The Lie Of That Night Chapter 11
Terrence arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
“Get out of my way! I’m looking for Gretchen.”
He suppressed his anxiety, trying to reveal his identity.
The bodyguard did not move at all, only raised his hand and ‘threw’ the credentials at Terrence’s feet.
Terrence lowered his head and caught a glimpse of a special department insignia watermark on it, sending a chill through his heart.
But his urgency overwhelmed everything else, and he tried to force his way in: “I’m her husband, I have the right…”
Before he could finish, another bodyguard moved.
Terrence was slammed to the ground, his insides felt displaced, and the pain made his vision go black.
“You…”
Furious, he struggled to get up, but out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly caught a metallic glint at the bodyguard’s waist beneath the suit jacket.
It was a gun.
A chill ran through his veins, and his movements froze.
At that moment, a deep, amused voice sounded above his head.
At the same time, a cold, hard object pressed precisely against his lower back.
“Mr. Mendez, in such a hurry — who are you rushing to see?”
Terrence’s body instantly stiffened, a chill shooting from his tailbone to the top of his head.
He turned his head and met a pair of deep, smiling almond-shaped eyes.
And a strikingly handsome face that often appeared in the shadowy pages of international finance magazines, both righteous and sinister.
Sebastian Ashford.
The infamous ‘Mr. Ashford,’ whose overseas power was deeply entrenched, straddling both legal and illegal worlds, a name that inspired fear.
Terrence’s pupils contracted sharply, his heart gripped by an icy hand, and boundless panic instantly overwhelmed him.
Why was Sebastian here?
He and Gretchen…
“I’m here to see Gretchen.”
Terrence forced down his terror, his voice hoarse. “I want to see her! Sebastian, this is domestic territory, you wouldn’t dare…”
“Bang.”
A bullet shot precisely into the outside of his thigh, the searing pain making Terrence scream and collapse to the ground again.
Sebastian crouched down unhurriedly, his eyes icy cold: “See Greta? Who do you think you are, to even say her name? To bully her?”
“I didn’t bully her.”
Terrence’s face was deathly pale from the pain, and he gritted his teeth in rebuttal, not knowing if he was trying to convince Sebastian or himself. “I gave her chances again and again! It was her! She was the one with mental problems, she tried to harm Ricky, she…”
“Bang. Bang.”
Two more shots rang out, hitting his other leg and near his shoulder blade.
The smile vanished from Sebastian’s face, replaced by a coldness born of extreme rage.
A terrifying fury surged in his eyes: “Chances? My sister needs you to give her chances?”
“Terrence, I think you’re not just blind in your eyes, but your heart is completely blind too! You’re hopelessly stupid.”
He grabbed Terrence by the hair and threw a stack of documents in front of him.
“See for yourself. Take a look at what kind of person your so-called ‘gentle and virtuous’ widowed sister-in-law really is.”
Terrence’s vision blurred, the pain and blood loss making his consciousness fade.
He struggled to focus, looking at the sheet of paper scattered on the ground.
The bold headline was shocking: “Transaction Records of the Overseas Mercenary Organization Bloodtusk.”
Below, the times, amounts, and target codenames were clearly listed…
And the intermediary indicated as the employer, after peeling back the layers, the final linked account and identity information was — Paulina.
And the earliest transaction dated back even before Gretchen’s ‘postpartum depression.’
One of the recent records marked the target location as the very stretch of road where Gretchen’s incident occurred, with the timing matching exactly.
Terrence’s breath stopped abruptly, his mind exploding into a blank void.
No… Impossible…
His fingertips trembled as he flipped through the other documents.
Paulina’s communication records with overseas encrypted numbers detailed the ‘psychological pressure’ exerted on Gretchen, even including psychological suggestions during the memory confusion period after MECT treatment.
Bank statements showed she paid a sky-high ‘special care fee’ through a shell company.
There was a caregiver’s testimony attached, admitting to being instructed to abuse Gretchen and even attempting to arrange an ‘accident.’
The Roderick poisoning incident — the evidence was even more shocking.
Paulina anonymously purchased a rare toxin.
Restored surveillance footage showed that the night before Roderick was poisoned, she lingered briefly in the bedroom.
Even the ‘loose railing’ was not an accident.
Two days before the incident, she had been alone on the terrace under the pretense of ‘checking safety,’ sending the servants away.
And the worker responsible for repairs — his entire family disappeared after the incident, their accounts wiped clean.
Each and every incident pierced through his understanding of the past three years like an ice pick.
Gretchen’s ‘madness,’ Roderick’s hatred, his own pity and trust for Paulina…
It was all a carefully woven web of poison.
“No… How could this be…”
He recalled Paulina’s gentle, tearful eyes, the way she cared for the child so attentively, and compared it to these cold-blooded schemes.
How could she lull Roderick to sleep while arranging a poison that could kill him?
A sense of absurdity and the anger of being deceived, mixed with overwhelming remorse toward Gretchen, crashed over him like a tsunami.
He lay paralyzed in a pool of blood, his face ashen, feeling as if the world was collapsing and spinning.
At that moment, his phone vibrated wildly.
The name ‘Paulina’ on the screen was like a poisoned needle.
He stiffly swiped to answer and pressed the speakerphone.
Paulina’s panicked voice came through: “Terry, something’s wrong. Ricky was in a car accident.”