Chapter 2

While the doctor treated my wounds, Theo stayed by Diana's side the entire time. Through the glass door of the lounge, I saw him kneeling in front of her, gently applying an ice pack to her wrist.

The hand she'd used to hit me was only slightly red. Meanwhile, my right hand had suffered severe burns.

Every time the doctor cut away a piece of fabric stuck to my wound, the pain was so intense that my vision went dark.

Theo never once turned to look at me.

Only after the doctor finished bandaging my hand did he finally walk in and place a credit card on the table.

"Diana had just returned from abroad, so she didn't know what you were like. She didn't mean to hurt you."

He pushed the card toward me. "There's no spending limit. Buy whatever you like."

I stared at the card without touching it.

It was always the same. Whenever something went wrong, he tried to buy his way out with jewelry and money.

I grabbed my bag and turned to leave.

"The party isn't over yet," Theo said, frowning.

"My hand hurts," I murmured.

He glanced at my right hand. For a brief moment, the hard look in his eyes softened.

Just then, Diana let out a faint gasp behind him. He immediately turned around and reached out to steady her.

I left the hotel alone.

As soon as I got into the car, I took out the pendant. The intense heat had damaged its inner workings, leaving the silver casing slightly warped.

…

Three days ago, Wilson Judd, a veteran accountant who was preparing to leave Zeller Group, contacted me.

He told me that the original dispatch logs related to the accident, the bank transfer records, and a key audio recording had all been copied onto a tiny memory chip.

To keep the Zellers from finding it, he'd hidden the chip inside the pendant.

Wilson hadn't dared to hand it directly to a lawyer or the police. He knew that if the Zellers could silence the witnesses seven years ago, they could easily silence him for good.

Last night, he fell from the 28th floor. The police called it an accident, but I knew better. He'd been killed to keep him quiet.

I planned to head straight to the law firm. But barely a few minutes after the car pulled away, my phone rang.

Theo's cold voice came through the speaker. "Come home."

My whole body froze.

The Zellers had installed a tracker on my car. I had no choice but to change my plans on the spot.

Half an hour later, the car pulled up at Calvane. The moment I stepped out, two bodyguards blocked my way.

"Mrs. Zeller, by Mr. Zeller's orders," one of them said. "You are not to leave the villa before 6:00 am tomorrow."

They confiscated my phone and cut off the villa's internet access. Theo had even ordered them to take my car keys.

"Why?" I demanded.

One of them lowered his voice before answering, "Mr. Zeller said you were the last person Mr. Judd had contact with before his death. Some confidential company files have gone missing from Zeller Group recently. He suspects you have them."

I lowered my eyes and tightened my grip on the pendant.

As it turned out, Theo thought I'd gotten my hands on confidential information from Zeller Group. He had no idea that the pendant actually contained evidence of his family's crimes from seven years ago.

The clock on the wall read 11:00 pm. My father was due to be executed in just seven hours.

No surveillance cameras monitored the bedroom, but guards stood outside the door.

I'd been waiting patiently for the right opportunity.

At 11:40 pm, the family doctor came in to change my bandages.

I deliberately knocked over the painkillers. While the doctor bent down to pick them up, I quietly swiped the small pair of scissors off the table with my left hand.

As soon as the footsteps faded into the distance, I locked the bedroom door and carefully pried open the pendant with scissors.

The moment the casing popped open, a chip no bigger than my fingernail fell into my palm. Thankfully, it was undamaged.

I didn't try to access the files right away. The data on the chip was encrypted, so I couldn't access it with an ordinary phone. I had to send it to my lawyer, Alan Clark, whose technical team would decrypt it using the password index.

I had both the password index and the chip. As long as I could make it through tonight, there was still hope for my father.

I slipped the chip into a hidden pocket inside the bandage on my right hand, then put the empty pendant back together.

Just then, I heard a car engine shut off downstairs. Theo was back.

I quickly straightened the bedsheets and sat on the edge of the bed, pretending nothing had happened.