Let Me Go, Mr. Howard Chapter 240

"Dealt with?"

After what felt like an eternity, Scarlett finally heard her own voice croak out the question, dry and raspy.

Teddy nodded, and seeing her dazed expression tinged with panic, he realized his word choice might have scared her.

He hesitated, then quickly explained, "Not that kind of handled. Just... you won't be seeing her again, whether abroad or back home."

Whether abroad or back home? Wasn't that basically the same thing?

Scarlett had barely managed to collect herself when Teddy's explanation hit her, and she couldn't help but frown.

Unfortunately, Teddy didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with what he'd said.

He even walked over and sat down across from Scarlett, continuing in that same calm tone, "Ms. Seymour, Mr. Howard's feelings for you are unmatched. Ms. Morgan has outlived her usefulness now, so it's only natural she'd be discarded."

Scarlett didn't respond immediately.

While the man across from her had no prior record of anything suspicious, thinking about Sebastian and Michael's strange reactions made even Teddy—Sebastian's loyal right hand—seem questionable.

Besides, judging from Libbie's attitude earlier, she clearly hadn't known Teddy would follow them here.

Why had Teddy come here, and exactly how had Adeline been "handled"? These two questions still had no clear answers for Scarlett.

When she returned to her room, she found a message from Chris waiting.

Surprisingly, his message was just a few simple lines.

[Nothing's happening on the Sovereign City end.]

[Michael's making good progress too—I saw he attended that international research conference recently.]

Every word seemed carefully chosen to emphasize that everything was running normally.

But Scarlett still felt something was off. She couldn't pinpoint where this feeling came from, but she had this nagging sense that someone was hiding something.

However, she couldn't figure out what, so she just replied with an OK.

Closing her phone, Scarlett picked up the book beside her, trying not to dwell on the day's strange events.

After a few minutes, she gradually became absorbed in the material, following along with the course on her tablet.

A soft, brief tapping sound rang out.

Scarlett immediately looked up toward the source—the glass door leading to the balcony.

But there was nothing there, just some unknown species of bird startled into flight.

Scarlett waited a bit longer, and when no more sounds came, she looked back down and rewound the progress bar on her tablet.

Just as the progress bar returned to where she'd left off, another sound came from that direction.

This time, Scarlett immediately looked up and paused the course content on her tablet.

"Who's there?"

Her voice was cold as she called out.

But no one answered.

Her eyes stayed fixed on that glass door leading to the balcony—a walnut-framed glass door with textured glass that caught the setting sun's rays, casting irregular patterns of light into the room.

Beautiful scenery, but Scarlett wasn't in the mood to appreciate it.

Just as she was watching that area, the sound came again.

This time, Scarlett couldn't sit still any longer. She stood and walked toward the balcony.

She moved slowly, careful not to startle whatever unknown creature was outside.

When she reached the glass door, she finally saw what was making the noise—several small pebbles scattered around the walnut door frame.

Just as she was wondering who would do something so pointless, another pebble arced up from below and struck the glass door.

This one hit the glass panel right in front of Scarlett's face.

Though it didn't break the glass, it made Scarlett instinctively step back and close her eyes.

Scarlett immediately looked toward where the pebble had come from, pushed open the door, and walked out without hesitation, going straight to the balcony railing to look down.

She hadn't planned to scold some rude child—she was simply curious.

But the moment she leaned over, Scarlett froze completely.

This room had two balconies, front and back. The one facing the front of the building was off the small living room, while the bedroom balcony faced the back.

Behind the villa was a small garden, and beyond that, the property's perimeter wall. Standing behind that wall was a man with golden hair, a full beard, and black-framed glasses.

He had his hand raised, fingers pinched around what was obviously another pebble.

Just as he was about to throw it, Scarlett appeared in his line of sight. The pebble that had been aimed upward suddenly changed course and dropped to the ground.

Scarlett looked the rude man up and down.

He appeared to be in his fifties, but had a surprisingly good physique—long legs, narrow waist, broad shoulders. He definitely didn't look like the type to pull this kind of stunt.

Looking at his face, Scarlett frowned slightly, feeling like she'd seen this man somewhere before.

But foreigners all looked similar to her. Even after living abroad for so long, she still couldn't clearly distinguish between different foreign faces.

After dropping the pebble, the man immediately began waving his arms while opening and closing his mouth. From his lip movements, he seemed to be saying "Hey!"

Scarlett didn't understand his purpose. Her guard was up around this stranger who'd appeared out of nowhere, so even though they were separated by a considerable distance and she was in a completely safe position, she still didn't raise her hand to respond to his enthusiasm.

Seeing her lack of response, the man didn't give up. He pulled a handheld banner from inside his suit jacket—clearly something he'd prepared in advance.

The banner had no extra content, just a string of numbers that looked like a phone number.

The whole thing was completely bizarre.

Scarlett naturally wasn't about to trust it, but she still instinctively memorized the number sequence before turning and walking back into the room.

To prevent herself from forgetting, she picked up her phone and quickly entered the digits into her notes app, adding "stranger" as a label.

Outside the window, the man had already put away his banner and turned to leave, his figure disappearing into the shadows at the street corner.

She stared at the number on her screen, her fingertip hovering over the call button. After a moment's hesitation, she finally hit save.

This was the first time she'd encountered something like this abroad, but it reminded her of the argument she'd overheard outside the hospital room. She drew the curtains and placed her phone face down on the table, her heartbeat still not completely steady.

She didn't know whether she should contact the owner of that number, but encountering something like this on her first day in this place clearly wasn't a coincidence.

Although she'd already learned about her background from Sebastian, Scarlett still wanted to know what Benjamin had been trying to do back then.

Was it really as Sebastian had said—that he'd wanted to confirm her identity and then expose her, pushing her out to face those people's pursuit and harm?

If that was the case, why hadn't Benjamin just revealed his own identity directly?