Chapter 248: Chapter 248: So It Was a Dream...
Adrian Lancaster spun around, his gaze like an ice-tempered blade stabbing straight at Maya Marshall.
"Shut up!" His voice was sharp and final, leaving no room for argument as it echoed harshly on the wind-swept terrace.
The carefully maintained mask of gentle fragility on Maya Marshall’s face shattered at his rebuke.
The hollow smile peeled away, revealing years of festering resentment and bitterness. Her features contorted with the intense emotion.
"You’re telling me to shut up?" she repeated, her voice shrill and trembling uncontrollably.
"Adrian, have you forgotten everything? Have you forgotten how cold the sea was that year? How you were slowly sinking? Have you forgotten who risked everything, breaking their nails just to drag you back to shore?!"
Maya Marshall staggered a step forward as she spoke, a fanatical flame burning in her eyes, her gaze locked on Adrian Lancaster’s suddenly cold, stiff face.
"You grabbed my hand so tightly. You were choking on seawater, but you still managed to tell me, word for word..."
She mimicked his weak but clear voice from that day. "You said, ’Maya, thank you for saving me. In the future, I’ll marry you to repay you.’"
"I’ve carved every single one of those words into my bones. Are you trying to go back on your promise now? Huh?!"
At her words, Adrian Lancaster’s pupils constricted, as if an invisible hand were strangling him.
A deeply buried memory, carrying the salty tang of the sea and the suffocating sensation of drowning, violently shattered his defenses.
The bone-chilling darkness, his fading body heat, and the one clear thing in his chaotic mind: a pair of hands gripping him, refusing to let go...
Standing right beside Adrian Lancaster, Wren Sutton clearly felt his body stiffen. A faint, almost imperceptible tremor traveled up the arm pressed against hers.
His jaw was clenched, his lips pressed into a thin, pale line, as if he were fighting to hold something back.
Her heart sank, and a bitter realization washed over her.
’So that’s how it is.’
Wren Sutton felt a sour unease settle in her stomach.
’Only now did she realize that Maya Marshall had saved Adrian Lancaster.’
’No wonder Maya Marshall always acted so brazen and entitled.’
’And no wonder Adrian was always willing to turn a blind eye, treating Maya with far more tolerance—sometimes even indulgence—than anyone else.’
Adrian Lancaster’s Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively. With every ounce of his self-control, he forced the surging memories and emotions back down into the depths of his soul.
He avoided Maya Marshall’s eyes, which swirled with a mad mix of accusation and desperate hope.
’Right now, all he wanted was to escape.’
His arm tightened, pulling Wren Sutton closer as if she were his only life raft. He spun around and strode toward the villa’s entrance, his heavy, hurried steps betraying his inner turmoil.
Seeing Adrian Lancaster’s resolute turn, his unhesitating retreat, the last spark of light in Maya Marshall’s eyes died.
Despair washed over her like a black tide, drowning all reason.
"Adrian Lancaster! Are you trying to go back on your word?!" she shrieked, her voice tearing through the still air.
"You have to settle this with me today! Or else I’ll... I’ll..."
She fumbled in her small handbag. With a flash of cold metal, she pulled out a sharp folding fruit knife and, without hesitation, pressed it to her slender neck.
"I’ll die right here in front of you!" Maya Marshall shrieked with every fiber of her being. The blade bit into her skin as she spoke, and a startling red line immediately trickled down, stark against her deathly pale complexion.
"I’ll make you remember for the rest of your life that you broke your promise and drove me to my death! I want you to live with the guilt forever, to never know a moment of peace!"
Her eyes were wide, tears mixed with manic obsession streaming down her face. Her gaze was fixed on Adrian Lancaster’s suddenly frozen form.
The sea breeze seemed to die down. A deathly silence fell, broken only by Maya Marshall’s ragged gasps and stifled sobs.
The air grew as still and suffocating as the depths of the ocean.
The cold glint of the blade in Maya Marshall’s hand, the bloody line trickling down her neck—the image seared itself into Wren Sutton’s mind, stirring a complex mix of emotions within her.
Looking from Adrian Lancaster’s stone-still back to the woman opposite him—a woman consumed by despair, with only the flame of self-destruction in her eyes—an instinctual urge compelled Wren to act. She couldn’t just stand by and watch.
"Maya Marshall!"
Wren Sutton pulled away from Adrian Lancaster’s arm as he instinctively tried to hold her back. She took two steps forward, trying to close the dangerous gap between them.
She tried to keep her voice steady and clear, but couldn’t entirely hide the urgency and concern within it.
"Put the knife down. You only get one life. It’s too precious. No person and no thing is worth using it as a bargaining chip."
Wren Sutton’s gaze locked onto Maya Marshall’s vacant, burning eyes, trying to pierce through the fog of madness to find a single shred of reason.
"There’s nothing you can’t get through. Just calm down first. Let’s talk about this."
"Talk? To you?" Maya Marshall’s gaze fixed on Wren Sutton, the long-festering venom in her eyes finally finding release. A hoarse laugh, like the grinding of rusty gears, escaped her lips, dripping with mockery and bone-deep hatred.
"Wren Sutton, drop the phony act of compassion. You’re the last person on earth with any right to lecture me."
The hand holding the knife trembled violently with emotion. The blade pressed deeper into her fragile skin, and more beads of blood welled up, staining her fingertips and collar.
"It was you. You’re the one who came out of nowhere and stole my Adrian."
"You ruined everything between us. You’re the despicable one who forced your way in. You’re the other woman."
"Without you, how could Adrian have gone back on his promise? How could he be so heartless to me? It’s all your fault, you two-faced, disgusting bitch!"
Maya Marshall grew more and more agitated as she spoke, her voice so shrill it nearly cracked, every word laced with poison.
"I hate you. I hate you every single day, every moment. If murder weren’t a crime, you’d be the first one I’d kill. I want to slice you into a thousand pieces, have you drawn and quartered, make you die a miserable death."
The vicious curses and surging hatred washed over Wren Sutton like a wave of raw sewage.
"Maya Marshall, shut your mouth!"
Adrian Lancaster’s suppressed roar exploded like a clap of thunder.
He spun around, pulling Wren completely behind him in a fiercely protective stance. His broad shoulders seemed to form an impenetrable barrier.
When he looked at Maya Marshall, his gaze held none of its previous complexity or tolerance. All that remained was an icy coldness and utter resolve.
"You listen to me," Adrian Lancaster said, his voice low and deliberate. Each word landed like a shard of ice—clear, sharp, and undeniable.
"I, Adrian Lancaster, have never loved you. The words I spoke on the beach that day, when I was delirious, were nothing more than gratitude for saving my life. That wasn’t love, and it certainly wasn’t a promise of marriage."
He gripped Wren Sutton’s hand, his hold firm and steady, his gaze locked on Maya Marshall.
"Wren Sutton is my lawfully wedded wife. She is the only woman I love and the one I have chosen to spend my life with. She is not the ’other woman.’ Our relationship is not something you have the right to defile or judge."
His tone shifted, growing colder and harder as he ripped away the fig leaf of unspoken truths they had hidden behind for years.
"As for my ’debt’ to you? Over the years, how many exclusive projects has the Lancaster Group given the Marshall Family? How much capital have we injected? Who stepped in time and time again to clean up your father’s sordid messes? And who filled the Marshall Family’s bottomless financial pit?"
He took half a step forward, the pressure he exuded becoming palpable.
"Without me, Adrian Lancaster, the Marshall Family would have collapsed countless times over. I can look you in the eye and say I’ve done more than enough for them. That life debt I owed you? I’ve paid it back in full over the years, with interest. I don’t owe you or the Marshall Family a single thing."
His final words were sharp and absolute, shattering any lingering illusions she might have had.
"From now on, don’t use the past to emotionally blackmail me, and don’t you dare try to hurt the people I care about. You’d be wise to watch your step."
His words were the final straw, snapping the already frayed string of her sanity.
The last flicker of madness in her eyes died out, leaving only a hollow, ash-like despair.
She slowly turned her eyes to Adrian Lancaster’s merciless face, then looked down, staring blankly at the bloody knife in her hand.
Suddenly, her lips twitched into a truly bizarre smile.
It wasn’t so much a smile as a nervous tic—the hollow reflex of a soul whose hope had been utterly extinguished.
"Heh... haha..." A breathy laugh escaped Maya Marshall’s throat. It was light and airy, yet utterly chilling.
"Fine, Adrian Lancaster. Well said. You really are ruthless."
The words had barely left her lips.
A look of grim resolve flashed in Maya Marshall’s eyes. Without a moment’s hesitation, she reversed the knife’s direction and, with all her strength and hatred, plunged it deep into her own chest.
THUNK—
The dull sound of the blade sinking into flesh was terrifyingly clear in the dead silence.
Bright red blood blossomed across her pale clothes like a grotesque flower blooming and withering in the same instant, the sight dizzyingly stark.
Maya Marshall’s body convulsed. Her eyes were wide, her gaze already losing focus.
The last image reflected in her eyes was Adrian Lancaster’s utterly stunned face and Wren Sutton’s pale, terrified expression.
Her lips parted. Her breath was as faint as a spider’s thread, but her words were laced with endless venom.
"Adrian Lancaster... Wren Sutton... I’ll haunt you even as a ghost."
Then, as if those words had sapped the last of her strength, her body went rigid and fell backward like a dead weight.
THUD!
"AHHH—!!!"
With a short, terrified scream, Wren Sutton bolted upright in bed.
Her heart pounded as if it would burst from her chest, and she gasped for breath like a drowning person just pulled from the water.
Cold sweat soaked her hair and back, her pajamas clinging to her skin with a clammy chill.
The room was dark, save for the sliver of cool moonlight that filtered through a gap in the curtains, casting a faint, pale glow on the floor.
There were no newlywed seasons passing by, no vacation, no romantic air of the Calypsos Sea, no night breeze, no barbecue, no fireworks, no deranged Maya Marshall, and no horrifying pool of blood.
Everything was gone. There was only the moonlight, the quiet of the night, and a body drenched in cold sweat.
’It was all a dream.’
