The Widow’s Fate They Chose Was My Escape Plan Chapter 22
But I only looked at him coolly. “You have the wrong person, sir.”
“I have nothing to do with the Sterling family.”
The two of them stood there, stunned.
I waved a hand, signaling for the Quinn family security to escort them out.
After that, they often lingered near the agency. But half a month later, more bad news came from New York.
Adrian was dead.
He had never recovered from the blow. With no one by his side, he sank deeper into despair until he died alone in his bed.
Hayden handled the funeral. I heard Ivy cried terribly that day, but once it was over, Hayden filed for a no-fault divorce, on the grounds that their marriage had broken down beyond repair.
“You should have known the Sterlings were your real support,” he told her. “You turned your back on Adrian without a second thought. If I ever lost everything, you’d do the same to me.”
She was driven out of the Grant family home. With no way to support herself, she became the mistress of a corporate executive in his sixties. The man’s wife, in a jealous rage, first disfigured her, then murdered her and sank her body in an abandoned reservoir upstate.
As for Hayden—after the news of my “death pact” with Sebastian reached New York, he started having nightmares. In the end, he resigned from all his positions and entered a remote charity institution as a lifelong volunteer.
He said he had failed me and would spend the rest of his life atoning for his sins.
When I heard that, I found it laughable.
Some people never know how to cherish what they have until it’s gone.
Later, Julian and Ethan ran out of money and had no choice but to leave Miami. They tried to return to New York, but on the long journey back, both fell ill and died, one after the other.
That was my third year in Miami.
Sebastian once asked me if I regretted anything. I only smiled. “I haven’t had anything to do with them for a very long time.”
Ever since I died in my previous life, I have had nothing to do with the Sterling family.
Later, my agency did better and better. I filed a name-change petition in the Miami-Dade County Circuit Court and was granted permission to abandon the Sterling surname. From then on, my legal name was Lena Hart.
I thought living for myself would be enough.
But on the third day after the name change took effect, Sebastian placed a printed, encrypted message on my desk.
It was the very message sent three years earlier by the security contractor, when Sebastian’s condition had “worsened.”
“The receiving terminal has been confirmed,” Sebastian said, his face a little pale. “The chairman’s office.”
Staring at the timestamp, I suddenly remembered the report the chairman had thrown at Adrian all those years ago.
The trap laid for the Quinn family had never truly ended.