Chapter 1 The Disguised Calmness
Emily Johnson's POV
On the screen, the man I’d been engaged to for eight years was hurriedly stripping another woman.
"You're the one I want to marry, my baby..." The man's frivolous panting drilled into my eardrums through the speakers.
"Bruce, you and Emily are getting married in a couple of days. Won't she be mad that you're here with me behind her back?" In the video, the woman coyly nestled into the man's arms.
Bruce Howard let out a cold snort, his face full of contempt: "If my mom hadn’t pressured me after our eight years together and forced me into it, I never would have agreed to this wedding. Emily's got a poker face all day long. Not like you—you actually care about me."
In the footage, their intertwined figures were painfully glaring.
The back of my hand tightened, and I clenched my fist until my nails bit into my skin.
My heart turned cold piece by piece until I was completely numb.
Douglas Campbell, sitting across from me, smiled with amusement: "Don't look at me like that. I just did some digging. Who would've thought? The legendary top-ranked killer 'Lily' from The Zenith Class rankings, the one who single-handedly wiped out the Shadowmoon Council's leadership; lost in love, looking this pathetic."
"You came to see me today just to mock me?"
I fought back the surge of fury rising inside me, even as my fingers shook uncontrollably.
Bruce was unfaithful with Zara Jenkins, the very woman I had handpicked and promoted to work alongside him. Back then, when he suggested promoting her, I had actually felt genuinely happy for her.
Douglas dropped his playful smile and got straight to the point: "Lily, the organization was wiped out. Almost everyone in the core is dead. But for eight years, I've been reaching out to the old contacts scattered across the world—rebuilding the channels. I need you back."
I froze for a moment.
The boss who sold me out for money and sent me to my death eight years ago was actually dead; the irony was thick.
But these past eight years, I'd long grown used to peace. Used to Bruce's fake tenderness, used to his mother Elizabeth Howard's care. I'd even naively thought I truly had a family. Rising from secretary to design department head—this was the stable life I'd built with my own hands. Now, compared to cold weapons, I was more familiar with blueprints and proposals.
"I can't go back." I looked up at Douglas, my tone calm but firm.
The old me had no place to call home, but the current me had a home and was about to get married. I wouldn't allow anyone to destroy everything I'd worked so hard to have. Even if this "everything" had just disgusted me on that screen, I should be the one to handle it myself.
"Eight years ago, if I hadn't risked my life to warn you about your superior's betrayal, you'd already be a floating corpse in international waters!" Douglas tried to appeal to emotion. "Sure, a hitman's first lesson is to cut off all feelings, but I've long considered you a friend. Do you know how much I've sacrificed these eight years looking for you? Now you're going to abandon your former partner for some cheating scumbag?"
Before he could finish, my body acted on its own, pressing my blade against his carotid artery before I’d even processed the move.
Douglas didn't panic. Instead, he laughed softly: "See? Your body can't lie. Deep down, you crave the kill. You're a natural-born assassin."
"So? You were testing me just now?" I looked at him coldly, the blade pressing closer. "If this were eight years ago, you'd already be a corpse."
"It's cold, the knife's too cold..." Douglas raised both hands in surrender.
I let out a cold snort, pulled back my blade, and took a small step away.
Douglas rose and keyed in a few commands to display three secret security recordings on the screen.
"Five years ago, Bruce was attacked at a press conference. A bomb was planted under his car. You discovered it in advance and killed the assassin, taking a knife to your abdomen. You were hospitalized for a week. You told him it was just appendicitis removal. Over these eight years, you've quietly eliminated assassins targeting him three times."
Douglas stared at me intently: "You haven't been worn down by so-called stability at all. You're still Lily."
My pupils suddenly contracted.
I was surprised by how deeply Douglas had dug into my past during those years.In the criminal underworld, letting someone live who knows every one of your vulnerabilities and secrets is a dangerous violation of the rules.
Killing intent flashed through my eyes.
"Want to kill me to keep me quiet?" Douglas saw right through my thoughts, his smile unchanged. "Lily, you know I never do anything without certainty."
I remained silent, my fingertips casually spinning the bracelet on my wrist.
It was a seventh-anniversary gift from Bruce. Actually, this was an identical replica—I couldn't bear to wear the real one, and this one had a poison needle coated with powerful neural paralytic hidden inside. With just a light press of the micro-carved mechanism, I could instantly incapacitate him.
"Is that right?" I said, softening my voice to lull him into a false sense of security while my finger hovered over the trigger.
But a moment later, Douglas said something that stopped me dead in my tracks.
"Someone wants to kill Bruce."
"What did you say?"
Even though just a second ago I'd witnessed that disgusting betrayal with my own eyes, hearing that someone wanted to take his life, I still couldn't remain calm. Years of devotion and invested emotions weren't something I could simply cut off at will.
"Your fiancé's got some nerve. He hijacked a foreign cargo ship in international waters, worth two hundred million dollars." Douglas spoke deliberately. "The other party hired 'Mole,' ranked fifteenth on the assassin list, to take his head. You should know how valuable this intel is."
I shut my eyes and inhaled deeply, but the mental image of Bruce and Zara together returned, sparking a lingering ache in my chest.
But when I opened my eyes again, the last trace of warmth had been completely erased, leaving only the cold clarity that belonged to the assassin "Lily."
"Tell me, what do you want me to do?" I looked at him coldly. "I'll help this one time. Consider it repaying the life-saving favor from back then, plus the fee for this intel."
Douglas grinned, his expression growing more intense and impossible to read.
"A week from now, Bruce will privately sell off that cargo." He paused, speaking seriously. "My target is that cargo."