Against Cruelty, She Grew Strong (by Anastasia Glover) novel Chapter 657

Chapter 657 Twenty Years Of Hate

Her voice dropped lower, quieter-carrying a bone-chilling calm.

“The food was exquisite. The wine was top-shelf. Jack sat at the head of the table, smiling the whole time, toasting everyone, being incredibly gracious.”

“Then, after a few rounds, the first one-Boss Wane-said he needed some fresh air. Never came back.”

She lifted her heavy eyelids, a glint of sharpness cutting through her cloudy eyes, “Next was Chairman Lee Drank too much, had to be helped to rest… vanished too.

“The rest started to feel uneasy. Wanted to leave.”

She let out a soft breath, tinged with the bitterness of red wine.

“But the door had already been locked from the outside. That’s when Jack wiped his mouth, stood up-still smiling.

“He held the knife they’d used to carve the roast lamb. Thin, sharp, gleaming with grease.”

Faye’s fingers traced the rim of her glass absently, “And he just… one by one… like slaughtering livestock…”

Her voice cut off there. She didn’t finish. Just gripped the glass harder, as if squeezing some strength out of it.

But even that couldn’t fight the cold seeping up from her very bones.

“The next day, it hit the news.”

“All those businessmen died together. Cause of death-drug overdose. Hallucinations. They’d hacked each other to pieces.

“The police found huge piles of scheming documents on their computers.”

“Jack pinned everything on them. And just like that, he became the hero who turned it all around.”

Tatiana listened in silence for a long time, then suddenly asked, “How do you know all this so clearly?”

Faye went quiet.

Tatiana caught herself, “Sorry-you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

But Faye just smiled, pulling open her collar to reveal a scar just below her throat.

It was deep-clearly, it had nearly killed her back then.

“I went with my father to that gathering, Jack killed my dad. Raped me. And then he took a decirative howe and arrow off the wall and drove it through my throat

“I got lucky. Someone found me in time

But Jack’s never stopped looking for me all these years. I disfigured half my face, changed my name, and hid in the slums for twenty years.

“I couldn’t leave. I had to see him dead.”

Faye’s grip on the glass was almost venomous now, her knuckles white, her whole body rigid.

Tatiana’s breath caught when she heard that name.

“Yeah. Jack’s son. Liam.

“He was there that night too. When I was bleeding out. I saw him a ten-year-old boy, flashing past. He looks just like his father-I’d never mistake it.”

But they all found that last one hard to swallow

Jack wouldn’t bring his own kid to a hit.

And besides-could a ten-year-old really witness his father butcher people and still grow up so… normal?

More importantly, the Langstrom father-son relationship seemed solid. No signs of any rift.

Foster exchanged a look with Jasper. Their meaning was clear.

Faye’s mental state wasn’t stable. Twenty years of trauma-watching her father die, getting assaulted herself-how could she possibly be all there?

Some of what she said might not be true.

Her last psychiatric evaluation had already flagged paranoia. That’s why she couldn’t testify as a witness.

Testimony from someone with mental illness doesn’t hold up in court.

Foster said, “I’ll look into the first two leads first. Let’s not stir things up yet.”