Chapter 268 Apology from the Previous Life
Chapter 268 Apology from the Previous Life
Evelyn really liked Jessica.
She had liked her since Jessica was still a wrinkled baby whose features you could barely make out.
She held Jessica in her arms, gently rocking her, humming a tune no one could recognize, with a smile on her face that Vivian had never seen before.
Vivian stood nearby, watching Jessica in Evelyn's arms, and felt something inside her break.
It wasn't jealousy—it was despair.
Because she finally understood that Evelyn didn't dislike girls. Evelyn just didn't like her.
She began to hate Jessica, hate that child who got everything so easily. All the recognition, affection, and acceptance that she could never earn no matter how hard she tried—Jessica had it all without doing anything.
So she joined the fighting ring. When those people approached her, she barely hesitated. They needed her medical knowledge, and she needed their resources—connections, channels, and the means to do anything in the shadows.
She helped them with experiments, studying how drugs affected the human body, adjusting formulas to make the children more obedient, more resilient, less likely to die.
In return, they did something for her. They kidnapped Jessica.
She planned it carefully.
She chose to act when The Martinez family was busiest. She pulled two people from the fighting ring specifically to watch and make the move. She confirmed repeatedly that no traces would be left.
After Jessica was taken, she never went to see her. She didn't want to know what kind of life Jessica was living in the fighting ring, which cage she was locked in, what drugs she was injected with.
She only needed to know that Jessica wasn't at The Martinez mansion anymore, wasn't by Evelyn's side anymore, wouldn't look at Evelyn with those clear, innocent eyes that made her sick.
What happened next was completely unexpected.
Jeremy somehow heard that you could "buy" children at the fighting ring, and he went there himself. He didn't know the child was his biological daughter—he just wanted to find a girl who "looked similar" to bring back and fool Evelyn.
He thought that as long as there was a girl Evelyn liked, his career would go smoothly. Evelyn would help him, stand on his side, all because of this granddaughter who satisfied her.
He spent a long time choosing among the children locked in cages, and finally picked Jessica.
Because Jessica looked seventy percent like photos of Aria when she was young. He thought it was fate, thought even God was helping him. He had no idea she was his daughter.
By the time Vivian found out, Jessica had already been brought back to The Martinez mansion. She wanted to stop it, but she couldn't.
She couldn't expose her connection to the fighting ring, couldn't let anyone know she had arranged Jessica's kidnapping, couldn't let anyone know what she'd been doing behind the scenes.
She could only watch Jessica move back into the house she'd spent so much effort trying to drive her out of.
At this point, Vivian stopped. She opened her eyes and looked at Benjamin. "Do you know why Azalea drugged Jessica and sent her to your bed?"
Benjamin's eyebrows moved slightly.
"That was my suggestion." Vivian's voice was calm, as calm as when she used to record data in the lab. "Azalea wanted to get back at you. She wanted to embarrass you, make you unable to hold your head up in front of Nathan. I told her there's no bigger scandal than 'sleeping with your brother's fiancée.'"
"Are you done?" His voice was equally calm, but his clenched fists betrayed the shock inside him.
Vivian looked at him and nodded slightly.
Benjamin stood up. He picked up the knife from the table.
The blade reflected cold white light, casting on his face and making him look pale and hard, like a walking corpse.
He walked to Vivian and crouched down, bringing his eyes level with hers. "You're telling me all this to make me suffer?"
Vivian froze for a moment, then asked, "How could someone like you truly love a woman?"
"Even though that thing didn't work out in the end, I did try to help you two be together, didn't I?"
"I can feel that you want to kill me. I really don't understand why."
Vivian knew clearly that Benjamin hadn't planned to kill her at first, but what had caused such a big change in his attitude?
Was Jessica really that good, making one fool after another lose their minds over her?
He was actually angry because of what she'd done to Jessica!
To Vivian, this was simply unbelievable.
Benjamin stood up and handed the knife to someone nearby.
Someone held down Vivian's hands, pressing her palms flat on the table.
Her fingers were slender with distinct knuckles, nails trimmed very neatly. These hands had done experiments for over twenty years, dissected countless corpses, injected countless drugs, written countless research reports.
To Benjamin, these were the most beautiful hands he'd ever seen, and also the dirtiest.
When the knife came down, Vivian didn't scream.
She just closed her eyes and pressed her lips tightly together. Her face was white as paper.
Blood spurted from the wounds, splashing on the table, on the floor, on her white lab coat.
Her body trembled slightly, but she never made a sound.
In fact, she had endured much pain that ordinary people couldn't imagine. Her body had long been turned into a monster.
The kind of person her mother didn't want to see—she insisted on becoming exactly that, even if it meant being torn apart!
Someone nearby put her severed hands into a sealed bag. The bag was transparent, clearly showing the two hands lying inside, fingers slightly curved, as if still trying to grasp something.
Benjamin didn't look at the hands.
He just stared at Vivian's face, watching that face twisted by blood loss and pain. He felt nothing.
He didn't feel cruel, didn't feel satisfied, didn't feel guilty. He just felt that everything should end here.
Then he ordered them to peel off Harper's face.
He'd lost interest in this kind of revenge. In his previous life, he'd done enough to Harper. Repeating the same methods felt boring even to him.
When Harper was pressed to the ground, she struggled desperately.
She no longer had a tongue and couldn't speak, only squeezing out a tearing scream from her throat, sounding like an animal being dragged to the slaughterhouse.
Benjamin stood nearby, looking down at Harper's face.
That face had once been beautiful—fair skin, big eyes, shallow dimples when she smiled.
He used to think it was the cleanest face in the world. Now he knew it was just a well-made mask.
What was hidden under the mask was more terrifying than any monster in the fighting ring.
The knife went in from the corner of the eye. Benjamin told the executioner to work slowly—he wanted Harper to feel the entire process clearly.
The sounds from Harper's throat grew louder. Her body thrashed like a fish thrown on shore.
The people holding her could barely control her. Two more had to help before they could pin her down.
Blood flowed everywhere, running along the tile cracks to lower ground, finally pooling in the corner into a puddle of dark red.
Vivian was tied to the chair. She watched the entire process with her eyes open.
Her wrists were wrapped in thick gauze, already completely soaked with blood, the color changing from white to pink, then from pink to deep red.
But she knew clearly that the pain Harper was suffering far exceeded the pain of having her hands cut off.
She wanted to shout but couldn't. She wanted to rush over but couldn't move.
She could only watch as Harper's face separated bit by bit from the tissue beneath under the knife, watch the face she had given birth to and kissed countless times become a blur of bloody flesh.
Her tears had dried up, her voice was hoarse from screaming. Her body stopped trembling.
She just sat in the chair like a stone statue, her eyes staring straight ahead, the images reflected in her pupils no longer meaning anything to her.
Benjamin put those two things into a black gift box.
The box was covered in black velvet with a bow on top, looking like the kind used for jewelry.
The two hands were placed at the bottom, the face skin spread out on top, the whole piece of skin dark red, a thin layer, still carrying the warmth of being freshly removed, still carrying the scent of Harper's perfume.
He had someone dress as a delivery person and send the gift box to The Martinez family's old mansion, with Jessica listed as the recipient.
The person rang the doorbell, left the box at the door, and walked away.
No one knew who that person was, where he came from, or what was in the box.
There was only one sentence written on the box: [An apology from a previous life.]