My mind was in complete chaos. I couldn’t understand what he was saying at all–I only knew that I was really going to be strangled to death by him. Survival instinct made me desperately try to pull the rope away from my neck, but the more I struggled, the tighter Anton pulled. “You must be wondering why I want to kill you, right?” he whispered in my ear. “You’ve always wanted to know who killed Anna, haven’t you? Let me tell you–it wasn’t anyone else. It was me.”
Anton’s words shocked me beyond belief as I stared at him incredulously. He just smiled without explaining further. He said: “Alright, thank you all. If it weren’t for you scapegoats, I wouldn’t have been able to get away with it. Now, go peacefully
to hell!”
Anton applied even more force. My breathing became
increasingly difficult, my brain gradually deprived of oxygen, and my vision began to blur. I no longer had the strength to struggle. Just then, Russell, who had been lying on the ground, actually stood up again.
He attacked Anton from behind. Anton had no time to dodge as the iron hammer came crashing down on his head, blow after blow. The sound of cracking bones echoed harshly through the room. Anton, who had been so arrogant just moments before,
instantly collapsed. But Russell didn’t seem to have any intention of stopping–muttering in a dialect I couldn’t understand, he kept hammering away.
The bloody scene before me made me nauseous, and finally, that long–lost ability to breathe returned. I lay on the ground, wanting nothing more than to escape this living hell as quickly as possible. Fortunately, Russell didn’t chase after me, and I managed to crawl to the doorway. Just then, the emergency call finally worked–two police officers appeared at the door and rescued me.
Due to the critical situation, they immediately rushed me to the hospital. Just as we arrived at the hospital entrance, I heard a gunshot from the third floor, followed by complete silence.
When I woke up again, three days had passed. The doctor said I was physically fine, just severely traumatized, and that the strangulation marks on my neck would leave scars. I didn’t care about any of that–being alive was already a miracle.
But this sudden attack left me filled with confusion and questions. I couldn’t understand why Anton wanted to kill me, or what those words he spoke meant. It wasn’t until the police summoned me later that I learned the whole truth.
It turned out that the story about Sarah’s failed business venture was completely fabricated–Anton was the one who actually owed the loan sharks. The police told me that Anton had privately accumulated over forty million dollars in debt. To
escape responsibility, he made Sarah the legal representative and transferred the debt to her. Then he orchestrated Anna’s kidnapping, sending both Sarah and Elliot to prison to completely shake off his creditors.
And that Diana was nothing more than an actress Anton had hired to make people believe he was a victim.
The only variable in the entire plan was Russell. He had been Anton’s business partner during the startup and was also one of the victims. At the time, Anton had convinced him to invest to protect his own capital, swindling over a million dollars from him. That money was Russell’s last hope–money meant for his wife and son’s medical treatment.
Both his wife and child suffered from hereditary leukemia. He had hoped to turn things around with that investment, but instead was completely deceived. To get revenge on Anton and make him experience the pain of losing loved ones, Russell had driven that truck into the ambulance that day.
With that, all the mysteries were finally solved. The case took a new turn, and Anton’s parents were also re–sentenced. Elliot received eight years in prison, while Sarah’s sentence was reduced to ten years. Russell was sentenced to death for intentional murder.
After leaving the hospital, I left that place behind. Looking back on my thirty–plus years of life, it all seemed like a joke. When I think about how I once wanted to reconcile with Anton, I could
slap myself. He had hidden so well–he was just one step away from succeeding.
From then on, I stopped believing in love and stopped trusting anyone easily. I only hoped that the wounds I had suffered could slowly heal.
So I became a kindergarten teacher, because Anna once said she loved playing with her friends at school the most. Whenever a child calls out to me, I feel like Anna is still by my side. That’s enough.
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