Chapter 305: The Preemptive Attack
I still didn't understand what the Boltons had done to Oliver or why Jeffrey had said those things. Anna’s loss was irreversible. There was no going back.
I walked over to the operating table. Anna lay there, her face ghostly pale, slick with cold sweat. She seemed to be hanging on by a thread. The doctor explained she was resistant to anesthesia, meaning the procedure would have to be done without it. The earlier efforts to save her had taken everything from her. She was already drowning in the sorrow of losing someone close, and now her child was gone, too.
She stared at me as I approached, her eyes unfocused. Whether it was from shock or delirium, she seemed to mistake me for Chloe. Her voice cracked with fear. "You’re back. Is this your revenge?" Then, in the next breath, she begged, “Please, give me Silas back. And my baby—don’t take him. He’s innocent. If you must, take my life instead.”
I was about to ask her more when the doctor intervened. “Ma’am, we need to start the D&C now. Please step outside.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
I turned and left. I had been there before. I knew how cruel the procedure could be. My own child was not yet formed, but Anna’s was. Her baby had a heartbeat. Stepping out of the room, the smell of blood still clung to me. I went to the terrace, where the cold wind helped clear my mind.
Daisy came up to me with a cup of hot milk. “Ma’am, you should eat something. You need to take care of yourself.”
“I’m fine. Go on. I just need a moment,” I said, my voice soft.
She hesitated but nodded. “Alright,” she said, leaving me alone.
A short while later, Carter appeared, carrying a box of food. He set it out carefully in front of me. “Eat something,” he said quietly.
I sighed. “Carl, I can’t. Not right now.”
Silas’s death had hit me harder than I expected. We hadn’t gotten anything useful from him, and now he was gone. It left a dark cloud over me.
“The cause of Silas’s death has been determined,” Carter said.
I looked up quickly. “Who poisoned him?”
Carter nudged the fish soup toward me. “Eat, and I’ll tell you.”
“Gee, what a cliffhanger.”
I had no choice but to quickly finish the soup. Once I was done, I turned to Carter and said, “Alright, I’ve eaten. Now, tell me what happened.”
He took a deep breath before speaking. “It wasn’t poison someone gave him. He hid it in his teeth. All he had to do was bite down at the right moment, breaking the top layer, and the poison would leak out.”
I had seen something like that in a movie once, but never imagined it was something that could actually happen.
“Then why didn’t he just poison himself from the start? Why only bite his tongue off?” I asked.
Carter’s gaze shifted toward the operating room, where I could hear Anna’s faint screams through the walls. She was awake, enduring the pain without anesthesia. She must have been suffering terribly.
“He bit his tongue to stop us from getting answers. He wanted to hold on long enough to see Anna one last time.”
I remembered what Silas had said to me before he bit down. The words stayed with me, but I wasn’t sure how to process them.
“He saw Anna last night. That was all he needed before he could die, no regrets.”
Silas hadn’t hesitated when he tried to kill me, and now it seemed he had no regrets even about his own death.
“He got out easy,” I muttered under my breath. Carter sighed and reached for my hand. “Don’t be angry. He wasn’t the one behind all of this. The real person pulling the strings is still out there. I promise, when we catch them, they won’t get away—alive or dead. Is that okay?”
“But, Carl, these people are so careful. They won’t leave any evidence behind. If we wait any longer, the Sanders and Boltons will simply follow their lead.”
“I know,” Carter replied. “That’s why we need to act now, even if it risks giving them a warning.”
I raised an eyebrow, confused. “What do you mean?”
“There was a dispute at the garage. The police are already headed there.”
Carter’s grip on my hand tightened, his eyes cold and resolute. “Today, we’ll finally get answers.”