The man seemed to anticipate Isabella’s reaction. He laughed and said, “Ha! We knew you would deny it. But they were all diagnosed with leukemia less than a month after starting work here. I now have the diagnoses of a dozen other employees. Ms. Wright, you’re going to jail!”
After that, the man gave a sinister smile. He didn’t care what Anna would do to him. This would be even more convincing if the incident of Lemon’s boss beating the victim made headlines.
“Oh, no!”
Anna was very calm, but Julia couldn’t stop Isabella anymore. She had no choice but stood there and watch as the young girl smashed the bag in her hand at him.
The packed crowd became more agitated after Isabella did so. They had been waiting for the right moment. And they took advantage of the situation.
Someone in the crowd threw a wooden sign in his hand at Anna. The wooden sign brushed against her shoulder with a loud clang and collided with the ground behind her.
Before the second one hit Anna in the head, she felt someone behind her pull her backward. She turned around, and the girl in the white dress appeared behind her.
“Isabella!”
It was too late by the time Anna tried to push Isabella away. Anna’s brain went blank in that instant. A wooden sign hit Isabella’s body heavily and made a dull sound, causing many chips were floating in the air.
Anna closed her eyes, not daring to look at the scene in front of her. Despite hearing the sound, Isabella did not experience the anticipated pain. She began to regret what she had just done and sweat all over.
Suddenly, someone pressed against her shoulder. When she opened her eyes, she saw a young man in a white T-shirt trying to support her body with his arms. She’d only met him once but trusted him after a brief hesitation.
“James!” Isabella shouted and touched James’ head in a panic, only to discover that he was bleeding.
After taking James to the hospital, Anna found all the major media outlets scrambling to cover the story. Then Anna stood in the hospital hallway, her back to the wall, reading the news on her phone. She appeared exhausted.
“People are demonstrating in front of Lemon Clothing, and someone has revealed a shocking secret! Lemon profits from toxic fabrics and more than ten workers have been diagnosed with leukaemia.”
After a while, Nancy approached her and handed her a cup of iced coffee. They both appeared tired as they stood together against the wall.
“If you need any legal advise, you can ask Joshua for help,” Nancy said.
Anna nodded and took several sips of her coffee.
Isabella stayed in James’s room to take care of him while Anna visited Peter in the intensive care unit. People kept calling Anna all the time. She returned to the office immediately later and felt distraught.
All of the earlier orders Anna had worked so hard to complete were canceled that afternoon. After hanging up the phone, Anna sat down in her chair, and then the phone rang again.
She answered the phone, “Hello. Ryan? You want to talk to me about something? Yes, I’ll be there right away.”
Twenty minutes later, in a small Japanese restaurant, Anna and Ryan sat across from each other. Anna had almost fallen asleep against the couch by the time Ryan had finished ordering. She tried to open her eyes and said, “There’s a Japanese restaurant right next to my office. Why are you meeting me here?”
She looked around at her surroundings. It was narrow and cramped, dimly lit, and filled with smoke from the open kitchen. Anna had no idea why Ryan had chosen this place.
“The tempura here is fantastic.” Ryan explained it briefly. “I watched the surveillance video you sent me and printed off some suspicious images,” he said, pulling a stack of papers from his briefcase.
“What exactly is going on?” Anna flipped through the stack of photos but found nothing suspicious.
Later, Anna realized that some of the images were not from the surveillance footage she had found. She became more serious as she realized things were not so simple.
Ryan showed her some of these photos and told her, “This is a video screenshot of the woman pushing Mona down the stairs. I found something in this picture. Take a look here, Anna.”
Anna looked at the third image Ryan pointed to. She couldn’t tell which part of the image it was because it was zoomed in.
“This is the back of this woman’s hand. We refined the image after zooming in on it. Look at that tattoo.” Ryan pointed to another picture that had a plant with two leaves and a curved moon in the middle. The woman had that tattoo.
“It’s only a tattoo. What does that imply?” Anna didn’t quite get it.
Ryan elaborated, “A year ago, the Irish police cracked a big drug trafficking case. The gang used religion to recruit people for drug trafficking, prostitution, and gambling. They called their so-called religion Crescentism, and this pattern is their symbol.”
Anna asked in surprise, “So, you mean this woman is a member of their gang? And she’s Irish?”
Ryan didn’t deny it. Then he showed her a few screenshots of the surveillance footage.
Seeing the screenshots, Anna was taken aback and felt a shiver running down her spine. “What’s wrong with them?” she asked.
“He was too far away from the surveillance, and it was late at night, so the shots were blurry. Later that night, I watched every surveillance video of the hospital. I finally found him on surveillance video in front of the first-floor bathroom.”
The last picture was not from the footage she had found. However, this made her feel extremely uncomfortable and shocked her. A few seconds later, she said in surprise, “They both have the same tattoo!”
Ryan nodded.
In the screenshot, Anna saw a man in a mask and a cap. He’d just gotten out of the bathroom and was kneeling on the floor, tying his shoes. And Anna could see the tattoo on the back of his neck in that image. Anna was correct in her suspicions. But when she was confronted with all of this evidence, she became overwhelmed.
Ryan noticed that Anna was becoming increasingly frustrated. He lowered his gaze and pursed his lips as if thinking about something. “Actually, there’s one more thing,” he said after a long pause.
Anna felt the world shake in front of her and began to sweat. “Go on,” she said, despite feeling pain in her abdomen.
Ryan’s final display to Anna was a photograph of the people protesting in front of Lemon that afternoon. The image had appeared in every relevant news report. What puzzled Anna was that it had been stolen from Lemon’s office building’s bay window. However, Ryan was preoccupied with something other than who had taken a photograph.
Although the image was blurry, Anna recognized the tattoo on the back of the neck of the man who happened to have his head down. It was the exact same tattoo.
Though become less shocked and more composed, Anna was experiencing growing discomfort. She had to hold on to the table to keep from falling over.
“Ryan, I’m exhausted. Please send me home.” Anna stood up, saying tiredly.
Ryan realized there was something wrong with her and immediately ran after her. She came to a halt just as she was about to leave the restaurant, paused for a moment, and then returned.
She trembled as she stared at a picture of the best employee of the year on the wall next to the counter. Then she raised her head and looked Ryan in the eyes as if asking him with her eyes whether the man in the picture was also a gang member.
Ryan nodded tacitly and said, “He works the night shift every day, so he’s not here right now.”
Anna felt a sudden roar in her ears as Ryan finished speaking. The world then spun like a washing machine drum.
Unconscious, Anna had a vision. She was lying on a patch of green grass in her dream. The sky was blue, the water was clear, and a light floral scent was in the air.
“Anna.”
Someone was calling her name. As she stood up, she noticed Mona waving at her. She wanted to run towards her right away.
However, the next second, Mona’s face twisted and contorted, and her entire body vanished from the image. Then the people around her began to vanish in the same way: Peter, Selina, Peace… She desperately grabbed the hand of the person beside her and began to run frantically.
While running, she noticed that the face of the person beside her was distorting and disappearing. The blue sky turned blood-red as if it were made of blood. She smelled the strong scent of blood and heard a voice from the sky, “Go to hell!”
“Wayne!”
Anna jerked awake and rose from her bed. When Wayne saw how terrified she appeared, he took her hand in his and wrapped her in his arms, saying, “I’m here, sweetheart.” His firm voice calmed her down.
“I had a nightmare.” Anna pressed her face against Wayne’s muscular chest, closing her eyes. She inhaled the smell on his body hard as she realized he was the only one who could put her mind at ease.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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