Chapter 8
1913words
He sat in his seat like a statue forged from cold fury. On the tablet in front of him was the preliminary information his private investigation team had sent overnight, every line of text burning through his rationality.
Evelyn's words, like a surgical knife, had cut open the shell of self-deception he had maintained for over thirty years, exposing the festering truth inside.
"Perhaps she... has no blood relation to you at all?"
This sentence exploded repeatedly in his mind. All past indulgences of Victoria's boundary-crossing behaviors, all the oddities he had forcibly explained away as "sibling affection," at this moment, found their ugliest and most reasonable explanation.
The plane landed.
The reckoning began, in a silent yet deadly manner.
The first stop was the private medical laboratory on the top floor of Lowell Group headquarters. He handed a sealed bag to the supervisor, containing several strands of Victoria's hair that he had instructed the butler to secretly collect from her dressing table.
"I want the results as soon as possible," his voice was devoid of warmth. "Use all resources, urgent priority."
Leaving the laboratory, he summoned the family's chief lawyer and financial officer. The two elderly men, who had served the Lowell family for half their lives, trembled at the murderous rage in Vincent's eyes that seemed capable of burning everything to the ground.
"I want a detailed report," Vincent's fingers tapped lightly on the table, each tap like the toll of a death knell, "on all assets under Victoria Lowell's name - the source, cash flow, and... all major projects handled by her mother, Mrs. Susan, during her tenure. I want to see every number, every signature."
The chief counsel looked troubled. "Sir, this... this is almost equivalent to conducting the highest level audit within the family, it will cause quite a stir..."
"Then let it stir." Vincent interrupted him, his gray eyes leaving no room for negotiation. "I'm not asking for your opinion."
For the next forty-eight hours, Lowell Manor appeared calm on the surface, but underneath, turbulent waves were already raging.
Victoria sensed something was wrong. She couldn't get through to Vincent's phone, and several credit cards she regularly used were frozen. She complained to the butler in tears as usual, but only received polite yet distant responses. For the first time, panic wrapped around her heart like vines.
She rushed to the corporate headquarters, only to be told that "the CEO is in a top-secret meeting, no one is allowed to disturb."
She didn't know that at this moment, Vincent was sitting in his office, quietly looking at the email that had just popped up on his screen.
Sender: Medical Laboratory Supervisor.
Attachment: DNA Kinship Analysis Report.pdf
His hand, terrifyingly steady, opened the attachment. When he saw the cold "99.99% probability of exclusion of paternity" in the conclusion section, he slowly closed his eyes.
The world, in an instant, fell silent. There was no towering rage, only a dead silence of confirmed absurdity.
He opened his eyes, the last trace of human warmth in them completely extinguished.
He dialed the private number of the media mogul's editor-in-chief.
That evening, Victoria was anxiously waiting in the living room when Vincent finally returned.
He was wearing a black suit, as if returning from a funeral. Seeing him back, Victoria's face immediately bloomed with her habitual pitiful smile. "Brother, you're finally back? I was so worried about you..."
Vincent walked up to her and tossed the printed DNA test report onto the coffee table like a piece of waste paper.
Victoria's smile froze. She looked at the report, then at Vincent's face devoid of any human emotion, and overwhelming panic seized her.
"What is this?" she asked in a trembling voice.
"Evidence proving that my father was blameless his entire life and had only one child - me." Vincent's voice was like ice from the far north. "And you are a liar and a bastard."
He looked down at her, each word shattering her final illusions.
"Your mother was once my father's most trusted secretary. She took advantage of his trust to pass you off - a child she conceived with another man - as his illegitimate daughter, allowing you to usurp what wasn't yours and enjoy everything that didn't belong to you for twenty years."
"No... that's impossible!" Victoria screamed, lunging forward to grab the hem of his clothes. "Brother, listen to me explain! It was mother who..."
Vincent turned away in disgust, as if she were some kind of filthy virus.
"Don't call me brother." His eyes held enough hatred to flay a person alive. "The evidence of your mother's crimes is already enough to keep her in prison for the rest of her life. And you..."
He slapped down an order for compulsory psychiatric treatment in front of her. On it were the signatures of several top psychologists and the court's seal.
"You hurt Evelyn and caused the death of my child." He enunciated each word, as if pronouncing a final judgment. "So, you can rot to death in that iron cage, paying for the crimes you've committed."
"This is my final 'favor' to you."
Victoria completely broke down. She screamed, cried, cursed, and finally knelt on the ground begging.
Vincent just watched coldly until two uniformed medical staff came in and dragged her away like a dead dog. Her screams echoed in the empty, desolate villa, finally silenced by the heavy doors.
The reckoning was over.
Vincent stood in the deathly quiet living room, clutching the DNA report in his hand. This "report card" was the most thorough proof of loyalty he could offer to Evelyn.
He immediately turned around and boarded a flight back to Zurich.
His crematorium had finally burned away all obstacles. He thought that at the end of the road would be her forgiveness.
…………
Two weeks later at dusk, Oliver and I were walking along the shores of Lake Zurich.
Oliver was a wonderful companion, gentle and respectful. Being with him made me feel like a plant finally basking in the spring sunshine.
Just then, that figure appeared again without warning.
Vincent.
He stood before us, blocking our path. He looked more haggard than before, with sunken eye sockets, but in those gray eyes burned a desperate, fanatical flame.
In his hand, he clutched a document folder tightly.
Oliver immediately shielded me behind him, looking vigilantly at him. "Sir, please leave."
Vincent's gaze was fixated on me. "Eve," his voice was hoarse, with an eager-to-please tone, "it's all over."
He dumped everything from the document folder onto the bench. DNA reports, court orders, newspapers with printed news...
"Victoria is not my sister," he got straight to the point, his voice urgent. "The DNA report is here. She and her mother have both received the punishment they deserve. They deceived me, deceived everyone... Eve, they were the real culprits. Everything has been settled completely."
"Vincent." I calmly interrupted him.
I stepped out from behind Oliver, quietly looking at him and at those brutal papers.
"What you've done is good," my voice was like a still lake surface. "However, you've only done what you should have done a year ago."
I defined his "great achievements" as a delayed responsibility that should have been fulfilled in the first place.
The fanaticism and expectation on his face instantly froze.
"What... do you mean?"
I looked at him, and the last bit of hidden pain in my heart finally dissipated in the evening breeze.
I gave him a long-absent, genuine smile, yet one that felt infinitely distant.
"What I mean is, I'm glad you've finally come to your senses. But, that's all there is to it."
I don't hate you anymore, Vincent." I told him clearly, "Hating someone is too exhausting. That scar has already scabbed over, though it will never disappear, but it doesn't hurt anymore.
"However..." I took a deep breath, delivering the final verdict:
"I don't love you anymore either."
No..." his pupils contracted violently as he shook his head, mumbling, "No... that's impossible... Eve, I did everything! I settled the score with that demon! How could you... how could you not love me anymore?
“Because it’s too late.” I looked at him, with a trace of pity in my eyes. “Vincent, you burned everything clean, that’s good. But you forgot that in this ‘Crematorium,’ what was also burned to ashes was my love.”
After saying that, I took out from my purse the velvet box that I had cherished for over a year.
When Vincent saw it, his breath caught, and a flash of confusion passed through his eyes.
I opened the box, and inside, lying quietly, was that long-faded Pregnancy Test.
It had once been my only light in the darkness, the only connection between me and that unborn child. I thought I would carry it with me for life, letting this pain remind myself not to make the same mistake again.
But now, looking at the broken man before me, I suddenly felt there was no need anymore.
"This," I held out the box to him, my voice calm, "is yours to take back."
He seemed as if he'd been scalded, afraid to accept it.
This is the last thing between us," I said softly. "In the past, I kept it to remember the pain. Now, I'm returning it to you because I no longer need it to remind me of anything.
My rebirth should not bear any relics from the past.
"Take it." My tone brooked no argument.
Vincent reached out with trembling hands and took the small box. When his fingertips touched the velvet, he reacted as if holding a red-hot iron, his entire body shaking violently.
He looked down at the pregnancy test, at the two faint red lines that once represented the miracle of life. That was his child, the child he had personally laid to rest.
"No!!!"
He broke down.
He lunged forward suddenly, only to be firmly restrained by Oliver. Like a desperate beast, he let out agonizing wails before me.
What else can I give you?!" he howled, tears rushing forth, "The Lowell Group is yours! Everything I have is yours! Even my life is yours! Just come back!
His pride, his dignity, were burned to ashes in this moment.
Then, under Oliver's shocked gaze, Vincent Lowell, the man standing at the pinnacle of the pyramid, fell to his knees, and with a "thud," knelt directly before me. In his hand, he still clutched tightly to that velvet box.
Eve..." he knelt there, looking up, his face streaked with tears, utterly disheveled, "Don't go... please... don't leave me... don't leave me alone in this hell...
He cried, crying like a child abandoned by the whole world, desperately knocking his forehead against the ground again and again.
The fire in the Crematorium burned at its fiercest at this moment.
Burning away his dignity, his everything.
I watched him silently, witnessing this grand and tragic confession that came more than a year too late.
Oliver's hand rested gently on my shoulder.
I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, they were clear and bright.
I walked around him as he knelt on the ground, not looking back.
"Oliver, let's go."
Behind him, his heartbreaking cries were shattered by the evening breeze.
Too late, Vincent.
Really, too late.
