Tears cascaded down her cheeks as she stared at Holden and said, "Someone's framing me. Someone tampered with these records. I don't know any Helen, I swear!"

As Sadie nervously rambled on, Holden sat beside her, smoking and patiently listening to her.

The more she talked, the colder Sadie felt.

When Sadie stopped, Holden extinguished his cigarette and asked calmly, "Did Zayden call you before the car crash? After leaving Eleymond, where did he go? Has he been in touch with you?"

Sadie was so nervous that she could hardly speak. Holden gave her a quick look and said calmly, "He's my cousin, remember? I can overlook your past with Zayden."

Even though Holden never seemed to care about their past, Sadie couldn't help but feel like he was upset about this. It seemed like he was ready to forgive her. She told herself that maybe she was just imagining her fear.

“I will tell you!" Sadie quickly changed her tone, sounding repentant.

“Holden, if you can forgive me, I'll tell you everything."

Without hesitating, Sadie revealed everything about Zayden she knew.

"He called me before the car crash. He said he went to Conata and had been staying there. He had someone report you for arms smuggling in Mistlyn just to get you out of Eleymond, but I don't know what his plan was beyond that. He also mentioned that his main base is in Conata, and he plans to rebuild his power from there."

When Holden heard Conata being mentioned, he recalled it was a notorious country for illegal activities like human trafficking.

Thinking about the video of Ariana that Zayden had shown him, he frowned, realizing he had a clue now.

This explained why his men had searched Eleymond thoroughly but had found no trace of Ariana.

After her confession, Sadie looked at Holden hopefully, thinking they could move past this.

Holden nodded, saying, "Good."

But before Sadie could relax, Holden brought up the previous topic.

"Since you are Helen, how could we have fallen in love?"

“We just did," Sadie replied, defensively. “I've always loved you, Holden. I've loved you for a long time."

“How about me?" Holden asked.

"You..." Sadie hesitated. Then, she continued, "You've always wanted to be with me, so you agreed to be with me. We've known each other for a long time; you just forgot it. You didn't want to pressure me, so we kept it quiet. We've been together secretly for a long time."