Rebirth: A Second chance at life-Chapter 72: Who are you?

Calvert whimpered. "W-Who... who are you?"

Aurora chuckled. "Now you remember to ask," she said, shaking her head. "Too late."

She stepped forward and crouched near his face.

"Now answer me," she said, her voice low. "What else did Lily promise you?"

Calvert coughed, pain tearing through his chest. He was pale, blood soaking the sheets beneath him. His ego had vanished.

"She... she promised me a deal..." he said, barely above a whisper.

Aurora leaned in closer. "What deal?"

"A deal with the Queen’s Group..." he said, and closed his eyes in shame.

At that, Aurora straightened up, her eyes burning with silent fury as she looked down at him.

"What is it with everyone," she muttered, her voice low but trembling with rage, "treating me like some kind of thing... something to trade for money?"

Her fists clenched at her sides. She wasn’t just angry—she was disgusted. Disgusted at Stephen. At Lily. At Alexander. At all of them.

"I told you. Now leave me alone," Calvert begged.

But in his mind, the fear had rooted deep. He was truly terrified now.

The Queen’s Group wasn’t a name you threw around lightly. Everyone in the business world knew about them.

A shadow empire built on old money and ancient power. Generations of wealth. Ruthless, untouchable.

When Lily mentioned it at first, he thought she was bluffing—just another desperate woman making false promises to get what she wanted.

But then... he got an email. An official one. It was short and precise. A signed pre-contract. The name on it made his heart stop.

He received it this morning.

And now, looking at the woman in front of him, watching how calm and calculating she was—how effortlessly she broke him—he finally understood.

This isn’t Aurora Smith. This is someone else. Someone dangerous.

He tried not to cry, not to beg, but the weight of everything hit him all at once. Lily had dragged him into something he couldn’t control.

And this woman—whoever she was—was here to collect.

Aurora leaned back in the chair and crossed her legs. Her eyes never left him.

"Well," she said. "At least now we’re getting somewhere."

Calvert wanted to scream. He wanted to hit the emergency button. But all he could do was lay there, bleeding and broken, knowing he had messed with the wrong woman.

And she wasn’t done yet.

How does Lily know someone from Queen’s? And how was she able to get you that deal?" Aurora asked coldly, her eyes narrowing.

She already knew Lily’s background. She had done her homework—thoroughly. Before marrying Stephen and squeezing herself into the world of wealth and power, Lily was nothing.

A spoiled, petty brat with a bad temper and an inflated ego. Her family wasn’t influential, her education was average, and her name meant nothing in high society.

The only thing she had was a pretty face and a knack for manipulation.

Calvert winced, breathing heavily through cracked lips. He didn’t want to answer, but Aurora’s stare was enough to make the truth spill out of him.

"She... she said she got in contact with someone important through Stephen," he admitted, voice raspy. "Some woman... older. I don’t know her name.

"She had connections with the Queen’s Group," Calvert said, his voice shaky. "Lily told them you were dangerous... that you’d ruin the Smith name.

She convinced some woman in the group, and that woman agreed to help. She pulled some strings."

Aurora scoffed, shaking her head slightly. "So Lily have someone she know from the Queen’s Typical."

Calvert nodded faintly, trembling under her glare. "She promised that if I handled you, she’d make sure the deal went through.

Said the Queen’s Group would send an official endorsement, and they did. This morning."

Aurora’s eyes hardened as she studied Calvert, trying to figure out if he had told the whole truth or if there was still something more he was hiding.

But judging by the way he trembled and avoided her gaze, she doubted this idiot had the guts to keep any more secrets from her.

Calvert shivered under her gaze. There was something terrifying in the way Aurora stared at him—sharp, cold, and unblinking.

Aurora got up and walked over to Calvert. Her expression was calm, cold, and emotionless.

Without a word, she released his handcuffs. He winced, but she didn’t care.

She grabbed him by the collar like a rag doll and dragged him out of the room.

Calvert stumbled, trying to catch his breath. Every inch of his body screamed in pain.

His face was swollen, nose bleeding, lips cracked, but even then, he managed to let out a faint chuckle.

Foolish girl, he thought. She’s walking me out? She’s giving me a way out?

She dumped him on the plush sofa in the living room like a broken sack of potatoes.

"Now give me the recordings of everything that happened in this room," Aurora said coldly. "I see the secret cameras you installed everywhere."

Her eyes scanned the walls, corners, and ceiling with a knowing glint. "What are you hiding, Mr. Harrison?

Must be something dirty enough to destroy you... or is it just one of your sick little fetishes?" Her voice was calm, but the threat beneath it was sharp.

Whatever it was, she was going to get her hands on those recordings—no matter what.

He smirked. "You think this is over? You think you can just leave? No matter how much you beat me, you’re still foolish."

He wiped the blood trickling down from the corner of his mouth. "You won’t leave unscathed. Bitch, I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget."

He fumbled with the controller in his hand and pressed a hidden button under the table.

Outside the room, guards who had been stationed along the hallway rushed in, alarmed by the earlier groans and now the buzz from the emergency signal.

They barged in, expecting an attack or a robbery—but what they found stunned them into silence.

Calvert sat bloodied and bruised on the sofa.