Too Late For Redemption Chapter 01
Luna Evans, the most beautiful woman in the upper class, had been kidnapped.
The kidnappers started a live stream in a dark underground warehouse, uploading videos of her being whipped or explicit photos to the dark web every five minutes.
They demanded a ransom of one million to let her go.
The upper class elite sneered. Who didn’t know that her husband, Leo Carter, had withstood the pressure of his entire family to marry her back then?
One million wasn’t even enough to cover the cost of a single piece of jewelry he had given her.
But the videos kept coming, uploaded right on time for ten whole days, until Luna’s clothes in the live stream were soaked in blood, and not a single patch of intact skin was left exposed.
On the tenth day, Leo finally arrived, late as ever.
He motioned for his subordinates to turn off the live stream, sat in the middle of the sofa, and looked down at her, speaking flatly.
“Luna, I’ll give you three minutes. Tell me, where did you hide Mia Hall?”
Luna looked at him with red eyes, biting her lip so hard she refused to speak.
He sighed, dropping to one knee to wipe the bloody water from the girl’s face, but his eyes held no warmth.
“Look around our circle. Who hasn’t kept a canary or two? You will always be the only Mrs. Carter. Be a little more generous, hmm?”
“Mia is a thankless parasite who sold me and my mother to Richard Carter back then! How do you expect me to be generous?”
Tears welled up in Luna’s eyes, and she bit the man’s arm with bitter hatred!
Mia was her older half-sister, five years her senior.
Back then, she and her mother had finally managed to escape from the human traffickers’ village and kindly took her with them, only for her to turn around and sell their whereabouts to Richard!
The man paid no mind to his bleeding arm, merely continuing to wipe her blood while patiently explaining.
“Mia was young and too naive back then. She was tricked by Richard; she didn’t do it on purpose.”
Luna sneered.
Back then, from inside a wooden cage, she had watched with her own eyes as Mia accepted stacks of cash to sell her and her mother’s whereabouts. How was that naive?
“Leo, what if I told you I killed her?”
The hand wiping the blood from her neck suddenly tightened.
“How long has your mother been in the hospital with leukemia? Are you willing to go to jail and leave her to fend for herself?”
Luna gasped, her pupils shrinking sharply.
“I don’t have time to drag this out with you.”
The man stood up impatiently.
“I had someone find a bone marrow match for my mother-in-law. If you don’t tell me Mia’s address in ten seconds, I’ll have the donation canceled.”
The surveillance footage of Stella Evans lying in a hospital bed appeared on the large screen.
The girl sprawled on the floor scratched her nails until they bled, staring at her frail mother on the screen.
“Leo! How could you…”
“Ten, nine, eight…”
Stella cried out weakly in pain, and the girl’s psychological defenses completely collapsed.
“Three, two…”
“In Vienna…”
Upon hearing the full address, the man immediately turned around, and his assistant went to book a flight right away.
Luna rushed out of the warehouse doors, flagging down a car to head to the sanatorium.
Everyone in the upper class knew how much Leo loved Luna.
He loved her so much that he bore all the criticism and infamy just to marry Luna, his stepsister from their blended family.
In the beginning, the two were sworn enemies.
Leo cut off Luna’s braids, and she tore his backpack and homework to shreds; the man threw away the oil painting she was going to submit for a competition, and she smashed his favorite piano; he reported her to the school for cheating, costing her a guaranteed admission spot, and she made a single phone call to his startup’s business partner, ruining three years of his hard work in an instant.
It wasn’t until Luna was fifteen that her mother was hospitalized after a severe domestic dispute.
Drunk and reeking of alcohol, Richard showed his true colors right in the hospital lobby.
“I spent a fortune buying you, only to find out you’re not even a daughter of the Evans family! You useless piece of trash!”
Luna had abandoned her high school entrance exam, sprinting out of the car toward the hospital entrance, only to be violently yanked back by someone behind her.
“So… your mother didn’t seduce my father after all?”
The girl glared at Leo, raising her hand to deliver a resounding slap across his face.
“My mother is no homewrecker!”
The years of hatred in his eyes shattered, leaving behind nothing but shock and guilt.
But Richard had gone mad with rage, charging at the girl with a baseball bat in hand.
Leo yanked the girl into his embrace just as blood splattered through the air.
A week later, Richard was sent to prison.
When Leo woke up, he found Luna crouching and crying under a streetlight outside the hospital in the dead of night.
In just one short month, fifteen-year-old Luna had missed her high school entrance exam, her mother was diagnosed with leukemia, her stepfather was imprisoned, and her eyes were beaten so badly she was left severely nearsighted.
He crouched down and gently ruffled her hair: “Don’t cry. You have me from now on.”
She gripped the collar of his hospital gown fiercely. The man didn’t resist; he merely traced the contours of her bruised eyes with aching tenderness.
From that day on, Leo spoiled her rotten, paying for her education and elevating her to become the most sought-after fashion designer in the industry.
At their wedding, he said.
“I care nothing for others’ judgment. I only want to spend my whole life by your side.”
Broadcasted live to the entire city, the two shared a fiercely possessive kiss.
Luna believed Leo was heaven’s compensation for her tragic past.
That was, until their fifth year of marriage.
She heard rumors that Leo was keeping a model on the side. When she went to catch him in the act, she discovered the mistress was none other than Mia, whom she hadn’t seen in years!
She smashed the furniture in their home like a madwoman, and even went to the police station to report Clara Hall for human trafficking. But Leo swept it all under the rug, dismissing her actions as mere tantrums, and punished her by freezing most of her bank accounts.
Even when Clara shoved her at a banquet, causing her to fall and miscarry—Leo merely stated coldly that he wanted a DINK lifestyle and didn’t want children anyway.
Furious, she forced Mia out of the country, only to be kidnapped the very next day.
The man who once vowed to spend his life with her was now using her mother to threaten her, all for the sake of his mistress.
Luna pushed open the door to the hospital room.
The room was crowded with doctors, and a terrible sense of dread rose in her chest.
“Mom!” She rushed to the bedside and dropped to her knees. On the floor, a dropped phone was playing a screen recording of the live broadcast where she had been tortured over the past few days.
The sender of the email was Mia!
Tears streamed down the face of the woman on the bed.
“Luna, Mom is so sorry. If I hadn’t brought that thankless parasite out with me… I was originally the heiress of the Evans family, but I was abducted and trafficked here.”
“I never dared to reveal my true identity, terrified that the Carter family would use me to blackmail the Evans family. Mom is dying… hurry and contact your grandmother. Let her help you get out of here.”
