The Billionaire's Rental Wife Is A Hot Shot-Chapter 38: Dead

Maverick’s shovel struck the earth with a dull thud, each sound reverberating in the cold, silent night. His smirk was dark and satisfied as he glanced at Evelyn, lying still beneath the shallow grave he was hastily digging. The drugs he had administered were designed to fail her lungs slowly, suffocating her from the inside out. Soon, her breathing would cease, and with it, the life force that kept her body functioning.

"Tell your mom we miss her," he muttered, his voice a sinister whisper carried away by the evening breeze. His cold and echoing cackle cut through the deserted garden’s oppressive quiet. He had picked this secluded spot deliberately, planning to plant a tree over Evelyn’s grave to make it nearly impossible for anyone to discover her final resting place.

Just as Maverick began to cover her face with more mud, the sound of screeching tires shattered the silence. Panic surged through him. He tossed the shovel aside and scrambled to flee, but the sight of Sophia emerging from the car, her face a storm of fury, halted him.

"We did it, babe! Look, she’s all set to meet your best friend, Gracia Wright!" Maverick announced, his voice dripping with a twisted joy. But Sophia’s expression was anything but pleased.

She stormed over and slapped him hard across the face. The sting left his cheek burning, and his smile faltered, replaced by a grimace of pain and frustration.

"I told you to drop the idea, Rick! Why do you never listen to me?!" Sophia’s voice was a shrill scream of anger and panic.

When Maverick had suggested killing Evelyn that night, shame and anger had taken over her, recalling how this little girl had started to disrupt her plans. She had been tempted to go with his suggestion and would have killed her without a second thought if Evelyn wasn’t married to that one hell of a devil!

Zevian seemed oddly fond of Evelyn, considering how he had even started digging into Annabelle’s background. Sophia knew this wasn’t the right move if they wanted to save themselves, let alone gain the Wrights’ wealth. She had quickly called Maverick to drop it the same night, but he had ignored her words again.

"Oh my God! Don’t tell me you did something stupid with her," Sophia mumbled, her eyes darting nervously to the partially covered figure beneath the soil.

"I gave her a drug," Maverick confessed, causing Sophia to hit him again.

Sophia’s anger flared, and she slapped him again, her frustration spilling over. "Why can’t you ever control your anger and reason?!" she cried out loud, her scream echoing in the garden.

They would be doomed for real if Evelyn didn’t survive! Quickly gathering the shovel and other incriminating items, she dragged Maverick toward her car, quite sure Zevian, with his connections, would find Evelyn soon.

Back at the Reign beach house, Agatha received the news that Evelyn had gone out and hadn’t returned yet. Her face paled in horror, and she hurried to Zevian’s room with the maid in tow.

"What’s wrong?" Zevian asked, looking up from his tablet as Agatha burst in without knocking.

"Miss Evelyn went to fetch her bag from the car but hasn’t returned yet, Master. I-I searched the entire beach, but she’s missing," the maid stammered, confessing just enough to avoid implicating herself.

Zevian’s expression darkened, and he quickly rushed out of the house, his men already on alert to search for her. The haunting image of the stabbed woman on the beach from last night flashed in his mind, amplifying his dread.

"No, she’ll be fine!" he thought, shaking away the negative thoughts. When his team couldn’t find her after searching the entire beach, his tension grew, and he quickly called Damien.

"Eva is missing! Get me her location now!" he commanded in his usual intimidating tone. Damien, who was at a party, frowned and raised his hand for the music to stop.

"Give me an hour or two!" Damien requested, the room turning pin-drop silent at his command.

"30 minutes!" Zevian replied, ending the conversation abruptly, making Damien’s face twist into a scowl. This man always treated him like some street-side mob, and he had no clue why they were still friends.

"Sadly, we should stop here," Damien mumbled to the woman beside him. Kissing her cheek, he smiled, "Let’s continue if we are destined to meet again."

Taking his jacket, he quickly ordered his men to start searching and left the room. Whoever this fool was, they would not have a decent death, he thought, recalling how Nicholas was now hospitalized due to Zevian’s sweet punches.

After a couple of torturous minutes, Damien’s assistant called with good but grave news. A woman had confessed to seeing a man in black clothes and a mask carrying a woman in a bikini into a nearby garden.

"Alright, arrange a chopper! I need you all ready in five minutes," Damien ordered, ending the call. He glanced at Zevian, seated beside him, who wore an expression he had never seen before. Love indeed made people go crazy.

"Drive!" Zevian commanded, his voice laced with barely contained panic. Damien snapped out of his thoughts, nodding, and sped off to the location shared by his assistant.

The ten-minute ride felt excruciatingly long, a blur of nerves and adrenaline with Zevian constantly complaining about their speed, despite Damien breaking every traffic rule to get there faster.

"This dude has gone mad," Damien muttered, unbuckling his seatbelt as Zevian leaped out of the car and rushed into the small public garden.

His team had arrived before them, but the sight that met them was shocking even to a mafia like Damien. Only psychopaths would ever think of burying someone alive?!

At a distance, near what appeared to be a hastily dug grave, two of his men were gently lifting Evelyn from the ground, their movements careful but rushed, passing her to two others who laid her on the cold grass.

Zevian’s heart, which had been pounding with fear, now felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. He rushed to Evelyn, cradling her in his arms as a doctor, brought by Damien’s men, checked her pulse.

"Eva!" Zevian patted her cheeks, terror etched across his face. Wiping the mud from her skin, he called out again, "Evelyn! Wake up!"

The men around them exchanged uneasy glances, sensing the anguish in Zevian’s voice. Damien squatted down beside, noticing tears forming at the corners of Zevian’s eyes.

"Wake up, dammit!" Zevian cried again, his voice breaking, raw and desperate.

"I-I can’t feel her pulse! We need to get her to a hospital now!" the elder doctor, his voice trembling with urgency and fear, announced.

Damien quickly grabbed a coat and blanket his team had managed to procure, helping Zevian wrap the cold, unresponsive Evelyn. The chopper arrived swiftly, its blades whipping the air with urgency. Zevian, carrying Evelyn’s lifeless form, ran towards it.

The doctor and his team continued to monitor Evelyn, his face grim throughout the ride. Damien, watching from the side, felt a rare pang of helplessness. He had seen Zevian face countless threats with cold, precise confidence, but now he was reduced to a desperate man clinging to hope and his dear wife.

The chopper landed on the country’s top hospital helipad, the medical team ready and waiting. As they rushed Evelyn inside, Zevian followed closely, his hand never leaving Evelyn’s that he had been holding throughout their ride.

A group of excellent and experienced doctors rushed to the emergency ward, greeting Zevian and Damien briefly before disappearing into the operating theater. Avery, who had been forcefully woken up to the devastating news, arrived a few minutes later, accompanied by Rosalind and Natalie.

"Zev," Rosalind called out, and Zevian immediately rushed to hug her, unable to hold his emotions any longer.

"She will be fine, don’t worry," Rosalind murmured, patting her son’s back. Her heart ached for him; just when they thought he had finally found happiness, cruel fate was threatening to snatch it away again.

One of the doctors rushed out to brief, his expression strained. "H-her lungs aren’t working properly. We don’t know the cause yet, but it seems to be because of a drug."

Zevian’s expression morphed into one of fury. He took a menacing step forward, frightening the doctor. "W-we will get the tests done and try to remove the toxin," the doctor explained hurriedly before scurrying back into the operating theater.

The next few minutes were filled with doctors, experts, and nurses rushing in and out of the room. The three women sat on the chairs, clasping their hands and praying for Evelyn, while Zevian and Damien stood close to the OT, their men lined throughout the corridor.

Damien took Zevian a little away, sensing his numbness and despair. He pulled out his phone and showed Zevian a video his team had sent him, capturing a black-clad figure carrying Evelyn from the beach before driving away into the darkness. The culprit had cleverly avoided CCTV cameras, but Damien’s team would find him within days.

"I need him before sunrise," Zevian growled, his voice icy and chilling even for Damien. Whoever had tried to take his wife’s life would end up losing theirs, in the most tragic and torturous way.

Damien nodded, shoving his phone back into his pocket. He patted Zevian’s shoulder and said, "Don’t worry, she will make it through."

But hope seemed to fade when he saw his assistant running toward them from the operating theater.

"B-boss," the man gasped, his face ashen with fear, "h-her heartbeat flatlined!"

"The doctors declared her dead!"