Chapter 423 - 426: The Marshall Family Secretly Sends People into the Country

Mr. Marshall frowned in shock. "What did you say? You want to kill..."

Claire Bennett didn’t mind repeating herself.

"Dad, I’ll say it again. You go clean up the Bennett family’s mess. You find the funds. You deal with appeasing them. I don’t care if the Bennett Family lives or dies. There’s only one thing on my mind right now: how to ruin Wren Sutton, and how to kill her and end this once and for all."

Mr. Marshall’s expression darkened.

He knew his daughter wanted revenge on Wren Sutton, but he never thought she’d want to kill her, especially not in Aston, on the Lancaster family’s home turf.

"Maya Marshall, get a grip! Don’t let hatred blind you into doing something stupid and irreversible."

"This is a matter of life and death. It’s not a game."

His tone was stern, laced with an undeniable warning as he tried to pull his daughter back from the brink of insanity.

"Wren Sutton is the apple of Adrian Lancaster’s eye right now. If anything happens to her, even the slightest accident, Adrian will turn the entire city of Aston upside down to get to the bottom of it."

"At that point, forget about hiding. You’ll drag the entire Marshall Family down with you. The Lancasters will uproot us completely, and our whole family will be buried alongside you. Have you even considered those consequences?"

"Is it worth it? Sacrificing yourself and the entire Marshall Family for Wren Sutton, for a love that doesn’t even belong to you anymore?"

Consumed by jealousy and hatred, Claire Bennett couldn’t hear a word of reason.

"My relationship with Adrian isn’t over! It’s not! It never was!"

"As long as Wren Sutton is gone, as long as she disappears from this world for good, Adrian will see me again! He’ll remember our past, and he’ll come back to me!"

Listening to Claire Bennett’s crazed words, Mr. Marshall felt a pang of anger and pain.

’He knew his daughter was trapped by her obsessive love, unable to listen to a single word of reason.’

Left with no other choice, Mr. Marshall threw out his sharpest, most soul-crushing question.

"Maya, even if you could get rid of Wren Sutton without a trace, could you convince Adrian Lancaster to marry you? To rightfully take your place as Mrs. Lancaster?"

"I can. Of course, I can. Adrian and I have a foundation of love," Maya Marshall answered decisively, full of confidence.

"He used to love me so, so much. Dad, you know all this, so why don’t you believe me?"

Mr. Marshall sighed, his head throbbing as if it were about to explode.

"Maya, wake up. Stop lying to yourself."

"It’s not that I don’t believe you. But... your left leg is a prosthesis. Are you sure Adrian Lancaster can accept that?"

"Besides, the Lancasters have all the evidence and leverage from what happened back then. When they find out your real identity, how are you going to explain yourself?"

"Telling them you’re Maya Marshall will only deepen Adrian Lancaster’s hatred for you."

"And when Adrian follows those clues, the truth about the car crash will be completely exposed."

"At that point, are you still so confident that Adrian will have to have you, that he will definitely marry you?"

His words left Claire Bennett rooted to the spot, as if all her strength had been drained away, instantly freezing her.

A dull, persistent ache spread through her chest.

Claire Bennett looked down at her left leg. Her face turned ashen, and her body began to tremble uncontrollably.

’This was the scar hidden in the depths of her soul, the source of a lifetime of shame and low self-esteem, a flaw she tried with all her might to hide but never could.’

The apartment was terrifyingly quiet. All she could hear was her father’s heavy breathing on the other end of the line. Every word he spoke was like a needle piercing her most vulnerable spot.

Claire Bennett bit her lower lip hard, only releasing it when she tasted the faint tang of blood.

"I can hide it well. I practice my gait every day. No one can tell, even when I wear the most form-fitting dresses. As long as I don’t say anything, as long as I’m careful enough, he’ll never find out."

It was a bluff, and even she didn’t believe it.

On the other end of the line, Mr. Marshall was filled with a mix of anger and heartache.

"Hide it? Maya Marshall, you might be able to hide it for a while, but can you hide it for a lifetime?"

"You... when you’re with Adrian Lancaster, are you just not going to let him touch you? The moment he touches you, how will you hide it? How will you explain it?"

Every one of Mr. Marshall’s questions tore through his daughter’s flimsy facade of self-deception.

Claire Bennett clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from sobbing aloud, but the tears were already streaming down her face.

A long silence followed.

She remained stubborn, her voice rising with the hysteria of someone who had burned all their bridges. "So what if Adrian finds out? So what if he hates me? All I want is for Wren Sutton to die! As long as she disappears, I’ll be happy, even if I can’t be Mrs. Lancaster."

Claire Bennett had completely lost her mind. Devoid of all reason, she started rambling incoherently.

"I don’t care if Adrian accepts my leg or not, I don’t care what he thinks of me. Maybe he has a special fetish. Maybe he’ll like this kind of twisted, perverted relationship."

"Maya Marshall, shut your mouth! Do you hear the things you’re saying?!" Mr. Marshall was about to die from anger, nearly stumbling and falling over.

"Dad, don’t bother trying to persuade me anymore. My mind is made up."

Claire Bennett’s voice grew colder, shedding all its fragility, leaving only a poison-laced resolve. The look she gave her own left leg was filled with a twisted hatred.

"You have to handle the Bennett Family for me. As for everything else, you don’t need to worry about it, and you can’t anyway."

"This time, I won’t fail. And I definitely won’t show Wren Sutton any mercy."

"Even if I have to sacrifice everything, I’ll drag her down to hell with me."

Without waiting for her father to try and stop her, Claire Bennett hung up and tossed the phone into a nearby shredder.

Moonlight streamed through a gap in the curtains, falling on her pale, contorted face.

She slowly lifted her head. The tears were gone, replaced by a deathly, vicious glint in her eyes.

...

「Overseas.」

The call was disconnected, leaving a cold dial tone in its wake.

Mr. Marshall stood before the European-style floor-to-ceiling windows, his usually composed face so dark it looked like it might drip ink.

Footsteps approached from behind. Mrs. Marshall, a cashmere shawl draped over her shoulders, walked over. Seeing her husband’s tense back, her heart was instantly filled with worry.

She had vaguely overheard a few lines of the conversation from outside the door.

"What’s wrong? Did something happen to Maya in Aston?" Mrs. Marshall’s voice held a subtle tremor.

Ever since her daughter had undergone plastic surgery and returned to Aston under the identity of Claire Bennett, she hadn’t had a single peaceful night’s sleep, living in constant fear.

Mr. Marshall slowly turned around and told his wife everything from the phone call, word for word.

From the Bennett Family’s impending bankruptcy to Maya Marshall’s crazed insistence on killing Wren Sutton and taking the Lancasters down with her...

With every word, Mrs. Marshall’s face grew a shade paler. By the time he finished, she swayed and grabbed the windowsill for support as tears fell from her eyes.

"That foolish child. It’s been so long, and she still hasn’t let go of Adrian Lancaster."

"If Maya really hurts Wren Sutton and someone ends up dead, the Marshall Family will be finished. Knowing how ruthless Adrian Lancaster is, our old bones might end up being buried along with Wren Sutton."

"I pleaded with her, I scolded her, I broke down the consequences for her piece by piece, but she’s so blinded by hatred and obsession that she won’t listen to a single word." Mr. Marshall let out a heavy sigh, his eyes filled with exhaustion and helplessness.

"All she sees right now is revenge. She doesn’t care about her identity being exposed or the Marshall Family’s safety. She won’t be satisfied until Wren Sutton is dead."

Mrs. Marshall wiped her tears, her heart in a panic.

"Then what do we do? Are we just going to sit by and watch our daughter jump into a pit of fire? If we let her continue like this, she’ll destroy herself before the Lancasters even have to lift a finger."

"I truly regret it now. I never should have agreed to let her go to Aston."

Seeing his wife’s tear-streaked face and thinking of his daughter’s almost maniacal resolve on the phone, the last trace of hesitation in Mr. Marshall’s eyes vanished, replaced by the decisiveness and cold resolve of the head of the family.

He couldn’t let his only daughter stray further down the wrong path. More importantly, he couldn’t let her ruin her own life and drag the entire Marshall Family down with her because of a moment of madness.

"We can’t wait any longer."

"She’s completely lost her mind and is capable of anything. We’re overseas and can’t control her. If we delay any longer, by the time she makes a move on Wren Sutton, it will be too late for everything."

Mrs. Marshall looked up abruptly, her tear-filled eyes on her husband. "Then what should we do?"

"Send people to Aston immediately," Mr. Marshall decided on the spot, without a hint of hesitation.

"Pick two of the family’s most loyal and reliable confidants. Have them set off tonight. They must enter the country secretly, without alerting anyone, and especially without leaving any traces that the Lancaster family could track."

"No matter what it takes, even if they have to forcibly bring her back, they must get Maya back to us safely."

Mrs. Marshall was taken aback and asked worriedly, "If we bring her back by force, will Maya throw a tantrum? Will she hate us?"

Back then in Aston, she had been forced to sign the consent form for the amputation.

Because of that, her daughter still hated her and refused to forgive her to this day.

"Hating us is better than being dead," Mr. Marshall said, his tone heavy but firm. "Once we have her back, we’ll put her under house arrest at the manor. She’s not allowed to go anywhere."

Seeing the resolute look in her husband’s eyes, Mrs. Marshall nodded through her tears, without a single objection.

"Okay, I’ll listen to you. Arrange for them to leave immediately. The sooner, the better. We must bring our daughter back safely."

With his wife’s consent, Mr. Marshall wasted no more time and immediately called his trusted aides.

In the dead of night at the manor, two of the Marshall family’s most skilled and loyal confidants packed their bags, secretly arranged for their entry into the country, and set off on their journey to Aston.

All of this was observed by the spies the Lancaster family had placed overseas.