Chapter 3 Blood Debt

Harrison held a bouquet of white roses, with a carefully measured look of remorse and sorrow on his face.

"Katherine, I'm sorry. This was all my fault. That day, Penelope—"

"Don't." I cut him off. "I don't want to hear it."

He was taken aback, as if he hadn't expected me to be this cold.

"I'm sorry about the baby," he continued. "But we're still young. We can still have children."

I looked at him and suddenly laughed. "Harrison, do you really think you can smooth everything over with money and a few half-hearted apologies?"

He frowned. "Katherine, what exactly do you want?"

"What do I want?" I looked him straight in the eye. "I want you and Penelope to pay in blood."

With that, I pushed him aside and walked straight out of the hospital.

The sunlight fell on my skin, but I couldn't feel a trace of warmth.

When I returned to the villa that was supposed to be home, I began my performance.

I locked myself in my room, refusing to eat or drink, crying day after day as I played the part of a mother devastated by the loss of her child.

At first, Harrison tried comforting me, but my silence and tears gradually wore down his patience.

Soon, he began staying out all night, and Penelope became his favorite excuse.

"Penelope feels terrible about what happened. I need to be there for her."

That was always what he said.

I watched him coldly, feeling nothing.

The more reckless he became, the more he would give himself away.

Behind the scenes, Adrian and I were carrying out our plan methodically.

We met at a private club managed by Adrian. Security was tight, and nothing we discussed could get out.

"This is an off-the-books contract Harrison signed with Horizon Building Materials," Adrian said, sliding a document across the table. "By pocketing the difference, he's siphoned at least eight figures from the company."

I flipped through the document, analyzing it calmly.

"The owner of Horizon is his friend from college. They're very close. It'll be hard to find a way to get to him."

"Exactly," Adrian agreed. "So we'll have to use a different approach."

He opened his laptop and showed me a photo of a middle-aged man.

"Vincent Caldwell, Westbrook Group's deputy CFO and Harrison's right-hand man. He's got a fatal weakness—his son is studying abroad, and the tuition is expensive. On top of that, he's been keeping a mistress, and the expenses are piling up."

I understood immediately. "He needs money."

"Badly." A cold smile touched Adrian's lips.

"I've already had someone casually let him know about a highly profitable project on the east side of town. The only problem is, he doesn't have enough capital to get involved. Now, we just have to wait for him to take the bait."

"You're setting a trap for him?"

"Yes. For someone like Harrison, we don't need to worry about playing fair."

Adrian looked at me, his eyes deep and unreadable. "Katherine, once you start down the road of revenge, there's no turning back. Are you afraid?"

I shook my head, my eyes hollow. "I've already lost everything. What is there left to be afraid of?"

He said nothing more. He simply reached out and gently patted the back of my hand.

His palm was warm. It was a warmth I'd never once felt from Harrison.

The plan went smoothly.

Vincent quickly fell into the trap Adrian had set. Desperate to raise the money, he began embezzling company funds and falsifying the books.

And everything he did was quietly documented by the informant we'd planted close to him.

Getting leverage over Vincent was as good as having Harrison by the throat.

I thought this was the deadliest weapon we could find, until the day Adrian handed me something I never could have expected.

It was an old medical record.

"What is this?" I asked.

"The original records from the hospital where Harrison was born."

Adrian's expression was unusually serious. "I've always thought Harrison was moving too quickly, so I had someone dig into his background."

I opened the file. The moment I saw the blood type listed on the page, my eyes suddenly widened.

Harrison's blood type was O.

But I remembered that Harrison's father, Marcus Westbrook, had type A blood, while his mother, Victoria Ellington, had type B blood.

According to genetics, an A-type parent and a B-type parent could never produce a child with type O blood.

An absurd and terrifying thought appeared in my mind. "He's not… a Westbrook?"