Clyde was stunned by the sight. Miguel, at over a hundred kilograms, was effortlessly thrown over the three-meter-high wall as if he were nothing more than a stone. This guy’s strength was terrifyingly immense.
The shock struck Clyde like a slap to the face. It took a moment for him to regain his bearings, but when he did, panic flooded his thoughts. He snapped back to reality and rushed to explain. “Old Mr. Henderson, I swear it wasn’t intentional! Miguel, he’s a master manipulator! I’ve been completely duped. He’s been living off my hospitality for over ten years, eating my food, drinking my wine, and taking my money! I… I really thought he could help you!”
With a strangled cry, he fell to his knees before Lewis. He raised his hands to slap his own face. “Please, don’t hold this against me! I beg you-don’t make me your enemy!”
Lewis stole a glance at Kayden. “You haven’t angered me,” he said flatly. “But you’ve offended the Defender.”
Clyde’s eyes widened in horror as realization struck him like a lightning bolt. He spun around, staring at Kayden, but he was still uncertain of Kayden’s true identity.
Clyde was still relatively young, only in his forties, and though he held power and wealth, military matters were not his forte. The term “Defender” was something he had only ever heard in passing, and had no idea what it stood for.
Lewis intoned, “Mr. Kayden Scott is the Defender of the South and leader of our Seclela’s Battlefield. And the man beside him is his deputy commander!”
The words hit Clyde like a hammer to the skull. His heart dropped, and a cold shiver ran down his spine. Battlefield? Defender?
So, the very man he had just tried to poach was no ordinary figure, but a deputy commander!
His face twisted in terror as his voice quivered, “Defender, I… I had no idea who you were! I was blind-I never knew! Please, have mercy! I beg you, forget this ever happened! Just… just let me go!”
At that moment, Greedy Wolf stepped forward and unsheathed his dagger. “Defender, don’t waste your time on him. Let me help you kill him.”
“No!” The sound of Clyde’s scream tore through the air as if the earth itself were cracking beneath him. His hands shot up, slapping his face with all the force he could muster. “Please! Please, spare me! I beg you, let me live! I’ll do anything-just don’t kill me!”
Before long, his face had turned a deep red from the slaps he’d delivered to himself, and his nose was bleeding profusely.
Kayden let out a weary sigh, then waved his hand dismissively. “Enough, just throw him out.”
“Ah!”
Clyde barely had time to react before Greedy Wolf had already scooped him up and effortlessly hurled him out of the Henderson Mansion as though he were nothing more than a rag doll.
Greedy Wolf did it so casually, so effortlessly. He threw them out like tossing out two bags of garbage.
After that, Kayden’s cold, unblinking eyes fixed on Lewis. “Now it’s your time to tell me all the shitty things you’ve done.”
A flicker of shock crossed Lewis’s eyes. His face flushed with a mix of guilt and unease. He looked at Kayden, knowing full well that before this man, there was no such thing as a secret. It was impossible to deceive him, and his sharp gaze could see through any attempt at concealment. With a resigned sigh, Lewis motioned for his servants to leave the room.
Once they were alone, Lewis sank into a deep sigh, lowering his head in defeat. “This is all my fault. I never imagined… even after all these years, she still couldn’t let go. She’s finally come for her revenge,” he muttered, in a voice heavy with regret.
The chain of events that had brought him to this point began eighteen years ago. It started with a twisted, fateful encounter. At that time, Lewis’s youngest son, Arthur, had just entered adolescence. He’s filled with restless curiosity and longing for the opposite sex. Coincidentally, the Henderson family had just hired several new servants, one of whom was a woman in her early thirties. The woman was tasked with attending to Arthur’s every need-cleaning his room, doing his laundry, preparing his meals.
She was the very embodiment of a young boy’s fantasies-curvy, full-figured, and undeniably attractive. And for a boy like Arthur, who was just beginning to explore his desires, it was an irresistible temptation. Day after day, he watched her move around the house, her body swaying with a natural grace, while his mind devoured the lurid novels that fueled his fantasies. Eventually, those innocent stirrings of curiosity twisted into something darker, and he began to harbor inappropriate thoughts about her.
At first, Arthur had been willing to use money to tempt the woman, but she was a woman of strong moral principles. She couldn’t bring herself to betray her values, so she firmly rejected Arthur, and even took the opportunity to lecture him about his behavior. But unable to tolerate the rejection, Arthur resorted to desperate measures. He drugged her and forcibly raped her against her will.
When the woman came to her senses, she didn’t hesitate to go straight to Lewis, demanding justice. However, Lewis just wanted to keep the matter from blowing up. He offered the woman money in an attempt to buy her silence. But the woman was unyielding. She insisted that Arthur had ruined her honor, and she couldn’t live with the guilt of betraying her husband. She declared that this could not be brushed aside, and threatened to go to the authorities if Arthur refused to give himself up to the police.
Lewis wasn’t afraid of the police. Even if the matter went public, he had the power to suppress it. But the scandal had the potential to destroy the reputation of the Henderson family, especially at such a crucial point in their rise. It could jeopardize everything they had worked for. So, in a moment of madness, Lewis did something crazy: he had the woman killed. And as if that wasn’t enough, he buried her body beneath the floorboards of his own home, spinning a lie that she had simply disappeared.
The woman’s husband came to the house in a furious rage several times, demanding answers. But Lewis used his wealth to silence him, and over time, the whole affair was quietly swept under the rug.
For years, it seemed as though the matter had been forgotten. Until the day Arthur died, the thought of that woman’s death resurfaced in Lewis’s mind, fleetingly. But he quickly pushed it aside. He never thought it would come back to haunt him. And yet, just over two years after his son’s death, the woman’s specter rose once more and began stirring up trouble again.
As he spoke of this story, Lewis hung his head low, his face shadowed in regret. His eyes were wet with tears, the weight of remorse apparent in every line of his face. People like him who were from influential families often believed that their authority gave them the right to act without consequence. To them, such acts of cruelty were merely another way to exert control over the world around them. They thought nothing of crossing lines that others would never dare. For them, it was just business as usual.
Lewis’s face twisted with helpless frustration. “I know I’ve made a terrible mistake, but heaven has already punished me. I lost my youngest son. Arthur… he was my pride, my joy, the son I loved more than anything. His death… it’s a wound that will never close. To bury your own child-there’s no greater sorrow in this world. I know this is my punishment, a debt I must pay. But what I didn’t expect, what I never imagined, was that after all these years, she would come back to haunt me again.”
Kayden’s brow furrowed slightly as he absorbed the words. “So, what are you saying? Are you trying to claim that you did nothing wrong?”
Lewis froze for a moment. He shook his head frantically. “No, no… I was wrong, I admit it. But I’ve already paid the price. My son, Arthur… he’s gone. That’s my punishment, my burden to bear…” His voice trailed off.
“Your son?” Kayden interrupted him. The corners of his lips curled into a mocking smile. “That’s not punishment for you. That’s the debt your son owed, and he paid it back. This is not about you.”
“What!” Lewis’s face went pale with shock, his voice trembling as he stammered, “So… does that mean I’m still going to be punished?”
Kayden said nothing, but Greedy Wolf was unable to hold back any longer. He stepped forward with a snarl of rage. He jabbed a finger at Lewis and snapped, “You old bastard, you really are the worst kind of man! Just because you’ve got money and power, you think you can trample over anyone you like. You wield all this authority, and shouldn’t you be using it to help the helpless, to do some good? Instead, you use it to crush those beneath you. Let me tell you something. You deserve to die! You deserve to be killed by the very people you’ve wronged!”
Lewis lifted his head, his face contorted with a mix of defensiveness and disbelief. “I did that because I had no other options!” he shouted. “I know I was wrong, and I know I deserved to die for it. I shouldn’t have done those things… but it’s in the past now! It happened so many years ago… What else was I supposed to do? I had no choice!”