The water slowly rose to my waist, while I grew impatient with untying my bound hands. My wrist was sore and scratched, and a few streaks of blood had oozed out. I tried to calm myself, thinking about my family. With great difficulty, I was able to convince myself to forgive Dominic and accept to build a new family with him. I am not willing to die in this place, how can my little Kenelm live alone without a mother?
I don't know how long it took, when the water level reached my chest, I was able to untie the rope from my hand. Immediately after, I took off the ropes on my body and blindfolded. Only then did I observe the room I was in. This place is like a basement at the bottom of a yacht, there are a lot of machines down here but for some reason they stop working all at once. In there is a machine that continuously sucks back seawater from the outside into the room.
I don't understand how these machines work, but I'm not stupid enough to think that these machines are suddenly malfunctioning. Surely someone made it like that.
I moved towards the door, it was a thick iron door and opened with a doorknob that almost resembled the steering wheel of a boat. I forcefully turned the doorknob but it was stiff and didn't move at all. Meanwhile, my hand was too slippery to use the extra force to open this door.
"Damn it." I let out a scream to vent my despair and helplessness. "Is anyone there? I'm here. Dominic? What should I do?"
I burst into tears, my hand still clutching the doorknob, but it didn't work. The water had risen to my chin, the hope of opening the door was gone, I was forced to find another way. I squirmed around the room, trying to beat the machines and equipment to make a loud noise. My head was only a few centimeters from the ceiling, which signaled my imminent death. My feet barely touch the ground anymore, and I can't even swim.
Just as I had given up hope, a voice rang out.
"Esther… Esther, can you hear me?"
"Dominic?" I widened my eyes in amazement. My almost snuffed hope was rekindled again. "I'm here. Dominic, I'm here."
I almost used all the little strength I had left to scream. The iron door resounded with a resounding rumble, then followed by a series of sounds like thunder. I closed my eyes and held my breath, trying to relax as the water reached the ceiling.
As soon as the heavy iron door was knocked down, all the sea water in the room rushed out, and I was also swept out. Dominic quickly caught my limp body.
His expression was mixed between anger and concern.
"Dominic, someone drugged you and brought you here." I whispered, rubbing my head against his chest as if looking for safety.
"I know." Dominic's voice was gentle to reassure me.
He carried me back to my room, and as I walked through the corridors on the yacht, I wondered why it was so unusually quiet.
"Dominic, where are Rory's bodyguards?"
"Listen, Esther. My enemies have surrounded this entire yacht." Dominic spoke in a heavy voice.
"Huh? What happened?"
During the time I disappeared, Dominic couldn't immediately go looking for me not because he didn't notice, but because he was in trouble. Rory was knocked unconscious in his bedroom, while most of Rory's loyal bodyguards were drugged. Someone has infiltrated the kitchen and done it. Except for that person, many other people by various means have also sneaked onto this yacht and waited for the right opportunity.
All of Rory's friends were arrested in the grand lobby of the yacht. Only then did Dominic find out that I wasn't there.
Dominic himself did not expect his enemies to take advantage of this trip to harm him and his loved ones.
This was a pre-arranged plan, and Dominic wasn't wary.
"Where's Kenelm?" This is what worries me the most.
"Rest assured, he's safe for now. I'll think of a way to get you and the kids out of here."
I really can't imagine a time when I will be in this isolated situation on a yacht in the middle of this vast ocean with no way to resist.
"So how did you get out of the great hall and look for me?" I asked surprised.
"Because..."
"Because I let him do it."
Before Dominic could finish his sentence, someone entered the room. It's Vivian Odette. Dominic looked at Vivian with cold and murderous eyes.
"You're the one who locked me in that room." This is not a question but a statement from me.
Vivian also didn't want to pretend to be innocent anymore, she nodded with a smile and casually admitted.
"That's right. That's because you heard what you shouldn't have. Our plan wouldn't have been so rushed. But it was because of your appearance."
"What did I hear?" I looked at Vivian with a puzzled look.
"My phone call. Isn't it?" Vivian frowned. When she saw my dumbfounded expression, she burst out laughing. "So you didn't hear anything? Damn it, and yet I thought you already knew, that's why I had to accelerate the plan."
"What are you talking about, after all? What plan?" I glared at her and said in an angry voice.
"It's all going to be revealed anyway, I'll tell you two."
Vivian leisurely took a white silk cloth to wipe the gun she held in her hand and then began to tell the story of many years ago. She was an orphan, grew up a little, was bought by a criminal organization and trained to become a professional assassin. In order not to reveal her identity, the criminal organization sent her to a middle-class family to adopt her as their daughter.
She spent years imitating one person, 'Esther Joan'. After about two years of waiting, the time has finally come. 'Esther Joan' was in a car accident and lost her life, she was chosen to replace 'Esther Joan'. Her mission is to make Dominic fall in love with her and trust her. The fact that she happened to witness the bank robbery and take the bullets to help Dominic was also part of the plan.
After four years, Vivian thought she had almost succeeded when her boss informed her that 'Esther Joan' was still alive and currently in Goderich. With pride and jealousy in her heart, she decided to try and find 'Esther Joan' and find out what kind of woman Dominic's wife was. Certainly not letting her down, 'Esther Joan' has many respectable qualities that can make a man fall in love.
The fact that Vivian deliberately let Dominic and 'Esther Joan' meet again was not part of the original plan, but Vivian's own initiative. But, she never regretted it.
"I'm tired of pretending to live in someone else's shadow. Wouldn't it be faster to just let the two of you meet again and end your lives at the same time. Sometimes I feel that the boss is cumbersome."
Vivian fiddled with the pistol in her hand, her eyes glaring at me and Dominic. She had kept this secret for so long, by the time she said it, it felt like she had just lifted a burden.
"But I also really admire you, Esther. How in the world is there someone as lucky as you, whenever you are in danger, there is always someone who loves you and risk everything to save you, unafraid to even sacrifice their own lives." Vivian couldn't hide her jealous voice. "The luckier you are, the more I want to kill you. I thought if Dominic hadn't made it in time, I would have watched Dominic go crazy seeing your bloated body in the water."
"Do you consider human life so cheap? Even playing tricks on yourself to enjoy other people's desperate suffering. Do you think you're a god?" I shouted at her. After all, I felt my trust in her was betrayed.
"Who do you think you are to condemn me?"
Vivian looked crazier compared to my exasperation, she pointed her gun at me and screamed. Dominic immediately stood in front of me, making sure Vivian's muzzle couldn't be aimed at me.
Vivian moved her gaze from me to Dominic, a flicker of pain in it.
"That's disappointing. You're blind to fall in love with a woman like her. What's so special about her other than her fragile beauty? She's weak and useless." Vivian said harshly, she didn't look calm anymore.
"At least she never harmed anyone. No matter who hurt her or betrayed her, in the end she protected them."
"Ah, is that so?" Vivina laughed sarcastically and grimly. "So what if I told you that Garrick Harvey died because of you? Can your wife continue to be on your side?"
"What?" My body involuntarily trembled.
"Don't listen to what she says." Dominic said.
"Haha, see. I told you. Trust is fragile. One can't be forever good."
Vivian laughed like crazy, then she lowered her gun and called her subordinates to take us back to the lobby. As I passed her, her palm squeezed my bloody wrist.
"Try to stay alive. Let's see who can save you this time."