Chapter 445 - 442: The Small Island Was Bombed
His heart filled with resentment as he watched her pass out.
To prevent her from bleeding to death, Quentin Grant ordered them to stop the bleeding.
She woke to a basin of saltwater splashed in her face, the pain causing her entire body to tremble uncontrollably.
The bloodcurdling screams terrified Catherine Callahan, who was watching from the side, reducing her to tears.
"Are you going to talk or not? If you don’t, you’ll lose your other leg right now," Nora Ainsworth said, her gaze ice-cold.
Claire Sinclair’s lips trembled violently, her eyes bloodshot.
She tried to speak, but couldn’t with her dislocated jaw.
"Let her down."
Her suspended body dropped rapidly, hitting the floor with a THUD.
Another agonized scream.
The muffled groans left Claire Sinclair on the verge of death.
From the blood loss, her face had turned a deathly pale.
Nora Ainsworth snapped her dislocated jaw back into place. "Talk!"
Blood trickled from the corner of Claire Sinclair’s mouth, but she remained defiant. "To think I’d be defeated so easily by you juniors. I never would have imagined. But so what? Even if you kill me, I won’t talk. Not even if I die."
Nora Ainsworth nodded. "You’ve got guts. I wonder if your subordinates are as brave."
She looked at Quentin Grant. "Send people to the thirtieth floor of the Ainsworth Group."
Luna Ainsworth waved her off. "I’ll go. I’ll get her Command Token from my bedroom first. With that, we can command her subordinates. I’ve known for a long time that she was secretly amassing her own forces; I just chose to turn a blind eye."
Claire Sinclair’s eyes were nearly shut. "You think I’d leave it in a bedroom? Don’t... be ridiculous. The people I’ve so carefully cultivated... you think I’d just hand them over? If you want my people, you can dream on!"
"Still acting tough," Nora Ainsworth sneered. "I have an idea."
"Let’s drag her in front of her subordinates. I refuse to believe they won’t talk then."
As expected, the ploy worked.
Her subordinates quickly revealed the two children’s whereabouts.
They learned that the two children were on Death Island.
Quentin Grant and Nora Ainsworth immediately led a team there, while Herman Hawthorne took charge of the rest.
Nora Ainsworth was an emotional wreck the entire way there. They had never imagined the children would be on that island.
Leaders and dignitaries from every nation knew this island was where Valeria secretly disposed of its executed prisoners.
The island was uninhabited.
Because no one would be suicidal enough to go there.
Nothing could be grown there, fresh water was pitifully scarce, and it was surrounded by open ocean. A single tsunami would wipe it off the map.
It had only ever been used to secretly dispose of executed prisoners, or as a place for Valeria’s top brass to carry out assassinations they wanted to keep off the books.
’How long have the children been here? Are they still alive?’
The more Nora thought about it, the more terrified she became.
She didn’t dare to think about it any further.
The ship soon approached Death Island.
As they drew near, a deafening BOOM! echoed across the sky. Immediately after, thick black smoke billowed upward.
An ominous feeling washed over everyone.
They quickly disembarked and rushed inland.
The carnage that met their eyes was beyond description.
The prison facility had been blown up, reduced to a pile of smoldering ruins.
Nora Ainsworth couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She stared, trying to get a clear look, but her vision was hopelessly blurred by a growing curtain of tears.
A moment later, everyone was wailing. Nora, like a madwoman, charged toward the thick, billowing smoke. Quentin Grant, his eyes red with grief, immediately grabbed her, fearing aftershocks from the blast.
"Don’t stop me! I have to find my son! I have to find my babies! My babies can’t be dead! They can’t be!" Nora turned, struggling desperately to break free.
Quentin Grant held her tight. "Wait, Nora, just wait! We’ll find them, even if we have to dig them out with our bare hands!"
Luna Ainsworth squatted down, burying her face in her hands as she wept. Sierra Ainsworth came forward and hugged Nora. "Nora..."
Nora Ainsworth completely broke down. She finally wrenched free from Quentin Grant’s grasp and ran toward the wreckage, with everyone else scrambling after her.
**
News traveled fast. The bombing of the penal facility immediately drew the attention of Valeria’s top officials.
The press, however, was not informed.
Instead, they prioritized investigating the cause and the mastermind.
After learning the cause, the officials became even more determined to keep it from the press.
They sent teams with specialized equipment to help Quentin Grant search for the children.
The officials knew the children were almost certainly dead.
But even if they were dead, the bodies had to be found.
For a day and a night, they sifted through the rubble. The devastation from the blast was horrific.
It was impossible to identify which remains belonged to the children.
The prison had held those sentenced to familial extermination, so it wasn’t unheard of for there to be children among the dead.
One can only imagine Nora Ainsworth’s state of mind. Only Quentin Grant could truly comprehend the depth of her depression and grief.
She went from frantic hysteria to a dead silence.
She had endured the world’s cruelest form of torture.
The Valerian authorities eventually sent search parties across the entire island, hoping for a miracle.
They searched for days, turning the island upside down, but found nothing.
Claire Sinclair’s subordinates were all taken into custody by Valeria’s top officials and interrogated individually.
The interrogations yielded a complete and consistent account.
The children had, indeed, been inside the prison.
There was no food or water inside, only a pile of bones. There was no way children that small could have climbed the three-meter-high walls.
The officials directly offered their deepest condolences to Nora Ainsworth and Quentin Grant and presented them with the official findings.
The children had indeed perished there.
The warden of the penal facility was held accountable, and discussions were held with the leaders of Fravia.
They agreed to hand over Claire Sinclair and Catherine Callahan to Quentin Grant, to be dealt with as he saw fit.
A secret compensation of ten million was paid.
Quentin Grant wasn’t short on money. He returned it immediately, along with a handwritten note: "I don’t need this pittance. No amount of money can bring back my children’s lives. Keep it for your retirement."
The officials were furious when they read his note, but they were in the wrong and dared not say anything more.
After all, they were at fault.
Nora Ainsworth fell into a coma upon their return from Death Island.
No medical treatment worked. The doctors said it plainly: she was unwilling to wake up.
A heavy gloom settled over everyone.
The problem was that Claire Sinclair’s subordinates didn’t know if Faye Sinclair was dead or alive, and Claire herself refused to say a word, no matter what.
They were at a complete impasse with her.
Clearly, whatever had been done to Faye Sinclair had been Claire’s work alone.
’It made sense. Why would she share such a crucial secret with anyone else?’
So, while the Valerian officials had handed both women over to Quentin Grant, the matter of Faye Sinclair meant they couldn’t let Claire die just yet. If she died, the lead would be lost for good.
Thus, the daily torture of Catherine Callahan in front of Claire Sinclair became a mandatory routine.
But she seemed to know that the moment she talked, she would also die a horrible death.