Chapter 425 Taking a Bullet for Him
"Are we still following the plan? Bringing that project back?"
Damian closed his eyes to rest after getting in the car and said weakly, "We'll see."
"Yes."
What's wrong with Damian?
He seems to be in a bad mood.
Did he encounter a tricky problem on this business trip?
Or is it related to Ashley?
It shouldn't be. Damian wasn't with Ashley on this trip.
Besides, Damian was in a good mood the day he left Rochester City, right after he delivered clothes to Ashley's house.
Who pissed him off this time?
Thomas drove back to the city nervously, not daring to say a word.
When the car reached Imperial Residence and was heading to the underground garage, Damian suddenly said, "Go to the villa."
Luckily, Thomas's driving skills were good enough; otherwise, he would have hit the height restriction bar.
Damian usually came here to rest and adjust after a business trip. Why was he going to the villa today?
Was he going to contact Jessica for hypnosis?
Upon arriving at the villa, Thomas didn't dare to say much and waited outside obediently.
Half an hour later, Damian came out after taking a shower and changing clothes. He pressed his long fingers against his temple and sat by the floor-to-ceiling window smoking.
He looked a bit tired, his brows deeply furrowed.
In just half a month, he had lost a lot of weight, his jawline more pronounced, and his gaze even more profound.
Thomas couldn't hold it in any longer. He was afraid that if no one spoke, Damian would sit there forever. "Mr. Hearst, you haven't eaten anything all day. Cloud ManHearston sent some food. Would you like to have a bite?"
Damian closed his eyes, as if this could push many things aside. "I saw her."
Her?
Thomas's first reaction was Ashley, but then he thought again and was almost scared to the ground.
No way!
How could it be?
But if it wasn't who he thought it was, why would Damian be acting so strangely?
Thomas didn't dare to say a word.
After a moment, Damian's cold lips slowly parted, "She was injured, in the chest, almost lost her life."
Thomas heard himself swallow, "Then..."
No wonder Damian took half a month to come back; it was because of that person. That made sense.
Damian said, "If it weren't for her, the one lying in the hospital would be me."
Thomas could roughly guess the situation, but... but, wasn't that person supposed to be dead?
Damian pressed his fingers to his brow, took a deep drag of his cigarette, and the white smoke covered his features, hiding all his emotions in the distant shadows. "She's not dead."
Thomas shivered. He seemed to have forgotten that Damian could guess his inner thoughts by observing his micro-expressions. "So, Mr. Hearst, you went out of town this time because you found news about her?"
When Damian heard the news from his subordinate in Novaria, he didn't have the time or mood to investigate carefully. He flew straight to Imperial City that day. He never thought he would see Selene Peterson again in this lifetime, let alone that she was still alive.
For the first five days after arriving in Imperial City, Damian kept inquiring about related news, but every time he went, he either missed her or mistook someone else.
He began to think that perhaps the clues his subordinate mentioned were a misunderstanding, that the girl who died in the fire was long gone.
How could a dead person come back to life?
He must have been too emotional to think clearly.
On the sixth day, a disheartened Damian was preparing to return home when he suddenly encountered an assassination attempt at the airport.
In a life-and-death moment, she suddenly appeared and took the fatal bullet for him.
By the time Damian realized who the person lying in a pool of blood, disguised as a man, was, she had already fallen into a coma.
From beginning to end, they didn't have time to exchange a single word.
Even after more than ten years, he still recognized her. When she took off her baseball cap, revealing her waterfall-like long hair, his heart ached to the point of suffocation.
It was the second time she had saved his life.
Years ago, she had fought with all her might to give him a chance to survive the fire. This time, she stood up again.
He waited almost ten days, finally seeing her open her eyes. He wanted to talk to her, ask her how she had been all these years, and how she ended up in a distant country, but he couldn't get a word out.
She blocked all his questions and concerns with one sentence.
"Leave. I'll pretend you never came."
It was her, yet it wasn't her.
The innocent and lively girl in his memory was gone. The familiar face on the hospital bed seemed to have been replaced by another soul.
On the way back, Damian's thoughts were a mess, and he couldn't make sense of them.
He arranged for his subordinates to investigate Selene's experiences over the years, but the information they found was scarce.
There was no record of a girl named Selene in Novaria's immigration records.
Nor was there any Selene among the permanent residents.
Damian lit a second cigarette, inhaling deeply, but the nicotine couldn't ease his emotions.
Every time he thought of Selene's indifferent and distant eyes, his heart turned cold.
What had she gone through all these years? Who had she met? Why had she changed so much?
Damian had no answers.
It felt like he was thrown into a vast abyss, with no end in sight, no light.
Damian used tobacco to temporarily relieve the pressure of his emotions, extinguished the cigarette, and said coldly, "Send someone to Novaria. I must know what happened to her all these years."
"Yes, Mr. Hearst!"
Thomas didn't dare to slack off in this matter.
He had known Damian for ten years. They first met at Celestial University. That year, he had just arrived in Sylvania, curious and excited about everything, looking forward to and worrying about the upcoming university life because Celestial University's course load was notoriously heavy.
He had heard that there was a student so outstanding he was like a superhero, simultaneously pursuing degrees in business administration and economics, and was three grades ahead of his peers, already in his senior year.
Out of curiosity, Thomas went to meet this fellow student.
At first, Damian ignored anyone who tried to disturb him, but later, when Thomas was provoked by some foreigners outside the school and was beaten up, Damian stepped in to save him.
His clean and efficient fighting skills showed he was well-versed in combat.
After that, Thomas often sought Damian out to study and hang out together. Damian spoke very little, usually only responding briefly to Thomas's many words, but even so, they gradually became familiar with each other.
One day, Damian bought a bouquet of red roses and placed them in the university's empty garden, standing there silently for a long time.
Thomas didn't understand and asked, "Damian, what are you doing?"
Damian said, "Mourning."
It was the first time Thomas had seen someone mourn the dead with red roses.
Later, Damian went to another university to pursue a Ph.D., and they parted ways.
Damian completed his studies early and returned home, while Thomas was submitting job applications while writing his master's thesis. He was eventually hired by KM and became the CEO's assistant.
Thomas completed his master's thesis early and returned home to start his job.
The first time he stepped into KM Tower and walked into the CEO's office, he realized that the prodigy he had once clung to was actually the president of KM!
His legs went weak at that moment.
Not long after, he accidentally learned that Damian had a childhood sweetheart who had died in a fire a few years ago. That girl was named Selene.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
