Chapter 331 It’s Too Late for Regrets
Irwin trembled as he continued, “I treated Rae like my own granddaughter. She wept so hard and insisted that I release you. I thought… I was thinking that it wouldn’t be easy to deal with a ten-year-old child, anyway. If you were released, then so be it. Besides, it’s impossible for you to escape far in the forest located so deep in the mountains. You could never go home—”
Before he could finish speaking, Justin suddenly lifted him up by his neck. “What the hell are you talking about!? The person who rescued me was a little girl named Katie! How could it have been Rae?!”
The man was shaken so badly that he could barely breathe. “Rae… is Katie…”
Those words were undoubtedly a huge shock that exploded violently in Justin’s mind. Rae is Katie?! That’s impossible! “Explain clearly!”
“President Burton, he has already passed out!” Frankie saw what had happened from the side and quickly stepped forward to stop Justin. He was afraid that if things were to continue, it would only lead to the man’s death. “Hurry up and send him to the hospital.”
Irwin was an old man. Moreover, he was bleeding non-stop from where his finger had been chopped. If they did not send him to the hospital soon, there was a high possibility that he could die from extreme loss of blood.
Justin snapped back to his senses. “Send him to the hospital! Contact the hospital!”
This old man is the only person who knows the truth of what happened back then. I can’t let him die. His hands were covered in blood and his thoughts were a chaotic mess while they were on the way to the hospital. How could Rachel be Katie?
All the clues from the past suddenly surfaced in his mind. Rachel had been kidnapped and sold when she was a little girl. Her grandmother had a good relationship with Irwin as the two of them were neighbors. Jefferey brought back an illegitimate daughter twenty years ago and claimed that she was a congenital mute…
Along the corridor in the hospital, Frankie hurried over with a document in his hand. “President Burton, this is the hospital’s medical records.”
Justin took the documents. His complexion immediately turned pale at the sight of Rachel’s name on the document. After pursuing the medical records written inside, he stumbled without any warning and had to lean against the wall just to barely maintain his balance.
Rachel’s muteness was not congenital. The cause for her condition was clearly written on the medical record—she had sustained damage to her vocal cords in a fire twenty years ago. The record also contained the signature of her attending doctor, Julian Peters.
Rachel is Katie from back then. She is the Katie who saved my life in the past. I thought she was dead. Justin went through a lot just to succeed the Burton Group on his own for the sake of avenging Katie. He later discovered the financial loophole in Hudson Pharmaceuticals, suppressed them, got hold of Jefferey’s weakness, and tried to bring Jefferey down.
However, as it turned out, the person he took revenge on was the same person who rescued him in the first place.
“If she is Katie, then why did Jefferey set the fire? He set his own daughter on fire!” Justin leaned against the wall and muttered to himself. All of a sudden, he recalled the scene that he witnessed during the fire.
The burning thatched cottage had revealed a woman’s figure on the ground while the man who emerged from the house wore a vicious expression. Even across the hill, the two children had clearly witnessed the scene. Justin could still remember the coldness in that man’s eyes even though so many years had passed. So, that was the person whom Jefferey sent to kill Rachel’s mother, Selena Hudson. He then set fire to erase the evidence and disguised the murder as an accident instead.
The secret room hidden inside Jefferey’s study in Hudson Vineyard flashed through his mind. The innocent woman who died in vain…
An influx of images filled his mind, which all pointed to Rachel’s real identity. There was no doubt that she was Katie from back then.
“Blaargh.” Justin abruptly coughed up a mouthful of blood.
“President Burton!” Frankie exclaimed in shock and hurried forward. “Are you alright, President Burton!? Doctor! Doctor, come and take a look!”
However, Justin pushed Frankie aside and staggered away before he suddenly burst into hysterical laughter. “I was wrong! I was wrong! Rachel, I was wrong!”
I found the wrong person. I took revenge on the wrong person. All the evil consequences should have fallen on me, but, why!? Katie has never done anything wrong! Why does she have to be unfairly victimized just because she met me? I was wrong! I was very wrong!
The scenes from five years ago flashed through his mind once more. When he recalled everything, he felt as though he was suffocating. He leaned against the tables and chairs while trying to head toward the exit with great difficulty.
Thud. He collapsed on the ground again. Before he lost consciousness, he saw Frankie entering the room and running toward him.
…
It was afternoon by the time Rachel had finished her phone call with the person in charge of the pharmaceutical factory.
A delighted Jolly said, “This is great! The land around here now belongs to us. We can build a warehouse or even expand the factory if we want to!”
“You must be dreaming.” Rachel laughed. “We don’t need to build a warehouse since we already have one. As for the factory, I don’t need to tell you how complicated the approval process is for industrial land, right? How can it be that simple?”
It was something that Jolly didn’t take seriously. “At least we don’t need to lower our heads to that despicable villain, Justin Burton. That’s enough to make me delirious with joy. He thought he had our weakness. Hmph! In his dreams!”
“The Burton Family has deep roots in Riverdale after all. We will have a lot of business dealings with them, so he will have many opportunities to make things difficult for us in the future.”
“What are you afraid of!? You have me!”
“Hmm?” Rachel raised her eyebrow at Jolly.
Jolly immediately changed her stance. “Even if I’m powerless, I still have my parents. Hehe.”
While they were conversing with each other, Rachel’s phone rang. “Hello?”
“President Hudson, please come to the hospital.”
“What’s wrong?”
“President Burton suddenly passed out and is receiving emergency treatment in the hospital right now.”
Rachel frowned slightly at those words.
Jolly was standing next to Rachel at the time. When she noticed that Rachel’s expression seemed strange, she clarified, “Who is it?”
Immediately after that, Rachel activated the loudspeaker function on her phone and placed it on the table.
Frankie’s anxious voice came from the other side of the phone. “President Burton has been frequently suffering from headaches and dizziness for the past two days. He fainted not long after the call with you earlier today. The doctor said that he has a blood clot in his brain that has impacted his cranial nerves and requires brain surgery. He has been on the operating table for about half an hour now.
Without waiting for Rachel to speak, Jolly grabbed the phone and said angrily, “So, he has a blood clot in his brain. What does that have to do with us!? How dare you even mention that phone call! That phone call was something Justin himself made. What’s this? Are you trying to deceive us?”
“Miss Carter, I really didn’t mean it that way. President Burton is in critical condition right now, but he doesn’t even have a single family member around him—”
“So what? How is Chris a part of his family?”
Frankie was on the verge of crying. Even so, he had no way of winning against Jolly in an argument. “President Hudson, please come. If something were to go wrong, I am sure President Burton will wish to see you.”
Rachel glanced at the phone. A moment later, she responded indifferently, “I’m sorry. I don’t have the time. Once I’m done dealing with the matters on hand and have the time, I will visit him at the hospital.”
He was desperate. “President Hudson! What if the surgery goes wrong!?”
She replied, “In that case, I will take the time to attend his funeral.”
