Chapter 3

While lying on the blood-drenched floor, Adina did not even have the time to grieve for her twins since the pain of another contraction crashed into her.

She was all too familiar with this pain by then. It had come right before she gave birth to the twins earlier.

She touched her abdomen, but didn’t sense anything strange.

Could it be… that she hadn’t yet given birth to all the children?

Adina’s eyes went wide.

She did not dare to delay anymore and pushed again, which made blood gush out of her body.

Pain flooded her body, as if she was being torn apart, but determination kept her conscious. Otherwise, she would have fainted a long time ago.

But Adina knew that she could not faint.

If she did, her babies would die of asphyxiation.

She bit the tip of her tongue and drew blood. That was the only way she could remain awake.

“Waaaahhhh…”

Faint cries rose in the air.

Adina’s tears mixed with blood as they slid down her face.

Her eyes lit up, and with great effort, she pushed herself up to take a look.

Two babies!

She actually gave birth to quadruplets!

It was no wonder her stomach had been so big!

And it was no wonder that her appetite had grown so much!

So, she had been carrying four babies all along? God had blessed her with four children…

But her first two babies were gone…

If Dew had delivered them to the hospital, there was no doubt that they would have survived.

Adina had never hated the sister she loved for years as much as she did at the moment.

When she was locked in the warehouse for eight months, she thought she deserved it, because she had become the embarrassment of her family.

But it was only at this moment that she knew that it was all actually the set up of her sister.

Dew had done something so incomprehensible just to steal the position of the heiress of the Daugherty family.

Adina would not spare the Daugherty family, who let it happen…

She forced herself to crawl to her babies.

They were a boy and a girl.

The two babies were covered in blood, but it could not hide their beautiful eyes.

They were her babies, and Adina swore to protect them with all she had.

She carefully hugged them to her chest.

Soon though, she noticed that the warehouse was getting uncomfortably warm.

She looked around and saw the entrance up in flames.

Flames mercilessly charged through the gaps in the metal door and surged into the warehouse. There was furniture near the entrance, and it was on fire in a few moments.

“No… Someone! The warehouse is on fire! Help!”

Adina struck the door in a frenzy.

But no one came to help.

It took her a moment to understand what was going on.

Someone had set the warehouse on fire!

Dew had indirectly killed her first two children, and she wanted to kill her, too, because most of Daugherty Corporation’s shares were still in her hands.

As long as Adina was alive, she would be the greatest shareholder of Daugherty Corporation and threaten Dew’s heiress position.

Hence, she had to die.

The situation was great for it, too. If Adina burned alive in a warehouse after being unable to escape due to major blood loss from childbirth, no one would question it.

Adina was forced into a corner because of the fire. Her babies sucked on their thumbs while they lay in her arms, completely unaware of the looming danger.

“I won’t let any harm come to you, my dears…”

Adina narrowed her eyes and looked at the window; it was two meters up.

……

The Daugherty family’s warehouse went down in flames in the middle of the night.

There were a lot of flammable items in the warehouse, so with the help of the wind outside, the flames quickly ate up the whole building.

Firefighters were called right away, but the fire grew quickly, and it spread so fast that half of the mansion was affected. The damages it caused reached hundreds of millions.

The firefighters only managed to put out the fire at dawn.

A servant went to the master of the house and reported the situation. “Master, the firefighters have cleaned up the area, and they said that someone had started the fire intentionally.”

Aaron Daugherty, the master of the family, slammed his fist on the table. “Someone set us on fire? Who would dare to do that?! How brave of them! Find out who it was!”

Dew was standing next to her father, and a thought sprung into her head at that moment. She whispered, “Father, this isn’t the time to look for the perpetrator. We should first check if anyone is injured. We have dozens of people in the mansion, and if anyone died in the fire…”

The servant shook his head. “The fire started from the warehouse. It was empty at the time, so we have no casualties.”

‘What?! No one died?!’

Dew’s eyes went wide in shock.

‘Adina was in the warehouse! And I locked the door! That fire should have burnt her to death!

‘How could that witch’s body not be there?

‘If she ran away, then my plans will be ruined.’

She sucked in a deep breath and said slowly, “Father, Adina was locked in the warehouse. She went into labor all of a sudden yesterday and begged me to send her to the hospital, but I didn’t agree… Did she fly into a rage and set the place on fire?”

“How could I have given birth to a black sheep?! Search for her and bring her back!”

Aaron’s face was alight with fury.

The flames had consumed furniture and other household items worth hundreds of millions, and also left one billion dollars in liquidated damage.

If it were not for the fact that the Daugherty family had a lot of money, they might have gone bankrupt on the spot.

At that moment, another servant came into the room in a hurry and said, “Master, we discovered a woman’s corpse in the lake a thousand meters away from the manor. We believe it’s Miss Adina…”

“She jumped into the lake and committed suicide because she couldn’t accept her fate? It’s all my fault…” Dew sucked in a deep breath, and tears slid down her face. “She gave birth to two babies last night, but now, they’ve become orphans. What should I do…”

Aaron was not at all sad about losing a daughter. He was just angry and impatient. “Why would you keep those two b*stards around?! Send them to an orphanage! Don’t let them stay here and be an eyesore!”

“Father, those two children look like Duke Winters…” Dew said slowly. “The man Adina slept with eight months ago might be the master of the Winters family…”

Aaron was skeptical. “Duke Winters?”

The Winters family was the strongest family in Sea City, and the Daugherty family could only admire it from a distance.

“Plenty of people want to work with the Winters family, but never get the chance. Yet now we have Duke Winters’s sons in our hands, so why don’t we use them?”

Aaron narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, Dew?”

“I’d like to take the children to the Winters family.”