Chapter 17
Chapter 17
If the woman from that night was her, would a woman who slept with him and was able to handcuff him to the bed and escape from his constant interceptions allow herself to be picked on so easily? It was impossible! Hence, he was now interested to see what the woman downstairs would do next. He wanted to see if she really was naive and ignorant, or if she was just a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
When Naomi saw Alice’s expression, she thought she was frozen in fear and felt pleased with herself. The best was yet to come. Today, she would make sure that Alice would never be able to recover from this, and even send her to the depths of hell. Compared to what was about to happen, this was still the beginning. She had no choice but to be ruthless. After all, if she didn’t eliminate Alice completely, Woland Group would not be able to fall into her son’s hands safely and securely.
“Ahh, oh my God! Murder, murder! Alice killed someone!” A sudden shriek rang out, the shrill sound piercing through the currently noisy hall.
The hall was shushed for a moment before screams began to erupt one after another.
“She really killed someone!”
“Oh my God. W-What is going on?”
Just then, a video began to play on the large screen. The footage was particularly sharp and showed a woman and a man in a hotel bed, both of them unclothed. Then, the woman stabbed the man several times with a fruit knife until his motionless body collapsed on the bed, covered in a shocking amount of blood.
In the video, the red birthmark on the woman’s body could be seen clearly. Like the previous video, the angle only captured half of the woman’s face—the scarred side—the very same scar that had become Alice’s trademark over the past seven years. Of course, in addition to the scar, her features were also
very similar to Alice, and one could even say they were identical, including the red birthmark on the woman’s body.
Alice’s eyes turned cold. Not many people knew about her birthmark as it was located in a somewhat hidden part of her body. Bruce was certainly clueless; though they were bound by marriage, they did not interact much. In the first place, their marriage was arranged out of nowhere at Elijah’s instigation, while Alice’s grandfather, Charles, decided on their marriage for her. Text © 2024 NôvelDrama.Org.
At that time, her parents did not agree, but Charles put on a tough fight and was even hospitalized due to his anger. As her father was unable to oppose Charles outright, he believed that because she was still young, he could find another solution, but he unexpectedly got into a car accident later. Prior to the accident, she and Bruce never met each other in private before, let alone holding hands. Because of her evasion toward him as well as her father’s deliberate efforts to hide her, Bruce did not know much about her.
Hence, the only people who knew about her birthmark were the Woland Family. To be precise, the only one who currently knew her birthmark so well was that person from the Woland Family. Therefore, they were certainly involved in today’s sordid affair. They must have negotiated the terms with the Yeager Family and discussed ways to divide up Woland Group as well as how to get rid of her.
Seven years ago, she said that Woland Group was her dowry and she would bring it with her when she married into the Yeager Family. Over the past seven years, the Yeager Family had blocked those in the Woland Family from infiltrating and fighting over the company, and had also prevented some outsiders from coveting it.
However, at the final and most critical moment, the Yeagers must still be worried about the Wolands forcibly intervening as Alice was, at the end of the day, a part of the Woland Family. Hence, it was not surprising that the Yeagers agreed to cooperate with the Wolands, not to mention that the Wolands also provided her birthmark as an important factor that could be used as ‘evidence.’
Not only did they mimic the scars on her face, they even included her birthmark. She really had to admit that they were vicious in these tactics. After all, they were charging her with murder, so it was clear that they would not stop until she ended up dead.
At the moment, the crowd was stunned. This was no longer merely a matter of the unpleasant events that had occurred earlier. At most, those events would’ve only ruined Alice’s reputation, and she would’ve only been ridiculed and scorned, leaving her ashamed to show herself in public.
But now, they were talking about murder. Everyone was aware that murder was against the law and had to be paid for with their life. Besides, now that everyone had seen the video evidence, they were certain that Alice had really killed someone. Should she be found guilty, even if she was not sentenced to death, she would have to spend the rest of her life in jail.
“Isn’t that Nathan Lewis? I remember the Lewis Family reported the case a few days ago. I can’t believe he was killed by Alice.” Someone ‘recognized’ the man who was killed in the video.
Now, even the identity of the murdered man and the time he was killed was revealed.
In order to completely destroy Alice, not only did Naomi prepare the video, she even took a person’s life. Besides, the Lewis Family had a decent reputation in Rodcaster, so it seemed that she also arranged for a pawn to do her dirty work.
Of course, the Lewis Family was not invited to the wedding today. After all, Nathan really was killed, and Naomi was worried that they would ruin her plan by doing something too drastic. She had another purpose of arranging for a pawn to kill him, and that was after the evidence of her murder was established and she was caught, when the time came that the Yeager Family would not be in a place to do some things, the Lewis Family would be able to take care of it for them.
Still, Naomi’s thorough plan was very impressive. Including the unpleasant footage earlier, not only did she ruin Alice’s reputation, it also served as a groundwork of some sort. With the preceding
groundwork, it did not appear sudden when she ended up killing him and seemed to be a natural course of events instead. In this case, no one would stand out to defend Alice anymore.
“This isn’t real, right? Could this video be edited?” Someone voiced their doubts, but there wasn’t any genuine emotion behind it, and their pretentious voice just sounded phony.
“Based on my knowledge, I can say for certain that this video is real and not edited.” As soon as the person spoke, a middle-aged man standing closest to the big screen voiced out.
Once the middle-aged man said this, no one doubted the authenticity of the video as many of them knew him, and that he was an expert in this area.
The two cooperated particularly well with their questions and answers. After all, they were both hired by Naomi, who was indeed thorough in her work and carefully planned out each step in detail, so that no one would be able to identify a single mistake.
“So, Alice really killed someone! She really killed Nathan!”
“The name’s Cooper. I’m the branch chief of the northern district police station, and we happen to be in charge of Nathan’s case. Through an autopsy, we found soft tissues in the nails of the deceased that did not belong to his skin, which we suspect belongs to the murderer. In the video earlier, Nathan did scratch the murderer, and from the video, Miss Woland is the prime suspect. As it is Miss Woland’s wedding today, it may reflect badly on her if we arrest her on the spot, but we can conduct the forensic identification right now. If Miss Woland is not the murderer, we can clear her suspicion. I hope you will cooperate with us, Miss Woland.” The branch chief, Freddie Cooper, had a righteous expression as he spoke, leaving no room for doubt.
Meanwhile, Alice found it amusing. It’s inappropriate to arrest me on the spot, but it’s fine for them to conduct a forensic identification right here? Who conducts a forensic identification in public at a
wedding venue? It’s nothing but an act for everyone to see, so why are they making a grand gesture out of it? How ridiculous.
Hence, she didn’t even need to guess what the result of the forensic identification would be, as Freddie would definitely announce her as the murderer. In the first place, all of this was part of Naomi’s plan, and Freddie was no exception.