Chapter 202: Chapter 205

Sensing someone’s presence over there, Sophia tremblingly stretched out her hand toward him and pleaded, “Save me, please!”

However, the person seemed to be unconcerned about her life or death situation. Tearing his clothes into pieces with his teeth, he seemed to let out a few mocking chuckles as he bandaged his wounds. “I’ll save you if you can crawl up to me,” he muttered.

Using all the strength she could muster, Sophia wormed her way through the mud and crawled toward the man with all her might. As her body ached all over, she suffered intense pain every time she moved.

Then, as the pain penetrated deep into her soul, her breathing became increasingly shallow before she gradually lost her consciousness. Even so, she crawled toward the man with indomitable perseverance.

I must not die! I must take revenge! I must make those who hurt me pay the price! she thought to herself.

After treating his wounds, the man lowered his head and watched as she crawled little by little toward him. He then said with a sneer, “What’s the point of you struggling to stay alive after living such a miserable life? It would be better to just die!”

“I will not die!” uttered Sophia with a pause after each word. “Even if I’m a dog, I’ll live longer than the other dogs!”

All she wanted was to gain a foothold in this world through her own hard work; Sophia had never hurt nor damaged the interests of anyone, so why should she deserve to die?

Sophia’s fingers sank deep into the mud, leaving deep trails in the mud as she crawled. Since they treated her like a dog, she would live like one and outlive all of them!

Having heard her answer, the man laughed. He seemed young, and his eyes were attractive and charming.

Having crawled to his feet, Sophia clutched his ankle tightly, sinking her fingernails into his flesh.

He hissed in pain and said, “You’re really a dog. Not only do you live a wretched life, but you’ll also live a long life.”

Sophia kept grabbing his ankle with all her might without saying a word. Having run out of strength to resist, the man let her claw at his ankle until it bled. Then, without moving his ankle, he moved around to her feet and tapped her leg. “Did you get your leg broken by somebody else?” he asked.

Sophia clenched her teeth to keep her pain from showing.

The man said, “Hang in there—it’ll be painful.”

A pair of large and powerful hands rested on her broken leg as he finished his sentence. The next instant, a loud and clear crack could be heard from her broken bone. As the sound traveled all the way to her brain, the intense pain and feeling of suffocation flooded her consciousness, causing her to pass out instantly.

Sophia was already in the hospital by the time she had regained consciousness. Not only had her broken leg been forcibly put back in place, the person had even paid her medical bills.

However, she also had a badly mangled wound on her ankle at the same time. She used to think that she received the wound on the beach, but it seemed like the man was the actual culprit behind it.

Furthermore, the scar’s position seemed to have perfectly matched the spot on his ankle where she had scratched him.

Did that man do it on purpose?

Meanwhile, Gary, Hale, Gemma, and the rest of the experts gathered around Michael back in his study.

He then showed them the photo of Sophia’s ankle on his cell phone. The mangled scar looked like a dog —no, it looked more like a wolf with its rugged appearance.

Gemma quickly scanned the photo and searched it up on her database. Getting hundreds of matching results soon after that, she immediately concluded, “Boss, Madam’s scar wasn’t formed by nature. It was carved using a blunt weapon, and matching search results show that it is the Phantom Wolf’s symbol.”

With a serious look on her face, she projected her search results onto a large screen. Michael knitted his brows as he looked at Gemma’s findings; the Phantom Wolf was a mysterious organization, but some of its members had been shot dead by law enforcers in different countries. More importantly, all of them had a wolf’s head tattooed on their wrists.

The organization had a cruel practice of carving its symbol of death into its victims’ faces after killing them. However, since its members couldn’t afford to slowly carve a wolf’s head into their victims’ skins, they probably used some sort of portable tattoo machine to do so in a short time. Such a method was more brutal since it achieved the objective of forming the pattern by tearing off a part of the victim’s skin.

The wolf’s head was carved into the victim’s skin like a stamp. After that, the carved skin was torn off, leaving behind a scar in the shape of a wolf’s head.

100%The scar on Sophia’s ankle had become less visible because it had healed over the years. She had also undergone some treatment to reduce its appearance. However, data restoration left no doubt that the scar was indeed the Phantom Wolf’s symbol of death, for it was carved into the skin like a stamp.

Up until now, the Phantom Wolf’s symbol of death had appeared only on the bodies of dead people. The symbol indicated that the dead person was murdered by the organization’s members, and the organization could use this symbol as proof to demand final payments from its employers.

Therefore, why would the Phantom Wolf’s symbol of death appear on Sophia’s body?

Michael felt a chill running down his spine. He asked, “Tell me the exact date and location of the mission whereby we ambushed the Phantom Wolf two years ago.”

Hale, who had participated in the mission himself back then, still remembered it vividly. He answered, “As far as I can remember, the mission was conducted on the 15th of March at Riverdale. The weather was cloudy back then, and those who joined the mission were Abel, Blake, Gemma, Jack, and I. Since the Phantom Wolf’s leader was crafty and suspicious, we had planned the mission for a long time. We could have caught him at one fell swoop, but we didn’t expect that he would flee by jumping into the river.”

Michael pondered for a moment. He was certain that the Phantom Wolf’s leader must have been wounded that night, which was why he had fled by jumping into the river. In other words, the person whom Sophia met after washing up on the island must have been none other than the Phantom Wolf’s leader.

There was little information on the Phantom Wolf’s leader, but according to Michael’s investigations, this man was extremely dangerous. Not only was he the world’s most high-priced mercenary in the black market, he was also ranked top three in the list of the world’s most formidable assassins. Being an extremely terrifying killer, not only was he an expert on firearms and cold weapons, he also had quite a detailed understanding of human anatomy. He possessed one unique skill; he could silently snap his enemy’s spine in two, thus killing the person without anyone noticing at all.

Setting a broken bone was a piece of cake to such an expert, but why would he leave his symbol of death on Sophia’s ankle?

After some serious consideration, Michael decided to call Sophia over and asked her in detail about what had happened. Even though the matter was strictly between men and was none of her business, she had the right to be in the know since she had the Phantom Wolf’s symbol of death on her body.

After a while, Sophia came in wearing her Pikachu-themed pajamas. On the contrary, everyone else in the study looked formal and serious as they were dressed in standardized black suits.

She sat down on the study’s sofa, her eyes rolling about as she clutched her clothes nervously.

Then, Michael sat down next to her. Afraid that he would frighten Sophia, he said in a low and soft voice, “Don’t be nervous, chica—just tell me what happened that night.”

With that, Sophia repeated from start to finish what had gone down that night. “When I woke up, I was lying in a hospital named Lovely in Riverdale. The person had paid my medical bills and left before I woke up.”

Gemma immediately started hacking into the database of Riverdale’s Lovely Hospital. In the blink of an eye, she found the hospital’s surveillance footage over the past two years. Then, she quickly found the hospital’s surveillance footage on the 15th of March two years ago and projected it onto the large screen.

Everyone turned to look at the large screen and watched the surveillance footage on that day. It was during a night shift, and a drenched man entered the hospital carrying a drenched lady in his arms before registering for emergency treatment.

The man was highly vigilant as he had his back toward the surveillance cameras all the time. However, the lady’s looks were clearly visible in the footage; she was none other than Sophia herself!