Chapter 166 The Relic Was Burned
"When did you return to the Neville family?"
"A week after the kidnapping, sir. I was still injured. Ms. Caroline Neville said if I went back covered in wounds, people would notice. If they found out I'd crossed the Iron Wolves, my life wouldn't be worth a damn."
Felix answered honestly.
"She hid me in a private residence outside the city. Had Irene—the maid who raised her—take care of me for a week."
"I was worried sick the whole time, because Ms. Neville had been vomiting blood after saving me that night. But Irene told me she was fine, already preparing for your birthday celebration."
So Felix had been rescued before Edith even told him about the missing bodyguard?
Then that night's ambush—had Edith known about it?
Or worse—had she been part of it? Had she sold out his location to Linus?
If Edith had wanted him dead, then who had pulled him out of that basement alive?
Unless...
Alexander's mind exploded with questions like grenades, splitting his head open with pain.
"Liam!"
He jerked his head up, roaring toward the door.
"Find out now! Eight years ago, after my twentieth birthday party, up until I escaped from Linus and ended up in the hospital—what was Caroline doing?! Move!"
"Yes, sir!"
Liam vanished immediately.
Alexander wheeled on Felix, eyes bloodshot, crossing the space between them in two strides.
"That box you gave her—where did you get it?"
Felix shrank back, but answered truthfully.
"About a year ago, Mrs. Neville was going through Ms. Edith Neville's belongings. I found it by accident near a pile of stuff marked for burning. I knocked the box over by mistake, everything spilled out, and I saw..."
He paused, his expression twisting into something complicated.
"I saw those letters. I was shocked. I never believed Ms. Caroline Neville killed Ms. Edith Neville. After seeing what was in that box, I thought maybe things weren't what they seemed. I figured even if Ms. Caroline Neville had done something wrong, at least seeing this might ease some of her pain. But I was too scared to give it to her—afraid it would make things worse, make her condition deteriorate..."
"Isabella was going through Edith's belongings? Planning to burn them?"
Alexander seized on the critical detail.
"Why?"
"It was about a year ago, not long after Ms. Edith Neville's death anniversary." Felix's brow furrowed in recollection.
"Celeste suggested at home that keeping Ms. Edith Neville's things would only make Mrs. Neville more heartbroken every time she saw them. Said it wasn't healthy, wouldn't let her move past the grief. Mrs. Neville agreed. Had people clear out everything from Ms. Edith Neville's room and burn it all."
Alexander staggered backward two steps, slamming hard into the wooden table behind him.
Isabella—who claimed to love Edith more than life itself, who wanted Caroline dead for supposedly killing her daughter—had agreed to burn Edith's belongings a year ago?
If she truly loved Edith that much, how could she bear to destroy everything her dead daughter left behind?
Those should have been her most precious keepsakes.
And if the Neville family had disposed of all Edith's belongings, then where had that necklace come from—the one Caroline had supposedly stolen at Isabella's birthday party, the one he'd caught her with red-handed?
Someone had planted it on Caroline deliberately. Framed her.
And he hadn't listened to a word of her explanation. He'd thrown her in the basement. That was the night the dogs had torn into her hand.
One truth after another crashed down, shattering everything Alexander had believed for the past five years.
Alexander lost control. His boot connected with the wooden table, sending it flying.
Felix leaped from his chair, pressing himself into the corner, watching Alexander's breakdown with terrified eyes.
"Sir! Please, calm down!" Felix's voice shook.
Calm down? How the hell was he supposed to calm down?
Alexander spun around, snatching a cardboard box from a nearby guard's hands and hurling it at Felix's feet.
"Look at it! Look at what's inside! Do you recognize it?"
Felix's trembling hands retrieved the box. He opened it, pulled out the love letter inside.
One glance and his face went pale as chalk, head shaking frantically. "No! I don't know anything about this! Sir! I only looked at what was in the box I gave Ms. Caroline Neville—I swear I didn't lose anything from it! After I found that old box, I kept it hidden under my bed! I never touched it except the day she was in danger! I swear it!"
His desperate defense tumbled out, terrified of being misunderstood.
"Whether anyone else got to it, I can't say. But I don't think so—if they had, why not just take the whole box? Anyone who could send this love letter knows what kind of chain reaction these things would cause if exposed. Why would they let me keep such damning evidence?"
Alexander stared hard at Felix's panicked but seemingly honest face, his mind racing.
Felix had a point.
If the puppet master knew about the old box and its contents, the first thing they'd do would be silence Felix and destroy the evidence.
They wouldn't leave him alive with the chance to hand that box to Caroline.
So who—after all of Edith's belongings had been destroyed except for that one box—could still get their hands on this love letter and Charles's stripped skin to deliver to Caroline?
And these things had sat in Edith's room for years, carefully preserved by Isabella. He himself had only gotten hold of some of Edith's everyday jewelry.
Isabella had treasured Edith so deeply—wouldn't she have pulled those things out constantly after her death, drowning in memories?
So Isabella had known all along that Edith's beloved wasn't him. She might have even known before Edith died that her daughter was involved with Linus.
But Alexander remembered vividly—Isabella had actively tried to set him up with Edith back then.
That was exactly why he'd been so catastrophically mistaken, why he'd believed that if he just proposed to Edith, she'd marry him without question.