Simon walked out of the hotel, and the car was parked across the street. As soon as he reached the middle of the road, a pungent, unpleasant smell hit his nose.
The smell was coming from the car.
He frowned and pinched his nose. “What’s going on?”
“It’s probably Mrs. Smith experiencing some… issues.”
Otherwise, how could there be such a strange smell?
Suddenly, I remembered my own embarrassment. Due to my fear of the dark, my body reacted uncontrollably. So that’s why…
Simon sneered, putting on the mask prepared by his assistant. He kicked the car’s base, “Have you realized your mistake yet?”
No response.
After a while, he grew impatient. “Laura, don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do. Pretending to be dead to escape punishment? Not a chance!”
“You can only come out once you’ve admitted your mistake.”
But I’m afraid he’ll be disappointed. While he was unaware, Hollie had glued my mouth shut with superglue. The glue seeped into my lips, and my throat was sealed shut, making it impossible for me to breathe. So Simon wouldn’t be hearing any answers from me.
Simon found it odd. He knew I was afraid of the dark and that this method would cause me immense pain. The survival instinct should’ve made me struggle. But today, I was eerily quiet, a silence that made Simon uneasy.
“Go open the trunk,” he ordered with a frown.
Could it be that he’s finally going to find my body? I wonder what expression he’ll have when he sees it. Will he be scared? Will he regret it? I almost looked forward to it.
Just as the trunk was about to be opened, Hollie arrived.
“Brother Smith, are you worried about Sister Burke? It’s okay. After all, you two are the real couple, and I’m just an outsider. There’s no need to punish Sister Burke because of me.”
Her words made Simon press his lips together. Silently, he closed the trunk once again.
Tsk. I thought he was going to find me this time.
But no, in Simon’s heart, every move Hollie made was closely watched, while my life and death didn’t matter at all.
I chuckled bitterly. They say souls have no feelings, but why do I still feel heartache?
Simon and I were naturally together because we loved each other. I was the only daughter of the Burke family, cherished and pampered from a young age. He was the beloved young master of the Smith family. We were childhood sweethearts, a perfect match.
But later, my father’s infidelity revealed that our family’s happiness was a joke. The man who once adored me and was known in our circle as the ultimate wife-lover had a woman on the side. And he had a child with her, only a year younger than me.
My mother went mad. She couldn’t handle the betrayal. One night, after I fell asleep, she jumped from the rooftop. The next morning, when I woke up, her cold body was the first thing I saw.
I was only seven years old.
The funeral was filled with people, pretending to mourn, but they had long colluded with my father. Throughout the entire ceremony, I was the only one crying.
Three days after the funeral, my father brought the mistress into our home. I confronted him, demanding why he did this. After all, he had loved my mother so deeply, once promising to cherish her forever. But instead of answering, he took my hand and handed me over to Simon’s parents.
“We, the Burke family, are going through difficult times now. Laura, from today onward, you’ll live with the Smith family.”
I was too young to realize that from that moment on, I became a pawn in a transaction. To stabilize his business, my father offered me to the Smith family.
At the time, Simon and I were still in school, and though he treated me well at first, as the years passed, his feelings grew cold. Eventually, he got entangled with Hollie, someone my father later introduced to him as his half-sister’s close friend.