Chapter 224
Michelle’s expression remained composed. There was a faint, distant softness in her eyes—nothing sharp, nothing threatening.
After speaking, she extended her hand toward Khloe.
Khloe glanced at it, then gave a calm reply. “There’s no need to apologize. As long as we keep our work boundaries clear, that’s enough. The partnership between our companies will remain professional.”
She shook Michelle’s hand briefly—polite, measured, neither warm nor distant.
Michelle nodded once, not pushing further. She watched quietly as Khloe turned to leave.
Khloe had only taken a few steps when—
A shadow erupted from the edge of the street.
Something cold flashed under the streetlights.
“Khloe—watch out!”
Michelle’s sharp voice cut through the night as she lunged forward, shoving Khloe hard out of the way and throwing her own body into the line of danger.
Time fractured into chaos.
A man—middle-aged, unsteady, eyes wild—was holding a knife.
He missed his first strike and immediately turned back, rushing forward again.
Khloe staggered but quickly regained her balance. Her instincts kicked in; she had learned self-defense before, and her body reacted faster than her thoughts. She sidestepped, raised her arm, and tried to control the attacker’s wrist.
“Miss Roswell!”
From a distance, Michelle’s voice rang out again.
Bodyguards were already sprinting toward them.
Khloe had the attacker nearly pinned when—
Michelle suddenly rushed back in.
Again.
She threw herself directly between Khloe and the blade.
“Michelle!”
Khloe’s pupils tightened.
But it was already too late.
The man’s arm swung back in a desperate reflex.
Steel cut through the air.
A sharp slice landed across Michelle’s wrist.
For a split second, everything froze.
Then the bodyguards arrived, tackling the attacker to the ground and knocking the knife away.
Michelle collapsed backward, clutching her arm. Her face drained of color instantly. Cold sweat broke out across her forehead as her breathing turned shallow and uneven.
Khloe reacted immediately. She pressed a handkerchief firmly against the wound.
Too deep.
Blood soaked through in seconds.
“Khloe… are you… Are you hurt?” Michelle whispered weakly.
Charlotte ran over at that moment, panic in her voice. “Khloe! Are you okay?!”
“I’m fine,” Khloe said quickly, not taking her eyes off Michelle. “Help me get her into the car.”
There was no time to think.
Together, they supported Michelle and rushed her toward the nearest hospital.
Elsewhere.
Under the dim streetlights outside the restaurant, Ethan finally stepped out from the shadows.
The Keller representatives were already gone. Police sirens echoed faintly in the distance as officers secured the scene and took the attacker away.
Ethan glanced casually at the man pinned to the ground by security.
He asked something lightly—no one around him seemed to hear the exact words—then lit a cigarette.
The glow flickered across his face.
After a moment, he walked over and bent slightly, pressing the remaining cigarette into the man’s mouth.
“Intentional assault,” he said lazily. “And on a Keller family guest. Try not to waste your second chance.”
He straightened, as if the matter had already lost its relevance, and walked to his car.
At the hospital.
Outside the operating room, the red light stayed on.
Charlotte stood with Khloe in silence, unable to settle her breathing. She glanced at Khloe several times but didn’t dare interrupt her thoughts.
Finally, she spoke softly.
“Michelle will be okay. Don’t worry too much.”
Khloe didn’t answer immediately.
Because she wasn’t thinking about Michelle.
Her mind was replaying the moment of the attack—the timing, the direction, the way the man had appeared out of nowhere.
And more than anything…
That faint sense of familiarity.
It took her the entire drive to remember where she had seen him before.