Rachel? Summer was transfixed for a few seconds, then finally recalled who this woman was. She was Adams’s neighbor cum fiancee when he was still young.
But Douglas said that Rachel had gone missing in an avalanche while she was taking photographs in the snow. How did Leonardo find her?
Summer turned to look at Leonardo, who said not a word as he brought her to sit down at the dining table.
“Rachel…” She did not know what Leonardo was up to. Douglas had said before that Leonardo and Rachel were close at the time. So should she not say hi to Rachel?
“Mr. Emerson,” Rachel greeted as she sat down.
“Have you read the file I gave you?” Leonardo asked.
“I read it.” Rachel nodded slightly, her voice as soft as cotton.
Summer looked at her for a long while and finally could not help but asked, “Are you really Rachel?”
Rachel reached to touch herself on the face. “Do I look like her, Mrs. Emerson?”
“I have never seen Rachel before,” Summer shook her head.
Rachel let out an elegant and gentle smile. “My entire body has gone under the knife.”
Summer was wide-eyed looking at Rachel, then looked back at Leonardo.
He put up his hand and told Rachel, “You can leave me now.”
“Aye, Young Master.” Rachel stood up and walked out slowly.
After she left, Summer asked, “What’s going on? She is not Rachel but a fake?”
Leonardo fetched her some dishes as he explained casually, “I found a person who has roughly the same size as Rachel, then hired the best plastic surgeon from abroad to turn her to look exactly like Rachel.”
Summer thought of this ‘Rachel,’ who looked extremely natural and graceful, totally unlike someone who only looked the same because of having a face job. She had never met the real Rachel before, so she had no way to tell if this woman looked the same as the real Rachel.
One more thing was that a person needed a lengthy recovery period after the face job. But there were no telltale signs that showed this woman had gone under the knife before. The woman had fully recovered, which meant that Leonardo had planned a countermeasure against Adams long ago.
“You want to use her against Adams?” Summer looked at him.
“Every mortal has its weakness.” Leonardo handed her a pair of chopsticks. “Let’s eat.”
She held them in her hand and started pecking the food slowly with Leonardo nudging her by her side. As she did not feel like eating, she pressed her lips together and looked over at Leonardo.
“Go do your stuff. You don’t have to watch me all the time. It is not like I can’t eat by myself. I—”
“Let me feed you.”
Before she could finish her sentence, Leonardo took the chopsticks from her. Summer was forced to eat some more until she really could not take it anymore, only then Leonardo left her to it. Back in the room and after he bathed Summer, he went down to the basement.
The bodyguards guarding the entrance saw Leonardo come in. They bit their lips before greeting him. He glanced at him but said nothing as he went in.
“This is a huge flower, a fish, two… Aah—that’s scary.. Where is Nathan? Where is Douglas?”
Leonardo heard a woman blustering inside as he was at the door. When he stepped inside, he saw Violet’s head was wrapped in a white bandage with blood soaking it red. Her meticulously kept hair looked like that of a scarecrow now as she mumbled battily to herself.
Leonardo went in front of her and looked at her for a while. She did not seem to notice him, just carrying a vase in her arms and muttering indistinctly to herself.
“What happens to her?” Leonardo asked.
“She couldn’t recognize anyone when she woke up,” said Tim, carefully observing Leonardo’s reaction.
Leonardo smirked. After a while, he said, “Send her for a check-up in the hospital.”
Michael had suffered from hemorrhage after getting a brutal beating from Leonardo. He remained semi-conscious after the surgery. But when he saw Leonardo, he instantly became fully awake.
“You… you…” Leonardo pointed at him but could not manage his sentence.
Leonardo looked down at him grimly. “How much more ransom did the kidnappers demand?”
Michael knew what Leonardo meant. He was talking about the ransom increase that the abductor demanded after taking Leonardo’s mom.
Michael had experienced how brutal Leonardo could be. He was shivering as he answered, “One-One hundred million…”
“One hundred million,” Leonardo repeated the figure with a murderous look in his eyes. “Just because of one hundred million, you abandoned her! You had wanted her life in the first place! This is unforgivable!”
Leonardo smashed the bedside table lamp into pieces with his bare hand. The shattered lampshade cut his hand, but he seemed to feel no pain. His lips curled up in a creepy smile, and his voice was so soft as it sounded as if he was muttering. “You must have made many enemies all these years. I wonder if they will demand one hundred million or one billion after a decade has passed.”
…
The next day, news about the Emerson family occupied most pages of major newspapers.
First was the headline that went “Michael, former president of Emerson corporation, has been kidnapped.” The other newspaper went with the headline “The president of Emerson Corporation brings a new girlfriend home, possibly talking about marriage.”
Looking at these two headlines separately, one was more explosive than the other. Let alone they appeared at the same time. No matter where one went, everyone was talking about the Emerson family.
“What is happening to the Emerson family? Is it because they are too rich that Heaven is jealous of them?
“Think about it; wasn’t Leonardo’s wife kidnapped and killed? Grandpa Emerson fell down the stairs and lost his mind. Now even Michael is kidnapped…”
“But it looks like the woman is set to be the future wife of Leonardo; he has brought her back to the old residence…”
“Possible. She looks graceful.”
Two passersby were discussing the news that was out fresh from the oven this morning.
A man with a BB cape and a mask appeared out of nowhere and snatched the phone from one of the passersby. The screen was still showing the photographs of Leonardo entering the Emerson residence with a woman, whose face was clearly shown. She was curling her hand to his arm with a bright, beautiful smile on her face.
Adams looked at the face in the photograph. The woman was most familiar to him as he mumbled in a shivering voice, “Rachel!”