Mr. CEO, You Look Strangely Familiar

Or perhaps, he had never possessed her at all.

Sitting there, the palms of his hands throbbed with a numb pain. It was a pain that spread from the inside out, making him feel that from this day forward, he was truly all alone.

He closed his eyes and waited for night to fall.

Meanwhile, Dorothy was quickly brought to Chloe Marshall. Chloe was somewhat surprised that they suddenly allowed her to have her daughter, but a burgeoning sense of foreboding left her at a loss.

”Mommy!” Dorothy Bancroft trotted over to her legs and wiped her tears on the hem of Chloe Marshall’s clothes.

”This is nice. Dorothy is with Mommy again.”

Chloe Marshall picked her up. ”They didn’t do anything to you last night, did they?”

Dorothy Bancroft shook her head. ”No. Mommy, I’ll tell you a secret. Just now, when they were dragging me over, they said that tonight I’ll be ’hitting the road’ with you. What does that mean? Mommy, where are we hitting the road to?”

In an instant, Chloe Marshall’s palms turned ice-cold, and her face went deathly pale, drained of all color.

’Has he decided to destroy me?’

’But why won’t he even spare Dorothy?’

Chloe Marshall gathered her wits and forced a smile at her daughter. Then, glancing at the door, she said to Dorothy, ”Dorothy, be quiet. Mommy needs to make a phone call.”

”Okay.” She sat obediently on the bed without making a sound.

She stealthily pulled a pile of phone parts from under the bedding.

It looked like it had been smashed underfoot.

Her hands moved nimbly, assembling it with speed.

A cold sweat beaded on Chloe Marshall’s forehead. She would absolutely not sit back and wait for someone to secretly execute her and Dorothy.

A little over ten minutes later, the phone was reassembled. She inserted a SIM card, but she didn’t have any numbers. She had never been in the habit of memorizing phone numbers. Moreover, this SIM card could only connect to networks within Harrowin.p>

”Dorothy, what do we do? We don’t have any phone numbers.”

Dorothy’s eyes were wide. ”Mommy, do you remember that picture of the groom on my phone? I have his number. He specially made me memorize it at kindergarten.”

Chloe Marshall couldn’t stop trembling. ”Then go into the bathroom and make the call. Just say, ’My mommy and I are about to die.’”

Dorothy Bancroft wriggled her little body and immediately trotted to the bathroom to do as she was told.

Two minutes later, she came out.

”Mommy, just as I started talking, the phone died. I don’t know if Dylan heard me.”

The last shred of hope in Chloe Marshall’s heart was extinguished. She sat there for a moment, then staggered to her feet and ran to the door, shouting hysterically, ”I want to see Lillian Bancroft! Open the door!”

A moment later, a soldier’s voice came from outside. ”Madam, I will go and report to the Supreme Leader at once. Please wait.”

She placed her numb hands on the door, her eyes vacant and unfocused.

The soldier quickly arrived outside Lillian Bancroft’s doors and requested an audience.

”Supreme Leader, Madam is requesting to see you.”

There was a moment of silence from within. Then, a voice spoke words the soldier could scarcely believe: ”Tell her my mind is made up. Tonight, we send her on her way. She shouldn’t struggle anymore. I already gave her a chance.”

The soldier quickly relayed the message to Chloe Marshall.

Her body slid down the door and collapsed, hitting the floor with a heavy THUD.

”Mommy!” Dorothy Bancroft ran to her side, sitting on the floor and hugging her arm. ”Mommy, what’s wrong?”

Chloe Marshall’s eyes filled with tears. ”Dorothy, Mommy is so sorry.”

Dorothy shook her head. ”Get up! The floor is cold, Mommy, get up!”

She slowly climbed to her feet, took her daughter’s hand, and sat back down on the bed.

She held her close, and they lay there together.

”Tonight, Mommy and Dorothy might not make it out alive. I don’t know if you’ll understand, but Mommy is going to tell you everything.”

”Mm-hm.” She lay in Chloe Marshall’s arms, exceptionally well-behaved.

”Actually, the daddy you have now isn’t your real daddy. Your real daddy’s name is Ethan Ellsworth. He’s the man from the dining hall you kept saying was watching you...”

”...”

For three hours, she spoke slowly. Whenever Dorothy had questions, she answered them one by one.

Finally, Dorothy said, ”He came to see me at kindergarten. He told me that Daddy loves me very much, but... Mommy... I didn’t know he was talking about himself...” Dorothy’s little face crumpled as she fought back tears.

She hugged Dorothy tightly. ”It’s okay. You didn’t know. He loves you, too.”

”Mommy, why was Daddy working as a soldier in the dining hall? Was he there to see us?”

”Yes. He endured a lot of hardship just to see Mommy. But he was... by...” She didn’t know what to call Lillian Bancroft when talking to her daughter.

”And then the bad guy kicked him out of the Imperial Palace, right?”

”He was discovered, so Daddy couldn’t stay here anymore.”

Dorothy fell silent. Then, she said something that shocked Chloe Marshall. ”Mommy, I’m going to take a nap. When the bad guy comes to kill us, wake me up. I want to save up my energy so I’ll have enough strength to be Ultraman and fight the monster to save you.”

Chloe Marshall forced a smile, placing a hand on her daughter’s hair. ”You’re still little, you don’t have the strength. Even a grown-up like Mommy isn’t strong enough, so you definitely aren’t. Come on, let’s go take a bath and change into clean clothes. Mommy will do your hair in a really pretty style, okay?”

Dorothy sat up, looked at her, and then nodded seriously.

The mother and daughter bathed together and put on their prettiest clothes. Chloe Marshall pinned up her own hair neatly, then she did Dorothy’s hair and even put makeup on her.

She glanced at the clock on the wall. Time was flying; it was already two minutes to six.

At six o’clock in the winter, it got dark quickly.

Chloe Marshall took out a gun and a knife she had hidden long ago.

The gun was something she had swiped on a whim during an unexpected visit to the state treasury.

It was the boldest thing she had ever done. Many high-ranking officials were present, but she did it anyway.

She had kept the knife after a servant, who was peeling her an apple, was suddenly called away.

Other than that, Lillian Bancroft had never given her anything that could be used as a weapon.

She tucked the gun into her sleeve and handed the fruit knife to Dorothy.

”Mommy knows we can’t escape the Imperial Palace. But for you, for me, and for Daddy, Mommy will fight to the death for even the slightest chance. Dorothy, take this knife and be careful with it. You might need it.”

Dorothy Bancroft copied her, carefully hiding the knife in her long sleeve. ”Okay.”

”Are you scared?”

She took Chloe’s hand and said softly, ”Mommy is being so brave, so I have to be brave too. I’m not scared, because I know Mommy will always be by my side.”