Estelle's gaze passed through the metal bars. Aiden's hands were cuffed as he sat there calmly. Their eyes met, and Aiden said, "I thought I wouldn't see you again."
"Seeing me disappoints you?"
"Maybe," Aiden looked at her and nodded. "Disappointed... yet glad. I hoped you were dead, yet I wanted you to live."
"So, the power cut-off time at Stella Technology, is you who set that."
"It was me," he admitted. "When Marry used my authority to retrieve the power cut-off order, I guessed that someday someone would use it to enter the confidential room. So I moved the time up by one minute. But for Miss Grey, a minute less shouldn't matter. Otherwise, you wouldn't be sitting here talking to me now."
He looked at her with a half-smile. Estelle tightened her grip on her palm. "You killed Gavriel?"
"Affirmative."
"What about Cyrus?"
Aiden stiffened slightly, his smile fading.
"Who told you?"
Seeing his expression, she knew there was no need to ask further. Estelle fell into a sorrowful silence. After a while, Aiden smiled again. "It was so long ago, too long. I forgot all about it. Besides, he had a terminal illness, he was going to die anyway. What difference does a few days make?"
"Are you insane?" Estelle's eyes trembled. "He was your own brother!"
"Yes, he was my brother," Aiden said softly. "We had no parents. All the food, clothing, and necessities he had growing up, I earned them piece by piece working at the government munitions factory. Have you ever been to a munitions factory? To earn high commissions, those poor parts workers fought each other tooth and nail. Once, I was pushed to the ground, and my head hit the iron corner of a machine tool, bleeding into my eyes—I swore then that one day, I would live a life above others."
"Cyrus... his life was too smooth sailing," Aiden said. "He lived in an ivory tower, studying and going abroad. No matter how much money he needed, I gritted my teeth and gave it to him. He never suffered, he didn't know how cruel the bottom rungs of this world could be, but I did. Later, the officer came to me. The promises he made to me, how could I not be moved? I was truly too moved. Thinking about my future life, I was laughing even in my dreams..."
"When Stella Technology was founded, the war had just ended, and the government encouraged technological development, covering 90% of the investment costs." Estelle struggled to maintain her composure. "Stella Technology soon became profitable. Even with the need to repay government debts, there was some surplus profit, most of which Cyrus also gave to you. With Cyrus around, you no longer needed to live as you had before. And yet, you still weren't satisfied?"
"But the officer canceled Stella Technology's debt," Aiden grinned and laughed. "As long as I agreed to cooperate, Stella Technology's twenty-year government debt would be wiped out, and large government contracts could fall into my hands. Compared to that, what were those ordinary profits? Without me, Stella Technology wouldn't have grown to its current scale. Wasn't this what Cyrus wanted to see?"
Estelle couldn't speak. Holding onto the last shred of her rationality, she held back her tears and closed her eyes gently.
Aiden stared at her and continued, "But how did you know these things? When you broke into the confidential room to steal the data from the Eagla storage device, that wasn't your own idea. Who was guiding you from behind the scenes?"
Estelle remained silent. After a moment, Aiden said for her, "Soren. Right?"
"Do you think Soren is some kind of good person?" He smiled. "He used your feelings for Cyrus to topple me and elevate himself. What's the difference between him and me? Estelle, you were just his pair of gloves. After accomplishing his goal, he would discard the gloves, leaving only the marks of the gloves in the world, not his own. And those marks will become a handle on you for the rest of your life."
"At this point, let me tell you this." Aiden leaned back, the sound of his ankle shackles clanking coldly. "George from Sales is Soren's subordinate, Charlie's older brother. That day, he delivered the THG robot to my room and drugged me. Then he had Marry call you, luring you to my bedroom—these were all Soren's traps."
"I know I've done many wrong things, smuggling drugs and weapons, trafficking people... When I did those things, I knew I wouldn't survive. But Estelle, you know how I've treated you over the years. If it weren't for Soren, we wouldn't have ended up like this, and I wouldn't have..."
"You wouldn't have drugged me at the night restaurant, and later, when PWL had problems, you wouldn't have wanted to kill me. Right?"
Estelle's voice was calm and distant. Aiden paused, his words trailing off.
Estelle looked at his face and suddenly remembered that night at the night restaurant, when she was tormented by aphrodisiacs and considered Aiden her last straw. He checked her eyelids, and her psychological defenses relaxed, thinking he cared about her condition. She never imagined that he was just confirming her arousal phase, waiting until she absolutely needed him to take her away as a matter of course.
"Don't lie anymore." Estelle looked at him calmly. "I won't believe anything you say anymore."
For a long time, Aiden's lips trembled, and he bowed his head in pain.
"I was wrong, Estelle." He said, "I was foolish. I was foolish..."
