Chapter 957

Tears instantly spilled from Gwyn's eyes.

"Connor."

Her voice choked with emotion. "You're back."

Connor's eyes grew damp, but he forced the tears back. He was a man who preferred to bleed rather than cry.

"Gwyn, take care of Leonie for me. Tell her to wait for me. I'm going to make everything right."

Gwyn had been worried sick about him. She knew he wasn't the type to abandon Leonie in her darkest hour, so his sudden departure had left her deeply uneasy.

When he made the call, she realized he had gone to Starfall City to reclaim his lost memories. And now he had them back. She understood completely and agreed without hesitation.

"Handle what you need to do. I've got Leonie. When you get back, I promise she'll be safe and healthy."

Her promise finally put his mind at ease. "How is she doing today?"

He had been gone for two days, and the agonizing lack of updates was driving him insane.

"Thank you, Gwyn."

He asked her to secretly record a short video of Leonie. She was still confined to her hospital bed, but there was a faint spark of life in her eyes that hadn't been there before.

Gwyn had spent days talking her down, slowly pulling her back from the edge. When true tragedy strikes, only the warmth of family can pierce the darkness.

Gwyn knew that if she had suffered the same catastrophic loss, she would have completely shattered. The trauma of McNeil's ordeal had plunged her into depression for over a decade; she honestly doubted she would have survived being in Leonie's shoes.

As Gwyn watched over her, a doctor arrived to administer another sedative. Leonie suddenly spoke up.

"Gwyn, can you ask them to stop with the injections? I promise, I'm okay."

The relentless torment of the past few days had stripped the healthy fullness from Leonie's face, leaving her painfully frail. Gwyn was heartbroken by the physical toll the grief had taken on the vibrant girl.

Gwyn could hardly bear to look at her. She just prayed that Leonie could claw her way out of the suffocating tragedy of Mr. and Mrs. Everhart's deaths. But the agony didn't stop with Leonie; Layne was shouldering an unbearable burden of his own.

Gwyn had watched the sunny, charismatic Layne transform

overnight into a hardened, brooding shadow He had absorbed

Hawthorne's razor-sharp edge

Tragedy had forced him to mature,

cloaking him in a dangerous, formidable aura that practically

mirrored his uncle. It was the

signature ruthlessness of the

Everhart men.

Yet, whether it was Hawthorne or Layne, Gwyn hated seeing them consumed by such darkness.

She could comfort Leonie, but Layne was completely unreachable. Every time Gwyn mustered the courage to ask how he was handling his father's death, Layne's freezing silence shut her down instantly.

He had walled himself off behind an

impenetrable glacier, leaving Gwyn no choice but to drop the subject. Unlike Mrs. Everhart's highly.

publicized funeral, Layne haiet

suppressed the news of his father's suicide. Not even the extended Everhart family knew the truth yet.

He was carrying the agonizing weight of his father's death completely alone. If the media caught wind of the scandal, it would spark@corporate feeding frenzy. Layne had just taken the reins of the Everhart empire; any sign of vulner fability would invite ruthless rivals to rip the family business to shreds.