Chapter 182: Uncovering the Buried Past
From the look in Maggie's eyes, Sophia was one hundred percent certain that the person who drugged Michael hadn't come from her side.
If it wasn't Maggie, then who could it be?
Sophia lowered her gaze in thought for a moment, then her eyes suddenly froze, and she curled her lips in contempt.
Damn it. She'd been played by John and Emily!
Maggie surveyed the room and suddenly laughed. "Sophia, you go to all this trouble... for a man?"
Sophia waved her hand casually, and the men in black surrounding Maggie instantly withdrew, retreating to the side. She walked forward a few steps, ignoring Maggie's question to ask one of her own: "I've always been curious—your vendetta against the Smith family, is it because you hate the family itself, or someone specific in it?"
Maggie seemed to recall something from the past. The smile on her lips faded, and her eyes filled with hatred. "None of your business."
Sophia shrugged with feigned innocence. "True, it's none of my business. But before coming to see you today, Joshua dug up that your older brother Colin died in a lovers' suicide thirty years ago. I'm just... curious."
At the mention of Colin, fury blazed in Maggie's eyes. She gritted her teeth. "George caused all of it!"
Sophia listened to Maggie's accusation, her fingertips lightly tracing the rim of her wine glass.
The evening sun's afterglow filtered through the broken windows, casting mottled shadows on her delicate profile.
"Thirty years ago, George assaulted Colin's wife, Moira, and drove her to throw herself in the river." Her voice was soft, yet sharp as a blade. "Colin committed suicide to follow her in death. Your mother killed herself from grief. Your father drank himself to ruin from heartbreak."
Maggie's pupils constricted violently. The wine glass in her hand shattered with a sharp crack, red wine seeping through her fingers like blood. "You investigated me?"
"Your brother Colin and your sister-in-law Moira. They made such a perfect couple." There was a trace of regret in Sophia's voice. "Shame George destroyed them."
Maggie turned to gaze out the window at the deepening dusk, then suddenly let out a low laugh, the sound steeped in thirty years of bitterness.
"I was sixteen that year when Colin brought Moira home for dinner." Her fingers unconsciously rubbed the wine glass, her knuckles white. "Moira wore a simple blue dress. She brought me cookies she'd made. When she smiled, there was a tiny beauty mark at the corner of her eye."
In the empty, abandoned office, her voice was like a rusted knife, slowly cutting open the sealed past.
"George saw Moira for the first time at a department store and lost his mind. He had people follow her, track down her address, then finally just stormed into our house with his men." Maggie's pupils contracted violently, her eyes gradually reddening. "I hid in the closet. I heard Moira crying out, heard Colin begging... The rain was so heavy that day, heavy enough to drown out everything else."
The wine swirled in her glass, reflecting her twisted expression.
"Three days later, they found Moira in the river. She was still wearing that torn blue dress. The beauty mark at the corner of her eye had gone pale from being in the water." Maggie suddenly laughed hysterically. "Colin sat holding her body all night. The next morning, he jumped in after her."
Her fingers dug hard into her palm, blood dripping between them onto the table.
"Mother hung their wedding photo in the living room. Every day she just sat in front of it, staring into space. Until one morning..." Maggie's voice suddenly became as light as a feather, yet sharp as a needle. "I saw her shoes swaying gently in the dawn breeze."
"Thirty years." She tilted her head back and drained her glass, then smashed it on the floor where it shattered into countless pieces. "Every day I've lived, I've been waiting to see the Smith family pay their blood debt in blood."
Sophia stood at the border between light and shadow, watching this woman hollowed out by hatred.
Maggie slowly raised her bloodshot eyes, pulling her lips into a bleak smile. "Tell me—how am I supposed to not hate?"
Her family had been so happy and complete. George had destroyed it all!
Sophia listened to Maggie's accusation, her eyes flickering briefly before quickly returning to calm.
She tapped lightly on the table, her tone indifferent. "So that's your justification for turning the Smith family upside down?"
Maggie sneered. "George destroyed my family. He threw five million dollars at us, using his power and influence to try to erase his crimes. It's nowhere near enough! I want him to know no peace. I want him bankrupt. I want to destroy everything he has!"
Sophia didn't comment, merely nodded thoughtfully. "I see."
She stood up, looking down at Maggie from above, her tone suddenly turning cold. "But did you ever think that your revenge didn't just harm the Smith family—it also hurt my mother, Mary?"
Maggie laughed bitterly. "She only lost a daughter. I lost my entire family!"
Sophia's eyes went cold, but then... Maggie was already walking toward her own destruction. She didn't need to add fuel to that fire.
She rose to her feet, looking down at Maggie for a moment, then turned to leave. But she stopped and glanced back, saying coolly, "By the way, I already know who was behind what happened to Michael. Maggie, we'll settle our business another day."
Maggie stared hard at her retreating figure, clenching her fists until her nails dug deep into her palms.
Sophia walked out of the abandoned building. The night wind ruffled her hair as she narrowed her eyes slightly and pulled out her phone to dial a number.
"John, we need to talk."
After a moment of silence on the other end, John's low laughter came through. "Sure. I'm waiting."
Sophia hung up, her fingertips tapping lightly on the edge of her phone, a cold gleam flashing in her eyes.
The car sped through the night, neon lights from outside casting shifting shadows across her face.
"John, you really do love playing others like pawns." A cold smile curved her lips.
Abel had merely been a decoy set up as bait. The drug slipped into Michael's drink was just ordinary cold medicine or a sleeping pill that, when mixed with alcohol, made Michael feel dizzy and unwell.
The real drug that caused Michael's fever had been applied to Emily's skin.
She remembered Michael mentioning in passing that while drifting in and out of sleep, he'd smelled a strange fragrance. At the time, she'd thought it was just the scent of Emily's perfume mixing oddly with the sedative. After catching Abel, she hadn't investigated further.
Now, thinking back, that strange fragrance was the real aphrodisiac.
Emily had just returned from abroad that day and had been under surveillance the entire time she was overseas—there was no way she could have obtained such a drug.
When they caught Abel, Joshua's eyes had been clear and honest. It wasn't his handiwork.
Of the people who appeared at Celestial Peak Hotel that day, who had direct contact with Emily and could have given her the drug? Only Andrew and John.
Andrew had always disdained such crude methods. By process of elimination, the only suspect left was John.
He talked about cooperation and alliance, but Sophia had almost forgotten—John was cunning through and through, never someone who kept his word.