Chapter 328: The Truth on Screen

The dress she was wearing was the same one she had worn to the charity banquet. Kevin had seen her standing beneath the bright lights of the hall that night. She had still looked beautiful, and she had still tried to remain calm even though many people around her were staring at her with unfriendly eyes.

At the time, he had even believed that she had deliberately dressed in such an eye-catching way because she wanted to draw the attention of other men.

He had watched coldly while people whispered and talked about her. He had even thought that every cruel and unpleasant word they said was something she deserved to hear.

But now, that dress had been torn apart. The skirt was wrinkled and twisted, covered with dirt, dust, and blood. One side of the dress had slipped down from her shoulder, revealing dark bruises layered over one another across her soft, delicate skin. Both of her wrists had been tied behind her back, and the rough rope had cut through the skin until it was raw and bleeding. Blood slowly ran along her fingers before falling, drop by drop, onto the old tiled floor beneath the chair.

Kevin’s hands began to shake so violently that he could barely hold the phone. His chest rose and fell without stopping, but he felt as if no air could enter his lungs at all. His eyes were opened wide, yet everything in front of him gradually became blurred.

He wanted to believe that he had seen it wrong. He wanted to believe that the woman in the video was only someone whose figure and appearance happened to resemble Helena.

But in the next moment, a hand suddenly entered the frame. It grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her head up with brutal force.

Helena’s face was fully revealed on the screen. The face that had once been fair and beautiful no longer had a single unharmed place left on it. One side of her face was red and swollen, the corner of her mouth was split, and a dried streak of blood remained across her forehead. Her eyes, which had always been so bright, now seemed almost empty of life.

Kevin felt as though something had suddenly struck him hard in the chest. His whole body moved backward on instinct. His back slammed heavily against the tree trunk behind him, but he did not feel any pain at all.

Every feeling in his body had been taken over by Helena’s face on the screen.

While she had been suffering through all of those things, what had he been doing?

He had still been desperately chasing after Ellie’s shadow, forgetting that she already had someone she loved more than her own life. Meanwhile, the woman who had loved him so humbly, who had lowered herself again and again because of him, had been thrown aside by him. He had even pushed her with his own hands into a deep abyss where no bottom could be seen.

Kevin remembered that before Helena disappeared, he had once said to her in a cold voice that even if she died somewhere outside, it would have nothing to do with him.

At that time, he had only spoken those words in a moment of anger. He had said them without thinking about what they could really mean. But now, those same words felt like a curse.

A curse that had fallen directly onto Helena.

In the video, Andrea slowly walked over and stopped in front of her.

He reached out and lifted Helena’s chin with one hand, forcing her to raise her head and look straight into the camera. Kevin saw the hatred in her eyes, but he also saw the fear that she could not completely hide.

Helena tried to turn her face away, but Andrea would not allow her to do it. He said something to her, but Kevin could not hear it clearly at first. His ears felt as though they had been covered by a thick layer of something. Every sound became distant and blurred. The only thing he could hear clearly was the wild, uneven beating of his own heart echoing inside his head.

He had to use his other hand to turn up the volume. Andrea’s voice immediately came through the phone.

Andrea said that the person who had truly pushed Helena into this situation was not him. It was Kevin himself.

The moment Kevin heard his own name, his fingers tightened around the phone. Blood from his torn knuckles seeped into the narrow gaps along the side of the device.

Then Kevin heard Andrea say that he wanted to record Helena being raped and send the video to Kevin afterward. As soon as those words were spoken, Helena’s expression changed completely.

Her body, which had already lost almost all its strength, suddenly began struggling violently. The chair shook beneath her. The rope cut even deeper into her wrists, but she seemed unable to feel the pain anymore.

Helena did not beg Andrea to let her go.

The first thing she begged for was that he not record it, and that he not send that video to Kevin.

Tears ran down her bruised face. She was so frightened and panicked that even her words came out broken and confused.

Kevin watched her trying with all her strength to hide the last of her humiliation from him. His throat tightened until it felt as though a large stone had become lodged inside it, blocking every breath and every sound.

Even at a moment like that, she had still cared about what he would see.

She had not begged for her own life first. She had only begged Andrea not to let Kevin see her being humiliated.

Kevin felt his stomach twist painfully. A metallic taste suddenly rushed up into his throat. Then he bent forward without warning and began coughing hard.

Blood immediately sprayed into the palm of his hand.

But Kevin did not stop the video.

He did not even look at the blood covering his hand. His eyes remained fixed on the screen, staring at Helena without moving away for even a second.

The men in the warehouse began moving toward her, one after another.

Kevin’s pupils contracted sharply. His teeth ground together with a harsh, grating sound, and his eyes opened so wide that they looked as if they were about to fall out of their sockets. Thick blue veins stood out all over his forehead and along both sides of his neck.