Chapter 161: Chapter 161: I’ve Come to Keep Our Promise, Have You?
But when she saw the words on the document Cyrus Hawthorne threw over, the breath she had finally steadied suddenly became rapid, and her gaze painfully moved downward.
In the lower right corner of the signature line, his name was already signed.
Divorce Agreement.
Ann Vaughn’s delicate fingers suddenly tightened, her heart feeling like it was being blocked by a wet piece of cotton, filled with an indescribable suffocating feeling.
Her mind recalled the conversation between Cyrus Hawthorne and the doctor she overheard outside the emergency exit the previous night, and Ann Vaughn’s shoulders shook gently.
Look, how much he wants to get rid of her.
He wouldn’t even wait for the news of her death to spread, nor until she could no longer see or hear.
Step by step, pushing her into the abyss of death.
Ann Vaughn forcefully closed her eyes and shoved the acid in them back down. When she opened her eyes again, they were calm and collected.
"This is the last thing I can do for you."
Her voice was hoarse, with a hint of self-mockery, and she lowered her head, picking up the pen from the table.
Without even looking at the terms of the agreement, she quickly signed her name in the lower right corner.
Cyrus Hawthorne watched her decisively sign, his thin lips curling with a hint of mockery, coldly instructing the bodyguard outside, "Take her to the operating room, and order them to prepare for surgery."
The bodyguard who had been waiting outside immediately came in and quickly approached Ann Vaughn.
Ann Vaughn’s heart seemed to skip a beat, her bright eyes flashing with disbelief, which then turned into a desolate sorrow, "You really want to take my life to save Cynthia’s."
"If you stabbed Cynthia in order to protect yourself, in consideration of our marriage, I wouldn’t have been too ruthless." Cyrus Hawthorne picked up the divorce agreement, his gaze towards her deep and unchanged like a still well, "If you want to blame someone, you can only blame yourself for bringing this on yourself."
To what extent must a woman be ruthlessly selfish to unhesitatingly plunge a knife into her own sister’s body?
If he hadn’t seen the surveillance video with his own eyes, Cyrus Hawthorne couldn’t believe this woman’s cruelty had already lost all humanity.
Keeping such a woman by his side would only bring trouble.
"I didn’t harm her; she ran into the knife herself trying to frame me, and she was the one who shoved the knife into my hand!" Ann Vaughn’s expression collapsed for a moment, trying to push away the bodyguard holding her shoulder, but they held her down and took her towards the door.
Upon hearing this, the emotions on Cyrus Hawthorne’s face became even more indifferent, his eyes full of derision, "Do you even believe your own words?"
"Let’s just say I misjudged you before."
With a cold and brief sentence falling, Ann Vaughn’s body stiffened abruptly at the door, suppressing the tremor and pain in her heart, she turned her head to look in his direction.
"Cyrus Hawthorne, don’t you remember when you said as a child that you would come and marry me when you grew up?"
She viewed this promise as a treasure, repeating it day after day, year after year, feeling it was never enough.
She missed the last time she could see him, but this promise, to this day, she still kept well.
Just for one day, to be able to say those words to him in person.
"I came to fulfill the promise. What about you?"
Is your heart still the same as it was back then?
A long hope rose in Ann Vaughn’s tear-filled eyes, her lips tightly pursed, shy just like the first time he kissed her on the cheek fifteen years ago—
Waiting for his answer.
Until she heard Cyrus Hawthorne’s signature cold, low laugh from behind, as if mocking her wishful thinking, shamelessly.
Ann Vaughn’s heart abruptly shrank.
"Trying to replace Cynthia with lies, do you even deserve it?"
"Ann Vaughn, are you addicted to taking over others’ property and delusional?"
His words were so cold they had no warmth, piercing Ann Vaughn’s heart one by one, shattering her last shred of hope and longing.
"Ha, ha ha ha..."
She raised her head, as if hearing some amusing joke, and laughed out loud.
The bodyguards dared not stop any longer and took her away from there.
"Cyrus Hawthorne, if I could do it all over again, I would rather have never met you, never—saved you." Ann Vaughn’s voice was so piercing, as if weeping blood, reaching through the door one last time.
In the deathly still ward, it seemed like a lingering echo.
Cyrus Hawthorne’s narrow eyes stared at that door for a moment, suppressing the unfounded discomfort that arose in his heart, his thin lips coldly pressed together.
After a long time, he smirked lightly, not knowing whether he was mocking Ann Vaughn or something else.
Regret?
Unfortunately, such a word never existed in his dictionary.
Fifteen minutes later.
Ann Vaughn was pushed into the operating room, lying flat on the cold operating table.
Just thinking about Cyrus Hawthorne’s answer earlier, an uncontrollable light laughter came from Ann Vaughn’s throat.
She should have cried.
But whether it was because she was too sad or had lost the ability to cry.
Even if her heart was covered in frost, shrouded in gloom, unable to let in any sunlight, she couldn’t shed a tear.
Only an endless coldness and sorrow spread within her chest.
With tear-filled eyes, Ann Vaughn saw the doctor walking towards her with a syringe of anesthesia, and her small hand on her abdomen tightly clenched.
In that moment, her mind flashed back like a carousel, starting from the fire in her childhood where she saved Cyrus Hawthorne, to all their moments after marriage.
Each frame felt like a dream.
Baby, I’m sorry, that I couldn’t let you even catch a glimpse of this world before having to leave with me.
It’s okay, with mom accompanying you, the road to the afterlife won’t be lonely...
-
An hour had passed since the operation.
Cyrus Hawthorne stood by the window with an unlit cigarette between his fingers waiting, while Jade Shepherd and Howard Vaughn were outside on the seats waiting for the operation to end.
Another half hour passed.
The operation was still ongoing, when Mark Joyce hurried in, handing the laptop to Cyrus Hawthorne, and reported in a low voice, "President Hawthorne, the company’s internal security system suffered a malicious attack from an unknown source. Although the barriers you set kept them out, it won’t last much longer."
Cyrus Hawthorne took the laptop, his long fingers tapping on the keyboard twice, and lines of seemingly garbled symbols flashed across the screen.
"I’ll head back to the company. You stay here, and notify me as soon as the surgery ends."
This computer wasn’t connected to the main server of the Hawthorne Group’s security program, so even if Cyrus Hawthorne destroyed those hidden viruses one by one, it could only treat the symptoms but not the cause.
"Understood." Mark Joyce responded immediately, feeling a bit relieved. With President Hawthorne on the case, whether the attacker was a top global hacker or a red hacker...
They wouldn’t gain the upper hand.
Jade Shepherd, seeing that Cyrus Hawthorne intended to leave at such a time, stood up somewhat displeased, wanting to stop him.