"Very well, Rehan. I will go deliver those documents right now."

Aileen's voice sounded utterly flat, almost devoid of emotion. Inside her head, those words echoed like a judge's gavel handing down a death sentence upon herself—not because she was surrendering, but because she wanted to see just how far the rotten corruption of the man she had once deeply loved would go.

Rehan looked as though he let out a massive sigh of relief. A fleeting smile of triumph flashed across his face beneath the dim bedroom lights before he swiftly masked it with an expression of fake, tender concern. "Drive safely, darling. Don't speed. The weather outside is terrible. I'll be waiting right here at home for you to return safely."

The secret phone tucked inside my coat pocket is a witness to your lies, Rehan, Aileen thought to herself, clenching her fists so tightly that her nails dug sharply into her palms.

Without wasting another second, Aileen turned on her heel and strode out of the bedroom. Carrying the thick brown envelope, she descended the stairs, leaving behind the luxurious mansion she had once taken such pride in—a home that, in reality, was nothing more than a tiger's den waiting to devour her alive.

Outside, rain poured down in sheets. The nocturnal sky seemed to weep alongside the heartbreak and absolute devastation of Aileen's soul. Flashes of lightning tore through the darkness from time to time, splitting the night with blinding white illumination. Aileen unlocked the door of her luxury sedan, placed the envelope on the passenger seat, and climbed into the cabin, which felt suffocating and cold.

She turned the ignition key. Before pressing down on the accelerator, Aileen stared at her own reflection in the rearview mirror. Her face was deathly pale, her eyes swollen, yet no tears remained. All that burned within her chest was a raging inferno of incandescent fury and profound disgust.

"Goodbye, Rehan. Enjoy your hypocrisy while you still can," she whispered softly to the night wind.

Aileen shifted the car into gear and pulled away from the mansion's courtyard. True to Rehan's instructions, she took the northern mountain route—an isolated secondary path connecting the city to the industrial district across the valley. The road was notoriously deserted, flanked by steep, looming rock cliffs on the left and a pitch-black abyss devoid of proper guardrails on the right. The violent storm severely limited visibility, forcing her to rely entirely on the car's headlights to cut through the thick blackness of the night.

Ten minutes ticked by. The road grew steeper and more desolate. Not a single other vehicle passed by, making the atmosphere spine-chillingly eerie.

Aileen glanced down at the speedometer, which hovered at eighty kilometers per hour. As she approached a sharp S-curve near the Wind Valley, she eased her foot onto the brake pedal to reduce speed.

Suddenly, her heart stopped beating.

Press.

Aileen pressed the brake pedal down harder.

Nothing. The pedal sank straight to the floorboards with zero resistance whatsoever. The brake fluid had been completely drained or deliberately severed.

"No... This can't be!" Aileen screamed in sheer terror, her face instantly turning chalk-white as overwhelming panic struck her.

She pumped the brakes repeatedly, but the car continued to hurtle forward with no sign of slowing down. The tires shrieked frantically against the slick, wet asphalt. At that exact moment, from around a dark bend ahead, a pair of blindingly bright high-beam headlights suddenly pierced through the gloom. A massive heavy-duty truck barreled toward her from the opposite direction, intentionally straddling the middle of the road.

CRASH!

The hired death-truck slammed into the side of Aileen's car with ferocious force. A deafening metallic impact echoed through the howling storm. Aileen’s sedan spun violently out of control, skidded across the road, smashed through the fragile guardrail, and plunged freely into the empty air, hurtling straight down into the pitch-black canyon.

Screeech—crunch!Crash!

Inside the spinning cabin as it violently battered against jagged stone walls and sharp tree branches, Aileen's world dissolved into horrifying chaos. Shards of shattered window glass rained down over her body. The seatbelt held her tightly, but the relentless, successive impacts shattered the bones in her ribs and legs.

Excruciating agony flared through every inch of her body. Warm, fresh blood streamed from a gash on her temple, washing down her face and blurring her vision. The car finally came to a grinding halt, overturning at the bottom of the ravine, utterly crushed and unrecognizable among the wet, tangled brush.

Trapped in the driver's seat, Aileen gasped for breath, small moans of pain trapped deep in her throat. Her lungs felt scorched, starved of oxygen. Pitch-black darkness slowly crept in, stealing away her consciousness piece by piece.

In the final moments of her life, as her breathing slowed and her awareness slipped toward the abyss, memories of the past flickered before her eyes like a fast-forwarded silent film. She witnessed her own foolishness: how she had brushed off her family's outstretched hands, how she had ignored every harsh warning, and how she had discarded the man who had stood faithfully in the background just to shield her.

A cold face that carried an underlying, profound sincerity suddenly surfaced in her mind.

Damian...

Warm tears melted once more at the corners of Aileen's eyes, mingling with the fresh blood staining her cheeks. Right then, as her life slipped away, she finally understood who the man was who had genuinely loved her, and who the monster was that had sought only to destroy her.

"I'm sorry, Damian..." Aileen whispered in a voice so faint it was nearly swallowed by the howling mountain wind and the relentless drumming of the rain outside the wrecked vehicle. "If time could ever be turned back... I would never choose to be this foolish woman again."

Instantly, Aileen’s eyelids grew impossibly heavy. Total darkness claimed everything. Her breathing ceased entirely inside the deadly quiet car.

Yet, amid the eerie silence of the pitch-black ravine, the faint crunch of footsteps descending the steep cliffside echoed through the night. A silhouette lingered at the edge of the precipice, holding a phone close to its ear. The sound of a cold, intimately familiar, and sickeningly triumphant laugh rang out into the air, celebrating her death as an absolute victory.

"Hello, Clara? The job is done. That fool is dead at the bottom of the ravine. Now, all that fortune legally belongs to us."