With a cold look in his eyes, Sebastian jabbed his thumb in Lila’s direction.
“Repeat what you said to me just now.”
The coach reiterated that she saw Lila tampering with the parachute. When she heard the coach’s claim, she stood up immediately.
“What the hell are you talking about? It wasn’t me!” She denied vehemently, almost without thinking. Panic seized her. She didn’t expect that someone would witness her crime.
The coach stood her ground firmly.
“I’m not the only one who saw you. Mrs. Larson’s coach can also testify to it. If you didn’t tamper with it, why were you standing so close to the parachute equipment and even fiddling it?” Sebastian locked eyes with Lila and said ominously, “We need an explanation, Miss White.”
Lila took a step back, fear written all over her face. The two coaches had seen her. She couldn’t deny that she didn’t tamper with the parachute now. But she didn’t do it with her own hands… Facing the serious gaze from Sebastian, Lila bit her lower lip and explained in an aggrieved tone, “I… I did check her parachute and saw that the strings had been tampered with. But I didn’t do it!”
Well, at the very least, she didn’t break it with her own hands! She wasn’t the one who started all this. Sebastian narrowed his eyes at her. Through gritted teeth, he demanded, “Then why didn’t you tell anyone? You’ve skydived before. You should’ve known that Natalie could’ve been killed!”
Upon hearing that, Lila suddenly clamped her hand over her mouth. Just now, she was so busy defending herself that she had unwittingly spilled the beans.
“… ..”
Lila was at a loss for words.
“I just forgot to mention it to her coach. Besides, why are you all looking at me? Even her coach didn’t notice it!”
No one believed a word she said.
“You saw that her parachute was tampered with and kept that information to yourself. That’s a crime in itself.” Sebastian’s gaze was so piercing that it bored into Lila’s skull.
“Since you can’t give us a reasonable explanation, we’ll conclude that you deliberately kept it to yourself.” Her reaction had given her away. Sebastian had seen through her at a glance.
“Even if you didn’t do it yourself, you’re partly to be blamed. You knew the parachute wouldn’t work, and yet you said nothing. It’s clear to us that you wanted Natalie dead!”
Faced with Sebastian’s aggressive questioning, Lila didn’t know what to say. Indeed, she saw that one of the strings had been cut and retired, but she didn’t warn Natalie.
“No, I didn’t… That’s not…” Lila was at a complete loss and burst into tears. She shouted, “I didn’t do it! I wasn’t the one who wanted her dead! You can’t put the whole thing on me!” Her whole body was trembling. She had never been considered a suspect before, let alone a murderer Sebastian rolled his eyes at her quibbling.
“You were sneaking around the equipment. Even if you really didn’t cut the string, you probably did something to conceal it, which was why Natalie’s coach didn’t notice that anything was wrong when he inspected it.” Sebastian had figured it all out.
“You… You don’t have any proof!” Lila glared at him angrily. She hated how smart Natalie’s husband was! He had put the pieces together so soon. Sebastian indeed didn’t have any solid proof, so he couldn’t do anything to Lila in the meantime.
Lila’s eyes darted all over the place in a panic. She seldom played dirty let alone got caught red-handed; now she didn’t know how to get herself out of this situation.
At a loss, she stormed out of the hospital in tears. She had to find a way to solve this matter as soon as possible. With Brandon’s connections, he would find the truth out sooner or later.
After Lila left, Sebastian returned to Natalie’s ward. When Natalie saw him come in, she broke into a sweet smile.
“Where’ve you been?” After hesitating for a few seconds, Sebastian decided to tell her what he had just found.
“No wonder she suddenly invited me to go skydiving with her.” Natalie smiled bitterly.
On the inside, she was completely shocked. She had been having a bad feeling ever since Lila started acting nice around her.
But it never occurred to her that Lila would actually try to kill her. Sebastian said nothing
“Do my parents know?” Natalie suddenly asked.
“Since Lila tried to hurt me, maybe she’ll try to hurt them, too.” Sebastian pinched her cheek and smiled.
“You silly girl. She wanted to hurt you because you are your parents’ biological daughter and the future heir to the White fortune.
What good will come out of hurting your parents? And no, I haven’t told your parents about it yet. I’m afraid they might not believe it was Lila and will try to hinder the investigation.” Natalie lowered her head.
“Of course they won’t believe it. Lila was their daughter for so many years…” Sebastian wrapped his arms around her comfortingly.
“If you’re sick of this place, let’s go back to Seacisco and I promise things will go back to normal.”
Plus, in Seacisco, Sebastian could protect her. Just then, the door to the ward suddenly swung open and Johanna stormed in.
“What’s going on? I won’t let you take my daughter away from me!”
After hesitating for a good while, Sebastian then proceeded to tell them the truth. Beal and Johanna couldn’t believe their ears.
“Where is Lila?! I need to talk to her!” Beal couldn’t believe that Lila would actually be capable of doing such a thing.
“She’s no longer here in the hospital.” Sebastian glanced over at the expression etched on their faces. It really seemed like they couldn’t believe it.
Johanna mulled it over in her head for a while and found it hard to believe that her daughter, whom she had raised for so many years, would actually do such a thing. She started to have many doubts in her mind.
“Why would Lila do such a thing?” Sebastian had always respected Beal and Johanna, but when he heard her question, he knew that she didn’t believe a word he said. His eyes darkened visibly.
“The two coaches have witnessed this matter, yet you’re unwilling to believe me. Natalie happens to be your biological daughter, Mrs. White. Lila wanted to get rid of her for a good reason. Are you going to defend a murderer who tried to kill your very own flesh and blood?” His firm voice made Johanna startled for a complete moment there. Johanna and Beal thought it over for a long time at the door.
“Brandon, we raised Lila and have always treated her like our very own daughter. We’ll investigate this matter, but I don’t want to jump to any conclusions for the time being.”
With a very calm and indifferent look on his face, Sebastian said to them, “But Natalie is your biological daughter. As her parents, you should be on her side no matter what.”
He paused for a beat and went on to say, “Before you found Natalie, Lila was considered your only daughter. But after Natalie showed up, she must feel her limelight was stolen by Natalie. She must really despise Natalie from the bottom of her heart. With Natalie out of the way, she could finally get her previous life back. Mrs. White, you’ve been in the business world for so many years now, you should know more about human nature than I do, am I right?”
He had a fair point.
Johanna felt unhappy being lectured by Sebastian, but at the same time, she felt happy for Natalie that she had found someone who would be by her side no matter what. Natalie was so very lucky. Johanna’s face suddenly darkened noticeably.
“I just want to say that I wasn’t trying to defend Lila. I just thought she knew better than to do something like that. Everything that she had belonged to Natalie. She had enjoyed it on Natalie’s behalf all these years. Now that Natalie has returned to us, we didn’t treat Lila like garbage. Instead, we kept her in the White family and still treated her like our own daughter; she should feel grateful for that. Furthermore, as far as I know, she could never be this cruel and heartless.”
“That’s true, but human beings tend to be greedy. People are never satisfied with what they have,” Sebastian said in a rather indifferent tone.
“Besides, even if she didn’t have the guts to plan it herself, when she saw the chance to kill Natalie without even lifting a finger, she tookBeal and Johanna let out a long sigh. “
After we got our Natalie back, we had to share our love among our girls. Without it having to be said, we couldn’t love Lila as much as we did before. Or else it wouldn’t be fair for Natalie,” Beal said.
