Chapter 179 The Hidden Hand Behind the Secrets of the Past
Ethan's and Matthew's faces went dark real quick.
Matthew's smile was on the verge of breaking. "You gotta be kidding me, right?"
Catherine chuckled, lifting her chin and giving Matthew a smug look. "Joke or not, you'll find out soon enough. But if it's not a joke, you might not like the fallout."
"Isn't Moon worried about getting slammed for pulling something like this?" Matthew asked.
Catherine shrugged. "If Abyssal Blades had the chops, you wouldn't be stuck at number three. Why aren't you the top assassin group on the dark web? Because you don't want to be?"
'Obviously, it's because they're not strong enough! Thinking Abyssal Blades can get the whole dark web to go after Moon? Keep dreaming,' Catherine thought.
Alexander chuckled. "It's simple. If they die here, no one's gonna know."
Matthew's smile vanished. "What do you wanna know? Just spit it out. You know my memory's crap, I might not remember much."
"First off, what happened when the Howard Family's kid was born?" Catherine asked.
Matthew sighed, signaling Ethan to chill. "Basically, we took the kid from the mom and did a switcheroo. Got it?"
Timothy whipped out a gun and aimed it at Matthew's head. "Talk to her like that again, and I'll blow your brains out and feed them to the fish!"
Matthew laughed, pushing Timothy's gun away. "No need to get nasty. My brain's not tasty. Have some mercy on your fish. We didn't do much; it was mostly the Howard Family's own mess."
The big drama within the Howard Family also cost Alexander his mom. No wonder the Howard brothers were never the same after that.
Catherine frowned. "Second, was Elodie's kid born at Vinehill Hospital?"
Matthew nodded. "Yep, and then we took the kid. We found a dumb woman who wanted to marry Marcus, ambitious but clueless. We gave the kid to her, but I heard Marcus still dumped her."
"Where did Elodie go after that?" Catherine asked.
"Elodie lost her memory. We gave her a random kid, and she left with him," Matthew said.
This lined up with what Jacob had said. If he was right, the kid Elodie took was probably Oliver.
Matthew added, "Later, that Lila helped us a lot. Otherwise, your mom wouldn't have given birth at Vinehill Hospital."
Catherine remembered Marcus saying that Aurora went to Vinehill Hospital to give birth because Lila insisted on it. Looked like Lila had planned it all along.
Lila wanted her niece to marry Brandon because she knew Brandon wasn't her biological son and wanted to set things up for her own family.
As for why Lila treated the Windsor Family's kids badly, it was clear—she had her own granddaughter, Esme, with her!
"Third, who exactly ordered you to do all this?" Catherine asked.
Matthew rubbed his temple, meeting Ethan's worried eyes, and shook his head. "Since you're the leader of the Faceless Ones, you must've been living on the edge for a while. Ever heard of an organization?"
"What?" she asked.
Matthew got serious. "Galactic Aurora Collective!"
Catherine's frown deepened, a storm brewing inside her. "You're saying the ones who ordered you are from the Galactic Aurora Collective?"
Matthew nodded, fear in his eyes. "They're super mysterious globally. Maybe you've run into them before, but what you saw was just the tip of the iceberg. Our orders come from the Galactic Aurora Collective, but we don't know who gives them. They're terrifying. Can you imagine the kind of people who'd gather geniuses from all over the world and forcefully boost their intelligence?"
Just talking about his time at the Galactic Aurora Collective made Matthew shiver. He couldn't even begin to imagine how terrifying those geniuses would be if they survived the inhumane experiments there. "The failures at the Galactic Aurora Collective get brainwashed. The process doesn't always work; if it fails, they turn into idiots. I went there once, but they didn't think much of my intelligence, so they let me go."
Catherine caught the key point. "You weren't brainwashed?"
"Nope, because I didn't want to end up an idiot. I have brothers to look after. They're pretty dumb and can't make it without me. So, I became a pawn for the Galactic Aurora Collective, doing their bidding," Matthew said.
"Who contacted you?" Catherine asked.
Matthew shook his head hard. "I don't know. The messages I got were all over the place. Last time, it wasn't actually Timothy who ordered Marcus to be killed. Our orders were to kill Marcus and Felix!"
So the setup in the hospital room was originally aimed at Marcus and Felix!
Talking about the Galactic Aurora Collective still pained Matthew. "They're too terrifying. I don't dare defy them!"
He clutched his head and started to struggle, falling into intense pain. Those bad memories came flooding back, making it hard for Matthew's still-recovering brain to cope.
Ethan quickly squatted down to massage him.
Catherine frowned as she watched, her heart in turmoil.
'I know better than anyone what the Galactic Aurora Collective is like. I'm one of the survivors. If all those things are orders from the Galactic Aurora Collective...' Catherine thought, her gaze falling on Timothy, whose eyes were somewhat evasive.
"Who was my grandma's teacher?" Catherine asked.
"I don't know!" Timothy replied.
"If you don't tell me, I'll never see you again in this life."
Timothy panicked. "I really don't know. Elodie didn't know my teacher was from Ironclad Jail either. But she did go to the Galactic Aurora Collective."
Timothy didn't know much more. "Even though we're siblings, back in those days, just knowing the other was alive was good enough. Elodie and I rarely contacted each other to avoid implicating each other. That photo is the only thing I have of Elodie."
Because of this, Timothy was so furious when Elodie suddenly died and Marcus married a new wife!
Alexander's gaze was fixed on Catherine. He knew she had countless ties to the Galactic Aurora Collective, realizing she was possibly one of the geniuses forcibly developed in their labs!
Thinking about the inhuman tortures that had once fallen on Catherine's delicate body, Alexander felt his heart begin to ache.
Catherine had experienced such deep darkness!
He reached out and held Catherine's hand, hiding the pain in his eyes. "What else do you want to know? We'll figure it out together. I'll be with you!"
Even if it meant diving into darker depths to uncover the secrets of a now-defunct organization, Alexander would be with her!
Matthew took his medication and let out a long sigh of relief. "Ms. Windsor, I think my brother is a poet. What do you think?"
Ethan pointed to himself, very puzzled. "Me?"
Timothy rolled his eyes. "You're more like a dead man!"
'A poet?' Catherine thought of the things Jacob said after drinking.
Every word replayed in her mind. Those originally confusing words suddenly had a pattern, as if hiding some code.
Catherine's eyes lit up. She looked at Alexander beside her and spoke seriously, "Alexander, I think Juniper's mom might still be alive!"
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