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He raced to Evelyn and Scarlett upon seeing the leak.
"Evelyn, Scarlett, you know it's not me!"
"Why would I kill them? No motive!"
"And hurt innocents?"
Evelyn patted his hand soothingly. "If you swear you didn't do it, we believe you."
Ethan's eyes flickered guiltily. "Of course not!"
"Two unloved orphans? Why bother?" he sneered.
He missed the chilling look exchanged behind his back.
"Ethan, since you're innocent," Scarlett purred, gripping his hand.
"Let's sue the liars."
"Make them pay. Wish them painful deaths."
"Right?"
...
Flushed with support, Ethan sent cease-and-desist letters to every exposé channel.
Demanding takedowns, apologies, threatening lawsuits.
Fans rallied, flooding comment sections with abuse.
Three hours later, a video dropped.
Security footage: Ethan meeting a man in a room. The audio matched the leak.
Police confirmed its authenticity, announcing Misty Peaks collapsed due to structural failure andplanted explosives.
The contractor? Carter Construction – Ethan's parents.
The man? Lucas Finch, son of the Carter family chauffeur.
The internet exploded.
Connections surfaced.
The faceless women in Ethan's vlogs? The Shaw sisters from the viral proposals.
Ethan's flaunted luxury goods matched purchases under the sisters' names.
Our deaths resurfaced.
An "insider" connected the dots.
Ethan, infatuated with Lucas's sister Lila, feared parental pressure to marry the Shaws.
Using the sisters' trust, he stole blueprints. His parents used them to destroy the Shaws.
Later, Carter fortunes fell. Ethan lost interest in Lila. He reappeared when Shaw Industries boomed.
But Evelyn had me. Scarlett had Liam.
Though they doted on Ethan, mentioned divorce, they never filed. This drove him to murder.
He had the sisters schedule their anniversary at Misty Peaks. He lured them away, blocked their phones, leaving Liam and me to die in despair.
Piece by piece, a trap snapped shut.
8
Ethan Carter finally realized it—Evelyn and Scarlett Shaw had suspected him all along.
They'd been biding their time, gathering evidence in silence.
This entire spectacle was their meticulously crafted plan to destroy him.
But Ethan understood far too late. Before he could flee, a sharp blow knocked him unconscious. He awoke bound in the basement.
Opening his eyes, he faced the sisters, their expressions utterly unhinged.
Terrified, Ethan began to beg.
"Scarlett! Evelyn! It wasn't deliberate!"
"I just... lost my mind for a moment. Please, let me go!"
Before he could finish, Scarlett lashed out.
A barbed whip cracked through the air.
Ethan screamed. The vicious strike tore a path from his right cheek down to his left shoulder, shredding flesh and fabric, leaving him trembling in agony.
Then, Evelyn stepped forward without hesitation, dousing his raw wounds with a bucket of ice-cold salt water.
The searing pain made Ethan convulse violently against his restraints.
"Hurt?" Evelyn pressed the cold edge of a knife against his cheek.
"Liam suffered worse."
Raw terror flooded Ethan's face. He shook his head frantically.
"You're insane!"
"Both of you! Monsters!"
"I apologized! Isn't that enough?"
"Can't you just give me a way out?"
"A way out?" Scarlett snarled, coiling the whip around his throat.
"You didn't give Liam a way out, did you?"
"All my sister and I wanted was a little payback, a taste of revenge for the past."
"Liam and Ethan misunderstanding? Fine. We thought we had a lifetime to explain."
"But you!"
"You murderedthem!"
Scarlett's eyes were bloodshot. She threw the whip aside and wrapped both hands around Ethan's neck, squeezing with desperate, furious strength.
"You deserve to die!"
"Pay for Liam with your life!"
Ethan choked, gasping for breath near unconsciousness. He forced out ragged words.
"Saying I killed them... it was your own negligence!"
"If you'd just... sensed something was wrong... gone to them... they'd be alive!"
"Kill me then."
"You'll just... rot in prison!"
At this, Scarlett's grip suddenly loosened.
Just as a spark of hope ignited in Ethan's eyes, thinking he might be spared, Scarlett leaned in with a chilling smile.
"What makes you think," she whispered, her voice eerily calm, "my sister and I want to keep living in this world?"
Ethan froze, stunned. Then his gaze flickered past Scarlett to Evelyn, who was rolling a large, dark gasoline drum into the room. Panic seized him utterly.
"No!"
"Please! I was wrong! So wrong!"
"Just one more chance... I beg you..."
Evelyn met his terrified pleas with a smile that was terrifyingly tender.
"Too late."
"You're right. We areguilty too."
"So now," her voice hardened, "we all pay together!"
The click of a lighter echoed in the sudden silence.
The flame kissed the gasoline-soaked floor.
Fire roared to life, an unstoppable wave of heat and destruction that surged across the basement floor, consuming everything in its path.
Amidst the blinding inferno and Ethan Carter's final, agonized screams, a distinct, digital chime cut through the chaos:
[Mission Complete. Rewards activated upon host return.]
A brilliant white light swallowed everything.
Consciousness returned under the sterile glare of fluorescent lights.
White ceiling tiles stretched above.
Beside him, Liam Chen's eyes were rimmed red. A weary, relieved grin touched his lips.
"Took you long enough, you bastard."
Ethan Hayes squeezed his best friend's hand, his voice quiet but firm.
"Not just back. We're going to live. Healthy. To a hundred."
After all, how else could he justify the brutal cost? His own calculated death had been the key to shattering the Shaw sisters' defenses.
Outside the hospital window, a tender green bud unfurled on a branch.
A small sparrow landed on the concrete sill, tilting its head, fixing Ethan with a look of bright, curious wonder.
