"I’m heading out. Thanks for the kind hospitality tonight. It’s chilly outside, you guys should head in."
"Ah, sure, sure."
They watched him leave before slowly heading back into the house.
An hour later.
After her bath, Rosemary was catching up with Roo on WhatsApp when she was startled by a rapid knocking on her door.
"Miss Collins, are you asleep? Mrs. Griffith needs you."
Opening the door, Rosemary was t with a hushed voice.
"She looks a bit under the weather—seems like it’s got sothing to do with the fright Serena had."
Serena??
"What happened to her?"
"They say Serena ca bolting out of the basent so scared she lost a shoe, pale as a ghost. I don’t know the details—just bits and pieces from the other staff."
Rosemary knew the basent held so unsavory characters; surely one of the grisly sights down there had spooked Serena. She followed the servant’s lead to the study.
Inside the study.
Eunice sat with an austere expression, gazing down at the figure huddled in the corner.
Serena was curled up, shaking uncontrollably.
After closing the door, Rosemary turned to Eunice.
"Aunt Eunice, what happened?"
Eunice looked at Serena, her face etched with gravity and silence, before finally speaking.
"The man’s dead."
That was unexpected.
Two days ago, soone on the dark web had put a hefty bounty on her head.
Eunice had traced the IP address to its source, dragged the perpetrator to the basent, and given him a beating within an inch of his life.
At that ti, the man refused to divulge who was behind it all—until Rosemary offered him a deal: reveal the truth, and she’d help fake his death so he could start fresh under a new identity.
As he seed to waver, Rosemary gave him two days to think it over.
But now, on the final day, he was dead.
"How did he die?" Rosemary inquired. "When did it happen?"
"Half an hour ago. Asphyxiation," Eunice explained, her gaze shifting back to Serena with a complex emotion.
"Serena saw him last."
"It wasn’t my fault. The staff told he wanted to see . When I got there, he said I wasn’t the one he wanted to see. But he said he’d made up his mind—that he wouldn’t spill the beans. Said it didn’t matter who ca and that he’d rather end it himself than suffer at our hands. Then suddenly, he went silent. When I looked again, he wasn’t moving. I didn’t know what happened."
Serena was beside herself with fear, speaking incoherently.
"He was already so terrifying, covered in blood... and the basent was so dark and dreadful."
She was clearly terrified!
Rosemary saw her hugging her knees, sitting on the floor, shaking and sobbing uncontrollably. She really should be aghast at it.
"What did the servant say?" Rosemary asked Eunice.
"The servant said that guy wanted to see Miss Collins, and she thought he wanted to see Serena, so she asked Serena over. She wasn’t there to see what happened next—just waiting outside. Not long after, she saw Serena running out of the basent. When I checked, he was already dead."
"It’s really not my fault," Serena sobbed. "I swear I didn’t know him. I have no idea why he wanted to see . He even said it himself—he was looking for Miss Collins, my sister, not . It was the maid who got it wrong. As for what he called the truth, or how he died, I’m totally clueless. Aunt Eunice, you have to believe . How could I possibly commit murder!"
Serena seed to be traumatized, sobbing without any regard for her appearance. She looked utterly pitiable.
However, Eunice watched her with a complex expression in her eyes.
Logically speaking, Serena simply didn’t have the nerve to kill soone.
But that man wanted to see Miss Collins, which ant he had figured sothing out and wanted to confess the truth to Rose—hoping she would help him create a new identity to start over.
But upon seeing Serena... did he hesitate? Change his mind?
If it was a homicide, the most likely suspect was this weeping girl before her, wasn’t it?
"I’m going down to the basent."
Rosemary left the study to inspect the man’s body for wounds.
Aside from the bruises from a beating a couple of days earlier, there were no new injuries.
After a thorough examination, Rosemary returned to the study.
The study, lit with a warm glow at one in the morning, seed sowhat eerie against the pitch-black night outside and the occasional rattling of the windows in the wind.
"Did you find out anything?" Eunice was the first to ask.
"There were no signs of a struggle or a fight, nor did he ingest any lethal poison. His hands and feet were bound just as they were before he died—but he definitely died of suffocation."
At these words, Serena’s tears flooded again.
"It really wasn’t . He said he wanted a quick end... could he have not wanted to live anymore? Maybe held his breath until he suffocated himself?"
Rosemary had to clarify.
"It’s impossible for a person to commit suicide without external help, including holding one’s breath."
When pushed to the limit, the brain stem and autonomic nervous system—which control breathing—automatically kick in. They are not governed by conscious thought. It’s not like the brain can tell the body to stop breathing indefinitely without it eventually taking a breath.
In simpler terms, if one holds their breath to the point of brain hypoxia, muscle relaxation would naturally occur, interrupting the breath-holding and preventing death.
"Could it be that he had so kind of disease, a sudden death?" Serena speculated, looking pale with fear.
"I checked. It was chanical asphyxiation, plain and simple. In other words—soone smothered him."
Serena turned even paler.
"Not ! When I saw him covered in blood, I was so scared I went weak all over. How could I have gotten close to him, let alone have the strength to smother him?"
Rosemary’s gaze also turned complex.
Logically, Serena didn’t have the courage or strength to kill a grown man—especially an assassin. If he had wanted to resist, even with his hands and feet tied, he could have easily overpowered a frail girl.
But if not her, could there be a mole inside the house? Or had soone else infiltrated the estate unseen?
However, this possibility was quickly dismissed by Rosemary.
The cri scene still had Serena. If soone had co in with the intent to kill the man and done so in front of Serena, she wouldn’t have survived either—let alone still be here to weep and wail.
Moreover, if soone had wanted him dead, he would have fought back. Yet there were no signs of a struggle.
If he was intent on dying, why would he want to see Miss Collins?
It seed like he wanted to reveal the truth to her—not like soone desiring death.
What on earth was going on?
Rosemary was deep in thought.
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