semi-conscious Caroline toward that heavy iron door.
Just as the bodyguards were about to drag her inside, the heavyset maid suddenly ran out to stop them.
"Wait."
She was holding a small bottle. She grabbed Caroline's hand and applied some kind of liquid to the inside of her wrist.
"What are you doing?" The bodyguard frowned, catching a pungent odor.
"This is an inducer, mixed with male dog secretions. The dogs downstairs will lose control when they smell it."
"Do not interfere," the maid said coldly. "This woman causes enough trouble as it is. Her hands are always getting into things—if the dogs bite them off, she will not be able to make problems anymore."
The bodyguard frowned but did not stop her. After finishing the application, the maid roughly pushed Caroline inside and quickly locked the door.
The surveillance could not capture what happened inside.
But the dogs' frenzied barking and Caroline's screams came through clearly.
"No!"
Alexander shot up from the sofa, his roar nearly shaking the air in the room.
He finally understood—completely understood.
Those three professionally trained guard dogs, who even seemed docile in front of him, were an aggressive breed, but they would never attack people without orders.
Yet they became unusually agitated every time they saw Caroline.
He had thought Caroline's personality made even the guard dogs dislike her.
Until that time when he was stuck at the apartment for three days because he had been drugged.
The day Caroline was found unconscious, those three dogs had not attacked her. Instead, they surrounded her, pressing their bodies against her, as if trying to warm her with their body heat.
At the time, he found it hard to believe, even suspecting Caroline was manipulative enough to win over even those guard dogs.
Now he knew—that was not it at all.
That time was only because he was at the apartment, so the maids did not dare apply that damned inducer to her.
It turned out that from the beginning until now, Caroline had been living under the servants' malice and abuse.
And he had been the one kept in the dark, unknowingly becoming an accomplice to the abusers.
Alexander spun around sharply, his bloodshot eyes locking onto the head maid who was collapsed on the floor, so scared she had wet herself.
He rushed over in a few steps and kicked her hard in the chest.
The maid flew backward, crashed heavily into the wall, then slid down like a rag doll, spitting out a mouthful of blood.
"Talk."
Alexander closed in, grabbed her by the hair, and lifted her blood-covered face to his.
"Who put you up to this? Talk! Or I will make you wish you were dead."
The maid was terrified, snot and tears mixing with blood all over her face, but she just shook her head desperately.
"Will not talk?"
A cold smile curved Alexander's lips.
He suddenly let go, letting her collapse to the floor.
"Take these servants to the basement."
"Yes."
The bodyguards immediately rushed forward, dragging the crying and begging servants toward the basement.
In the basement, the three fierce dogs smelled fresh blood and stood up restlessly, pacing back and forth in their iron cages, letting out low growls.
Alexander had them drag the head maid to the center, then coldly ordered Liam, "Go find that scent and put it on her."
Liam's heart trembled, but seeing Alexander's nearly crazed appearance, he did not dare disobey. He immediately took people to search the maid's room and found that familiar small bottle.
With trembling hands, he opened the cap. The pungent smell spread through the air.
He applied the sticky liquid, bit by bit, onto the maid's body.