Chapter 580: Worse Than a Beast

From Clark Summers’s halting confession, the rest of the story became clear.

Howard Fletcher had long held a grudge against the Summers family. After learning that his father had received such a "mission," he urged him to come to the Summers Villa before carrying it out. The plan was to use the ensuing chaos to eliminate the family and seize their supplies.

When Cameron Summers and Clark Summers learned of this, they went to Jason Fletcher, confessed their connection to the Summers family, and volunteered to join him to get a piece of the pie.

Clark Summers was a sobbing mess, his face full of remorse as he said, "Cousin, I know I was wrong. I shouldn’t have agreed to their plan. I shouldn’t have helped outsiders harm our own family! I’m an asshole! I’m an animal!"

"But I really don’t want to die... I’m begging you, please give me one more chance! I’ll never do it again!"

Melody Summers looked at Clark Summers coldly and asked the last question on her mind. "Clark, tell me honestly... did your mother really run off with another man?"

Clark Summers went rigid, as if he’d never expected Melody Summers to ask such a question. His eyes widened in surprise and his mouth hung open. The expression looked almost comical on his tear-streaked face.

Melody Summers stared intently at Clark’s face, not wanting to miss the slightest change in his expression.

Melody had never believed that a woman like Jade Rowan would run off with another man for a bit of food. It just wasn’t in her character.

If Jade Rowan were the type to run away, she wouldn’t have endured the pressure of his gambling debts and stayed with Cameron Summers for all those years.

Whatever Clark Summers was thinking, his face suddenly turned deathly pale. He clenched his jaw and said nothing.

Melody Summers grew impatient. She pressed the gun against Clark’s head and said with narrowed eyes, "You’re not going to talk, are you..."

Staring down the dark barrel of the gun, Clark Summers immediately changed his tune.

His eyes widened in terror, and he stammered, "...I’ll talk! I’ll talk! Don’t kill me!... It was all because of my dad!"

Clark raised a hand to cover his eyes, putting on a show of breaking down. He sobbed, "...On the road during the evacuation, we accidentally got separated from the main government convoy and ran into some robbers..."

"Dad took some of their supplies... and sold Mom to them..."

And the supplies they’d gotten from selling Jade Rowan had already been gambled away to Jason Fletcher by the father-son duo.

When Melody Summers heard this, she could no longer suppress her rage. She slapped Clark Summers across the face and shouted, "Clark! Are you an animal? That was your own mother!"

A father and son conspiring to sell their wife and mother... even a beast wouldn’t do something like that!

Cameron Summers and Clark Summers were worse than beasts!

Clark was stunned by Melody’s slap. He looked up at her, dazed, and said reflexively, "But... but Mom was willing... If we hadn’t sold her, Dad and I never would have made it to the city..."

As soon as the words left his mouth, Melody’s expression darkened even more.

Realizing he’d said the wrong thing, Clark quickly covered his head and shouted, "No! No, no! Cousin, I was wrong! I didn’t mean it like that! It was Dad who insisted on selling Mom! I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t!"

Clark frantically wiped his face, then scrambled to his knees before Melody, begging relentlessly. "Cousin! I’m your blood cousin! You can’t kill me! You’ve already killed my dad. Are you really going to be so cruel as to not even leave him a descendant?!..."

He suddenly stopped mid-sentence.

His gaze went past Melody, toward the space behind her, and he mumbled, "Grandma?... What are you doing here?"

Melody froze for a second, then glanced over her shoulder toward the doorway.

In that instant!

Seizing the opportunity, Clark snatched the long knife off the ground and swung it viciously at Melody’s neck!

The blade reflected Clark’s savage eyes as it chopped straight for Melody’s throat.

However, Clark overestimated his own speed and underestimated the speed of a firearm.

Before his blade could even touch Melody, a gunshot rang out—BANG! A bullet tore into his chest.

The bullet passed straight through Clark’s body, exiting his back in a spray of flesh and blood mist.

Clark’s body stiffened. A second later, his head drooped, and he collapsed rigidly to the ground. The long knife in his hand fell with a CLANG at Melody’s feet.

The backyard fell silent, leaving only Melody and the five corpses on the ground. The air was thick with the stench of blood, and in the distance, the faint sounds of gunfire and explosions echoed.

Gun in hand, Melody swept the villa from top to bottom. Once she confirmed there were no other threats, she returned to the basement and called out, "Grandma, Miss Lowell, Aunt, Nina, you can come out now. It’s safe."

After climbing out of the basement, Grace Sutton grabbed Melody, looking her over from head to toe. "Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?" she asked fretfully. "You child, you locked the door from the outside! You nearly scared us to death!"

Melody had locked the door from the outside, trapping them in the basement. All they could do was listen to the gunshots, worrying helplessly. The experience had terrified them.

Listening to Grace Sutton’s fretting and seeing the worried looks on her grandmother and Miss Lowell’s faces, Melody said reassuringly, "I’m fine. Aunt, all of you, don’t worry. The intruders who broke in are all dead... It’s just..."

She trailed off, her expression troubled.

’She didn’t know if she should tell the family about Cameron Summers and Clark Summers.’

’She had considered hiding Cameron’s and Clark’s bodies in her space and keeping the whole thing a secret... But that didn’t feel right. The family deserved to know the truth about their deaths.’

’Besides, hiding it forever wasn’t a sustainable plan. If Cameron’s family were later declared missing, her family would just keep worrying about whether they were alive or dead.’

Seeing Melody’s troubled expression, Grace Sutton asked quickly, "What’s wrong?"

Melody gritted her teeth and decided to tell them the truth.

She took her grandmother’s hand and said softly, "Grandma... you need to prepare yourself for what I’m about to say..."

Seeing Melody’s solemn expression, her grandmother’s eyelid twitched. Her heart began to pound as countless possibilities flashed through her mind.

Just as her grandmother braced for the worst, she heard Melody say softly, "...Among the robbers who came today were Cameron Summers and Clark Summers..."

And so, Melody recounted everything that had just happened, telling them the whole truth as she knew it.

"...And that’s what happened." After she finished, Melody watched her grandmother’s face with concern. She was worried the news of her son and grandson’s deaths would be too much to bear and was ready to give her the "S Level Far Sea Secret Medicine" at a moment’s notice.