Don't Be a Tease, Mr. Blackwood

Chapter 140: Chapter 140: Psycho! Lunatic! Pervert

A living, breathing person, stabbed twenty times. The final blow sliced through his carotid artery.

Sean Wright must have bled to death while she was unconscious.

"Murder... is against the law."

Nina Halloway mustered her courage to break the silence.

The masked man stopped what he was doing and glanced at her. He didn’t speak, quickly turning back to continue cleaning the bloodstains on the floor.

"What are you planning to do with me?"

"You can tell me what you want. If it’s money, that’s even easier to handle."

’I’m so poor, all I have is money,’ Nina Halloway thought to herself.

But the masked man remained silent, simply continuing his work.

Nina Halloway noticed he was using a strong oxidizing bleach. After scrubbing the bloodstains once, he used hydrogen peroxide. ’Is he trying to completely eliminate the bloodstains to avoid detection?’

’It’s useless. No matter how thoroughly he cleans, it will be hard to evade a Luminol test.’

Luminol can identify latent blood traces. The reaction is extremely sensitive and can detect trace amounts of blood, even when diluted to one part in a million.

Nina Halloway had once starred in a crime thriller, playing a medical examiner. Before shooting began, she had frantically studied the subject, even meeting with a senior medical examiner to observe their work firsthand.

She watched as the masked man bustled about before leaving with his cleaning supplies. But the iron door was left open, and she had a feeling another masked man was about to arrive.

Sure enough.

A few minutes later, another tall, black-clad masked man walked in.

"Awake, darling?"

Nina Halloway was speechless.

The masked man approached her with an unhurried gait and looked down at her. "Sean Wright, the one who hurt you, has been taken care of. Who’s next?"

The man was using a voice changer. His voice was deep and low, with a slight electronic buzz, like a supervillain from a comic book movie.

The other masked people hadn’t said a word, but this man was using the same voice changer as the one who had stabbed Sean Wright to death. And he had used the same term of endearment: "darling."

’Is it someone I know?’

’Or an obsessive stalker fan?’

"You murdered him!"

"So what if I kill the people who’ve hurt you?"

She was speechless.

"So, who’s next?"

The masked man raised his hands. His large, black-leather-gloved hands pressed down on her shoulders, their weight oppressive. "Darling, how about we choose that cheating ex-fiancé of yours?"

Nina Halloway’s eyes widened in terror. "What are you planning to do?"

"To get revenge for my darling, of course."

"No, you don’t need to."

The image of Sean Wright being stabbed so many times right before her eyes, his blood pooling on the floor, made Nina Halloway shake her head violently. "Don’t you dare do anything crazy!" freёweɓnovel.com

"Don’t be afraid, darling."

’How could I not be afraid?’

’This man is a psychopath, a lunatic, a monster!’

One person was already dead because of her. If he really kidnapped Jaden and executed him the same way he had Sean Wright, she was afraid she would be driven mad with terror.

"Please, just spare me. I’m begging you, let me go."

Unmoved, the masked man pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it firmly over her mouth and nose.

A pungent chemical smell made her body go limp. Her vision went black, and she passed out.

When she woke again, she was no longer in the basement but in an enclosed room.

The black curtains were drawn tight. Her wrists and ankles were cuffed, and she was lying facedown on a large bed. Her pants were still on, but her shirt had been removed. She was wearing only a bra, her entire back exposed to the air.

The effects of the drug hadn’t fully worn off. Her body was weak, her vision was blurry, and her mind felt sluggish.

Through her hazy vision, she saw the black-clad, masked man pull over a small cart loaded with tattooing equipment. He sat on the edge of the bed and began gently wiping her lower back with a wet towelette.

"What... what are you doing?"

"Awake, darling? Don’t worry. I’m just giving you a tattoo to cover up that ugly scar."

"Are you insane? Let me go!"

She struggled, and the chains of her cuffs rattled noisily.

The masked man had intended to apply a numbing cream to her lower back, but seeing her struggle, he simply doused the handkerchief with more of the drug and knocked her out again.

Nina Halloway didn’t know what the man had tattooed on her lower back. When she awoke again, she was not in the enclosed room, nor in the dim basement. She was outside, in a small wooden boat drifting on a river.

It was broad daylight.

Gazing at the clear blue sky and white clouds, hearing the chirping of birds, for a moment she almost thought she was dreaming.

Then a sharp, stinging pain from her lower back brought her back to reality. She suddenly realized the masked man had let her go.

She forced herself to sit up and looked around. She had no idea where she was, but she saw two fishermen on the riverbank.

"Hey! Please, call the police!"

She waved her arms at the fishermen and shouted.

—

Alaric Blackwood received a call from the police during his lunch break. He learned Nina Halloway had been found and was in the hospital. He immediately relayed the news to Sophie Shaw and rushed to the hospital.

Two uniformed police officers stood outside her hospital room, while a plainclothes detective was inside, questioning Nina Halloway about her abduction.

"The kidnappers wore skull masks. There were several of them, and they murdered someone..."

Nina Halloway recounted the events to the police, her expression terrified.

When Alaric Blackwood arrived, Nina Halloway was lifting the back of her hospital gown to show the detective the tattoo on her lower back. A green vine dotted with several blood-red roses now perfectly concealed her scar.

The skin around the tattoo was red and inflamed, showing it had been done very recently.

"So, the masked man killed Sean Wright, the Wireman who caused your injury, right in front of you? And then all he did was tattoo your lower back and let you go?" the detective asked, repeating the main points of her story.

She nodded vigorously.

It sounded unbelievable, but it was the truth.

"And you said the masked man’s next target might be your ex-fiancé, Jaden?"

"Yes."

The detective finished his notes, turned to see Alaric Blackwood, and gave him a nod. After a brief greeting, he left.

When they had contacted Alaric, they had already explained that Nina Halloway was found by two fishermen on a river more than a hundred kilometers from Kingsport.

The two of them had called the police for her.

Alaric Blackwood walked to the bedside and looked at Nina Halloway carefully. "How are you holding up, superstar?"

"Not good. Not good at all."

’How could I possibly be okay after witnessing a murder?’

Seeing Alaric Blackwood, Nina Halloway immediately broke down, throwing her arms around him and bursting into tears.

"Sean Wright was killed because of me!"

Alaric Blackwood hadn’t expected this either. He knew Nina had been injured in a fall during a wire stunt on a film set five years ago, so of course, he knew who Sean Wright was.

He patted her back, trying to soothe her. "As for Sean Wright’s death," he said with a hint of resignation, "let’s leave it to the police to investigate."

Just as he finished speaking, the door to the room was pushed open.

Someone Alaric Blackwood never expected to see walked in.

Leon Grant.

The police had told him Nina Halloway was found by two fishermen, but they had failed to mention that one of those fishermen was Leon Grant.