His Regret Can’t Bring Us Back Chapter 08
“Dissolve the marital relationship…”
Sebastian murmured the words again, and his face turned paler inch by inch.
His hands shaking, he picked up the divorce certificate and read it over and over.
Black print on white paper, stamped in vivid red.
Undeniably real.
He and Nicole… were divorced?!
Sebastian stood as if nailed to the spot, every limb flooded with bone-chilling cold.
He remembered these past few days—Nicole’s indifferent gaze, her distant expression, the instinctive way she dodged his touch…
So she had decided long ago to divorce him!
But… why?!
The people waiting behind him urged him along impatiently.
He could only rise unsteadily and drag his heavy steps out of City Hall.
Outside, a spring drizzle had started up again.
The cold wind swept over him, making him shiver hard.
Only then did Sebastian realize that his clothes—and his forehead—were already soaked through with sweat.
He stood dazed outside the doors, watching the bustling crowd.
The world was so vast, yet he did not even know where Nicole might go.
Not until this moment did he finally understand—
He did not know Nicole at all anymore: her current likes, her habits. All his memories of such things were still stuck in a long-ago time, back before he joined the criminal investigation unit.
Where she liked to go these years, what she liked to eat—he knew none of it.
But… it had been ten years.
At that thought, a deep, engulfing panic swept over him.
Yes—after all these years, no matter how hard or bitter it got, she had never once said she wanted to leave him. So why now… could she just decide on divorce like that?
“Captain Crawford!” A detective from the unit hurried over, panting. “The bandits—we found them!”
Sebastian jerked his head up.
In a flash, he realized that Nicole had started acting wrong only after she came back from the bandits’ den.
“Everyone, move out. Arrest them immediately!”
He had to find out what had happened that night in the bandits’ den—exactly what!
After a night of surveillance and raids, the bandits who had been on the run quickly fell into the police dragnet.
In the interrogation room.
The bandit ringleader was tied to a chair. When she heard Sebastian mention Nicole, she gave a scornful snort and laugh.
“That pretty boy’s life is tough. We beat her with clubs more than a hundred times—she just spat up a few mouthfuls of blood and passed out.”
Clang—!
The table in front of Sebastian was knocked over in a single shove, crashing loudly.
“What. Did. You. Say?!”
Meeting that gaze, dark to the extreme, the ringleader swallowed reflexively. “I said she’s hard to kill. So what? If you cops hadn’t caught up, would she still have been breathing?”
“You—!”
Sebastian flew into a rage, his fist nearly smashing into her face.
The officer beside him rushed up to stop him.
“Captain, calm down! Follow procedure!”
His eyes were webbed with red veins; the look he gave the ringleader seethed with savage hostility.
“Captain Crawford,” the bandit drawled with a careless laugh, “why are you so mad? And that little boy—he was tossed in at the front of the bandits’ den too.”
Sebastian’s face went white as he remembered Duncan chasing after him on the mountain that day.
“What did you do to Duncan?!”
The bandit gave a snort of laughter. “He’s dead.”
Buzz—!
Sebastian staggered; terror swallowed his finely cut features.
He seized her by the collar, veins bulging on the back of his hand. “You said… who’s dead?”
Duncan—how could he be dead!!!
Wasn’t he staying at his teacher’s house for a few days? How could he have ended up in that pitch-black bandits’ den!!
Had he told the guard to send Duncan home, and she had not done it?!
“Sebastian.”
Dominic’s voice suddenly sounded behind him.
With reddened eyes, he turned—and saw a group of people in uniform.
They were from the State Ethics Commission.
Dominic looked grave. “You and Nicole are spouses? Why did you conceal it and fail to report it?”
Sebastian stiffened. “Chief Ortega, I—”
“Enough.” Dominic cut him off. “That’s not the point. The point is, you handled the case without following the recusal rule for family members. You violated discipline!”
He looked at Sebastian with a hint of exasperation. “You’ve been a detective for so many years—how could you lose your head over something like this?”
Someone from the commission handed over a notice of suspension pending investigation. “Captain Crawford, take some time to rest. We need to conduct further inquiry into your situation.”
Sebastian stood there blankly for a moment, then accepted it with stiff fingers.
He heard his own hoarse voice. “Understood… I will comply with the organization’s arrangements.”
He walked out the police station doors—and happened to see a familiar figure ahead.
—Anastasia!
Sebastian’s expression sank at once, and he strode over.
“Anastasia!”
A slender, upright figure hurried to her and clamped down hard on her wrist.
Meeting Sebastian’s bloodshot eyes, she instinctively tried to step back.
“Why did you lie to me?!” he roared.
She yanked her hand back and shot back loudly, “What did I lie to you about?!”
Sebastian looked at her stubborn refusal to admit it and let out a cold laugh. “Do you think I’m stupid? The case has been fully cleared. You hired a bunch of thugs to pose as bandits, and you drugged Nicole and took her there. Why did you do it?!”
Anastasia stood there biting her lip, her chest heaving.
She suddenly lifted her head, eyes red-rimmed. “Yes! I framed her—so what?!”
“You—!”
“She was the one who provoked me first! I showed concern for her out of kindness, and she turned around and smashed things and drove me out! As for framing her—do you think I wanted to?!”
“Eunice is dead. She died at the bandits’ hands—there wasn’t even a whole body left. I had nowhere to put all my hatred. I wished I could carry a knife and stab those bandits to death myself. I did all this just to make you investigate faster and catch them!”
Anastasia broke down sobbing, screaming herself hoarse at him.
Hearing about Eunice’s death, Sebastian drew a deep breath and, in the end, softened his voice.
“But Nicole—she’s innocent.”
Anastasia wiped her tears and gave a cold laugh. “Yes, she’s innocent. I’m the one who deserves to die.”
Seeing her despair, Sebastian frowned and ultimately did not press further.
He left behind only, “If Eunice were still alive, she wouldn’t want to see you like this,” and turned to go.
Sebastian went to the hospital.
He remembered that so-called “tomato sauce.”
If Anastasia had framed Nicole, then it was very possible she had been lying again and again.
He had to get to the truth.
And… how badly had she been hurt in the bandits’ den?
When the doctor who had treated Nicole heard why he was there, she had intended to refuse. But Sebastian was the famed captain of the criminal investigation unit, and considering it might involve the case, she still brought out Nicole’s medical file.
Sebastian took it—and flinched at the weight in his hands.
“Why are there so many pages?”
The doctor sighed. “That girl has had a hard life. I don’t even know how it happened—her last injuries weren’t even healed, and then she came in covered in new ones.”
“There were several times she was in critical condition. I told her to call her family, and she said she didn’t have any…”
Sebastian’s lashes trembled. “Critical condition?”
The doctor nodded. “Yes. Severe beating, some fractures, internal organ rupture. Her son was only five, and he was beaten to death.”
In just two short sentences, it was like a poison-coated blade stabbing straight into his heart.
Snap—!
The string inside Sebastian finally broke!
When Nicole had been sent into the bandits’ den by his own hands… Duncan had been taken too, by accident?!
“How could this happen?”
With trembling hands he kept flipping pages, each listed injury and diagnosis stabbing his eyes red.
How could she have been hurt this badly?!
And he had not known—nothing at all!
Sebastian staggered back a step, drowning in crushing remorse and heartache.
“Why did nobody notify me about any of this?”
“With things this serious, how did she endure it alone in the hospital?!”
The doctor frowned. “Are you her family? You didn’t know she was in the hospital? Why didn’t you come yourself?”
“I—”
Sebastian opened his mouth, but in the end he could not speak.
Yes—what had he been doing then?
He had been busy staying by Anastasia’s side as she threatened to die, busy coaxing her to eat properly, to sleep properly.
While leaving his battered wife and his five-year-old son in the bandits’ den.
After she had suffered the heartbreak of being personally delivered to that den by her own husband, she then suffered the agony of losing her child—and in the end she carried it all alone.
Sebastian staggered back another step; the medical file hit the floor at his feet, pages scattering everywhere.
At a loss and in despair, he squatted down, covered his face with both hands, and tears and sobs spilled through his fingers.
However, the next second—
He saw yet another truth that tore his heart to pieces.
