Chapter 200 - 199: It Was Asher Who Imprisoned and Harmed Cecilia Caldwell

Chapter 200: Chapter 199: It Was Asher Who Imprisoned and Harmed Cecilia Caldwell

Chase Carter looked at me, his initial mockery slowly turning to terror. "Cecilia Caldwell..."

He used the name Cecilia Caldwell, which meant he knew me, and the sight of me terrified him.

"You’re not dead..." Chase Carter flinched in fear. Then, without even pushing me away, he scrambled up and ran like a madman.

I came to my senses and looked at Asher. "He seems... really scared of me."

Asher took my hand and spoke softly. "He must have mistaken you for someone else. Let’s go home."

"Thank you," Chase Carter’s wife said, her body covered in injuries and bloodstains at the corner of her mouth.

"That’s domestic abuse. You can call the police, or you can divorce him," I said quietly, not wanting to get too involved. I turned to leave with Asher.

"When you can’t bear it anymore, you don’t have to," I faintly heard Peach say from behind me.

When I looked back, she was still standing there with that same dazed, vacant look, comforting the battered woman.

"Asher," I said, following behind him. His attitude toward Peach was baffling. "Peach is Charlie’s sister, isn’t she? You could clearly get her out of this situation, even if she disagrees."

"Everyone has their own life to live. We shouldn’t force our interference on them," Asher said in a low voice.

I frowned, not quite understanding.

"I’ve had the butler send her money many times, but she always refuses it. I’ve even had people forcibly take her away so she could live a better life, but she always manages to escape and come back here, to do what she considers honest work for pay..." Asher’s expression was grim.

He had already tried to help Peach many times. It was Peach who insisted on choosing this life for herself.

I was stunned for a moment and said no more.

On the way back with Asher, I stared out the window, my mind consumed by the journal my mother left behind.

She wrote that Asher had a violent streak, that he had abused me.

"When I was eighteen, I disappeared for a while. Were you the one who took me? Did you imprison me? Abuse me? Is it true?" I asked quietly.

Asher instinctively glanced at me. He obviously knew I had read the journal.

His grip on my hand slowly tightened as he spoke softly. "If I said it wasn’t me, would you believe me?"

"Then who was it?" As I asked, I found myself believing him.

All he had to do was explain.

But once again, he avoided my gaze.

He chose to evade the question yet again.

’So he’s covering for someone...’

"You’re still covering for him." I gave a bitter laugh and pulled my hand from Asher’s grasp.

In the photos, I was on the verge of death from the abuse, my hands bound in iron chains.

I don’t know what I went through back then, but what’s the difference between abusing me like that and being my murderer?

Asher was covering for a murderer, and now he was covering for the person who had hurt me back then.

"Cece..." Asher reached for my hand again.

But I pulled it away.

"I’m a little tired." The car stopped at the villa’s entrance, and I got out, wanting to go home.

I hadn’t taken more than a few steps when I saw Julian Fletcher.

Erin Whittaker’s disappearance had kept Julian Fletcher occupied for a few days, but now he had suddenly reappeared.

"Cece..." Julian Fletcher grabbed my wrist, looking utterly confident. "I found Aunt Carter."

I froze for a second, then looked up at him.

Aunt Carter. She was a nanny who had taken care of me at home.

She was also one of the few people I still remembered.

In my memory, she started looking after me when I was ten. After my parents died in a car crash, I couldn’t afford her nanny fees anymore, so I had to let her go.

After that, I was taken in by the Fletcher family.

"She can prove that he was the one who kidnapped and abused you," Julian said in a low voice, seeming confident that he could take me away this time.

I looked back at Asher, an indescribable pain welling up inside me.

Asher’s expression was dark. It was obvious he wouldn’t agree to let me go with Julian.

But I still had to try. "Tell me. Who was the person who kidnapped and hurt me?"

I wanted to see if Asher would tell me.

Asher stood there, looking helpless and panicked.

He reached a hand out to me, wanting me to come to his side.

On some strange impulse, I wanted to walk over to him, to get closer, but my rational mind... it made me keep pushing him. "Tell me. Who hurt me?"

Asher’s hand, frozen in midair, slowly dropped. He still wouldn’t say.

I nodded and turned to Julian. "I’ll go with you."

A flicker of joy crossed Julian’s face as he took my hand and led me toward his car. "Cece, let’s go..."

I didn’t look back, but I kept waiting for Asher to stop me.

But even as I got into Julian’s car, Asher didn’t say a word.

He just stood there, his head bowed, as if wrestling with a painful struggle and choice.

"I’ll ask you one more time... who was it?" My eyes turned red, and a storm of emotions raged inside me.

’Who on earth could Asher be protecting so fiercely?’

Asher looked up, his eyes glistening as he stared at me. He opened his mouth as if he had spent a long time steeling himself. "Cece..."

"It was me."

He said it was him.

"It was all me..."

He took all the blame upon himself.

He said he did it.

That he was the one who imprisoned me, the one who hurt me.

He would rather have me hate him, despise him, and stay away from him than reveal who really did those things to me!

"I wasn’t lying to you," Julian said, giving Asher a cold look before closing the car door for me.

I watched Asher standing outside and suddenly felt a profound sense of disappointment and sadness.

Asher was clenching his fists so tightly. I could see how much he was holding back.

The wounds on his palms must have reopened from the pressure, dark red blood trickling through his fingers.

"Aunt Carter said that while you were missing, your parents were looking for you everywhere. After they found you, they said Asher had tricked you and locked you up. That he’s a liar."

In the car, Julian explained why Asher had supposedly kidnapped me.

"He said he liked you, but you had already seen he was a madman and wanted to break up with him." Julian pulled a letter from his pocket. "See for yourself. This is something you once wrote to Asher."

The car slowly pulled away. I watched Asher through the window...

He just stood there, completely shrouded in shadow.

I took the letter from Julian and opened it.

The handwriting was definitely mine.

"Aunt Carter found it when she went back to your old residence. Your parents discovered this letter in the basement where he held you captive," Julian explained.

I looked at the letter. My words were cold, my tone resolute.

Asher,

I don’t have any feelings. I only agreed to date you out of curiosity about relationships. I wanted to know what love was, to try everything a normal person should experience.

But reality has proven that no matter how hard you try, I can’t truly fall in love with you. I still can’t have a relationship or normal emotions like a normal person.

Let’s end this. I don’t want to keep deceiving you and myself like this.

Cecilia Caldwell.

In the letter, I was breaking up with Asher.

"When that madman can’t have something, he goes crazy. He’s an out-and-out psychopath, and he’s dangerous." Julian frowned, trying to make me see reality.

"Julian..." I clutched the letter, a sharp pain stabbing at my heart.

Julian looked at me, his gaze intense.

"Stop the car," I said in a low voice.