Chapter 702: Chapter 702

Chapter 702:

One by one, the researchers nodded their agreement. “Yes, we did see Alice using the microwave,” one of them confirmed. “But then we left. At that point… she hadn’t left yet.”

Others chimed in, their voices tinged with unease. “Yeah, not long after that, we heard the explosion from the break room.”

“I was scared out of my mind,” Allison admitted, her voice quivering like a leaf caught in a storm. “I was so worried you’d make me pay for the microwave that I bolted back to the cleaning supply room.”

Her voice faltered, and she swallowed hard, her emotions clawing their way to the surface.

“It wasn’t until everything outside went dead silent that I started thinking — maybe I should just fess up. I mean, there’s surveillance everywhere. I knew I couldn’t keep

“It’s a perfectly reasonable story,” Verruckt remarked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Complete with witnesses and all.”

But to Verruckt, the more flawless the story seemed, the more it reeked of lies. With a deliberate tap on the microwave’s twisted frame, he sneered. “Didn’t you know that metal cans can’t be put in the microwave?”

“I’m sorry,” Allison mumbled, keeping her gaze fixed on the floor, her demeanor painted with the broad strokes of naivety. “I honestly didn’t know.”

She clutched her ignorance like a shield. “I’ve only seen it done on TV a couple of times. I had no idea it wasn’t allowed.”

“How convenient,” Verruckt drawled, turning to her with the slow precision of a predator sizing up its prey. “You just happened to blow up the break room. Right at the same time a killer slipped into the lab. Right when the institute suffered not one, but two power outages. And, oh, how curious that your injury bears an uncanny resemblance to the assassin’s.”

His voice was as sharp as a knife’s edge, each word slicing through the thin veil of her defense.

“So many coincidences,” Verruckt continued, his cold gaze narrowing. “It’s almost as if fate itself is begging me to consider you a threat.”

“Mr. Shaw, it really wasn’t me! Who in their right mind would paint a target on their own back like this?”

As Verruckt finished speaking, Allison stood frozen, her face a portrait of panic. Words spilled from her lips in a flood of pleas, yet each one was a calculated nudge, pushing Verruckt to entertain other possibilities. After all, this man had a reputation for finding shadows where none existed.

“If I really were the assassin,” she argued, her voice trembling, “I would have vanished without a trace, not left breadcrumbs leading straight to me.”

She stood there, frail as a reed in a storm, her tear-streaked face turned toward him, pleading silently for mercy.

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