Chapter 726

Chapter 726:
William, on the other hand, stayed calm, though his eyes were a storm.
Leaning forward, closing the space between them, his voice dropped to a low murmur. “This is the reason you’ve been avoiding me lately, isn’t it?”
Stella’s breath caught, and she looked at him, too stunned to say anything. But after a quiet moment, she finally blurted out, “I don’t know what you mean!”
Frustrated, she lifted her foot, ready to walk away, deciding the car wasn’t worth her time anymore. She’d rather spend extra money than get caught up with him here.
But just as she was about to leave, William quickly raised his hand to stop her.
“Stella, can’t you just give me a chance to finish what I need to say?”
She hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Alright. Go ahead.”
William exhaled deeply and said with a serious tone, “I know you’ve been looking into your adoptive parents recently. Well, I found out that just a few days before the accident, they got a package with no return address.”
Those words hit Stella like a bomb in her mind. She suddenly remembered her adoptive father receiving a package a few days before the accident. He had seemed unusually serious back then, and when she asked him about it, he didn’t say a word. He just locked it away in the study’s safe and told her not to worry about grown-up matters.
That safe, and whatever was inside, had disappeared after the accident.
A sudden thought struck Stella. Maybe that package was the key to everything!
When she was younger, she had brushed it off as just some ordinary delivery. If William hadn’t brought it up today, she probably never would have remembered it.
But how had he found out about it so easily, when she hadn’t had any clues all these years?
Shock flooded through her, and though questions bubbled up, she couldn’t speak.
How could she forget? He was William Briggs, from the Briggs family.
Why was he helping her? What did he really want?
If he knew about her adoptive parents, then he must have known the Briggs family was involved too.
So why was he standing by her side? That was the real mystery.
Stella’s voice was low and shaky, as if each word was forced out through gritted teeth. “Mr. Briggs, don’t waste your fake concern on me. I’m not that easy to fool.”
William’s expression flickered with a trace of pain. He had expected she wouldn’t trust him right away, but hearing it straight from her was still hard to take. “Do you really think I’m the kind of person who would throw human life aside?” he asked.
Stella pressed her lips into a firm line before answering in a steady tone. “Maybe you wouldn’t. But your family? Would you risk going against them for what’s right?”
People had defied family for what was right before, but those who actually did it were rare. Stella didn’t buy the idea that William would put her above family loyalties and his own interests.
Watching his tense face, she took a steadying breath, gathering all her will to say, “William, two lives are caught in this. You can’t just ignore that.”
Her words hit hard, like ice slicing through both his heart and hers.
The pain was so intense that her vision blurred, and her body trembled slightly. For a moment, William’s carefully maintained composure cracked. He looked at her over the car’s hood, quietly meeting her gaze.
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