Reborn in the Enemy's Embrace

Dexter was complaining like a child would to his friends.

I took a deep breath and instinctively comforted him. "Ignore him. He’s crazy."

At that, Dexter seemed to lighten up and tightly hugged me.

"Let’s go," Zion said to us after examining the crime scene and making sure there were no suspicious people lingering around.

"We’ve already checked the surveillance footage, Zion. All we saw was a figure who carried Juliet in while she was unconscious. The figure was broad and tall, and they wore a raincoat and a cap. But we could see that he was pretty muscular."

Phil had looked through all the local surveillance footage and could only recover this piece of useful footage.

The killer must’ve neglected this aspect of his plan because the footage was from a camera installed by a local family on the second floor of their home.

Those who didn’t know about this camera wouldn’t have noticed it either.

I peeked at the footage and sure enough, there was only a figure on the screen. But strangely... I felt like this man was different from the one with the burn injuries on his face.

"I feel like... " I couldn’t really pinpoint what was off.

The man who had spoken to me in my home had been like a ghost. Though he was tall, he was still skinny and slightly hunched–over. He wouldn’t appear so muscular even if he was wearing a raincoat.

I didn’t think that he would’ve even had the strength to lift Juliet up.

"Are you able to identify him?" Zion turned to me.

I shook my head. "The camera footage only captured the back, so it’s not very clear."

After that, Phil and some other officers stayed behind to further investigate while we left for the hospital with Zion.

By the time we got there, Violette had already woken up, though she was still feeling the aftereffects of shock.

Good thing she was usually pretty bold.

"How did you end up getting abducted there?" Zion asked, giving her some fruit that he’d brought over.

"I missed Sophia last night after leaving, so I went to her place to look around and..." Violette instinctively glanced at me before looking away.

Violette probably believed me and wanted to see if the killer was truly residing in my home.

"I was just trying my luck. I didn’t expect to actually meet the guy. I was knocked unconscious the moment I stepped through the door," Violette said, getting somewhat agitated.

Zion consoled her, saying, "Don’t be afraid. You’re alright now. Don’t take any actions on your own from now on." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Violette nodded. "The man... was pretty strong. He should be around six feet in height and pretty muscular. I tried grabbing his arm while struggling against him, but his bicep was so big that I couldn’t even hold on to it."

I shook my head, stunned. "No. They’re not the same person... This isn’t right."

The man I saw at home had a face marred with burn scars. And though he was tall, he was ... gaunt. Not at all muscular or strong.

"Could it be possible that... there’s more than one killer?" I nervously looked at Zion. "Possibly two or more?"

Both Zion and Violette grew silent.

We hadn’t discovered anything so far even though the killer had already killed so many people.

"They’re definitely not the same person," Zion said after a long period of silence. "When we were investigating Mildred Silva’s cause of death, we found another piece of footage."

"It was of a smaller–looking figure in a raincoat on the street where Mildred went missing. The figure seemed to be either a woman or a scrawny man."

I instinctively looked at Dexter. He was simply standing there, staying silent without reacting much to anything.

There was more than one killer all acting together in an organized manner. So, there must be someone at the lead giving them instructions...

"Juliet is now free from danger, which means that the killer has failed. And based on their personality, they’ll likely find another opportunity to kill her," Zion looked at his phone. "I hope the killer doesn’t hurt anyone else before killing her. That way, we’ll have time to investigate."

"Since Ms. Violette is safe now, we should get going," I said. I wanted to bring Dexter back home. He was still sick, after all.

Zion nodded. "I’ll have Phil send you guys back."

I shook my head. "No need. We can take the train."

Violette nervously looked at me, her mouth opening in hesitation as if to say something.

Then, I turned around and gestured for Dexter to leave with me. However, he raised his hand and said, "Hold my hand, Sophia."

I turned back and held his wrist, exasperated. "Come on."

"Hold on tight and don’t let go," Dexter whispered.

"Let’s go home."

However, I didn’t hear him clearly the first time, so I looked back at him and asked, "What did you say?"

But in response, Dexter merely smiled at me without saying anything.

"Sophia..." Violette suddenly called out from the hospital bed.

I stopped but didn’t turn back.

It was better for me to remain as Sofia Miller right now.

Dexter held my hand the whole way during the train ride back home as I leaned on his shoulder, deep in thought.

He didn’t question me about why we were using the train and not a car. But I guessed that someone as smart as him would’ve been able to figure out why.

I was afraid of being inside cars whenever it rained. Being on a train surrounded by more people just made me feel safer.

When we got off the train, Ewan and the driver were already waiting for us by the train station entrance.

Dexter furrowed his brows and glanced at me. "Let’s run away, Sophia."

I was surprised. "Run away? To where..."

But before I could finish my sentence, Dexter had already grabbed me by the wrist and ran off into the crowd.

Ewan wanted to run after us, but in the end, he lost us among the crowd.

I ran along with Dexter for a long while and only stopped when I began panting heavily. "Why are you running?" I asked.

In contrast to me, Dexter was neither red in the face nor panting. In fact, he seemed entirely fine.

He sure could run, huh...

"Don’t wanna go back," Dexter answered. He didn’t want to return to the Black residence, probably feeling it to be more like a cage than a home.

"Ewan must’ve already installed a tracker in both of our phones," I said in exasperation.

After all, I was pregnant with the Black family’s flesh and blood, and Dexter was one of the family’s sons. They couldn’t lose either of us, which meant that Ewan was bound to find us too.

However, Dexter didn’t reply. Instead, he took both our phones and seemed to tamper something on them before returning mine to me.

"One day away is fine," he said.

I wasn’t sure what had gotten into Dexter today, or why he wanted to run away, so I decided to simply agree for now. After all, I wouldn’t know where to find him if he ran off by himself anyway.

"Where do you want to go now?" I asked.

"I want to sleep with you, Sophia," Dexter said seriously.

I froze for a moment before looking up and realizing that Dexter had stopped in front of a high–class five–star hotel.

I grumbled, "Why stay in a hotel when you have a perfectly fine home to return to?"

But instead of answering me, Dexter simply tightly held onto my hand, refusing to let me go.

Based on what I knew of Dexter, there had to be some reason why someone as intelligent as him would refuse to go home. It couldn’t have been a spontaneous decision at all.

I wanted to refuse him, but as I looked at how pitiful Dexter was, I simply couldn’t. So, I turned and led him into the hotel, irritated.

Whenever I looked at Dexter, I would think of the orphanage and the asylum.

I had no idea how much suffering Dexter had gone through, but I truly hoped that he had nothing to do with the serial murders.

"You want to stay in a high–class hotel? Didn’t you use to sleep in junkpiles?" I wanted to chuckle as we walked into the grand hotel lobby.

Dexter used to sleep in shabby little spaces like the one in the orphanage back when he was living on the streets. Yet, here he was at a hotel while we were away from home.

"No." Dexter shook his head seriously. "Sophia deserves only the best."

I was surprised. Dexter already said he knew I wasn’t Sophia before...

So, was I now basking in my own glory?

After getting a room, I coaxed Dexter to take a shower.

Then, I got a call from Ewan.

"Mrs. Black, the president of Coleman Group has already been waiting for you and Mr. Black here at home for two hours. He says he wishes to talk to you about a project..." Ewan said, sounding somewhat helpless.

The corner of my lips twitched.

Dexter must’ve made us stay out here at a hotel because he knew that Damien would have gone to find us back home.

He really was terrifyingly intelligent sometimes.