Falling For My Ex's Uncle - Chapter 516: Chapter 516

"Don't you want to keep up the act anymore?" I glanced at Ethan, sitting in the driver's seat.
I had known Ethan for several years. He was good-looking with a calm, easygoing personality. Most importantly, as Marvin's loyal right-hand man, he was obedient and tough, able to take whatever came his way.
I never imagined that one day, he'd betray those closest to him—all for the sake of money.
A faint smile curved his lips as he glanced at me with a mocking look. He let out a soft sigh. "Laurel, I know you and Marvin are close, but as police, we rely on evidence, not intuition. Otherwise, how would so many cases remain unsolved?"
At the traffic light, he stopped the car and met my eyes. His expression was calm, betraying no emotion.
A wave of sorrow unexpectedly washed over me. Ethan was right. I didn't have any proof connecting him to Wilhelm's case and certainly no evidence to back up my suspicion that he had framed Brady. If I had, I wouldn't be sitting in his car, questioning him.
Seeing I remained silent, Ethan sighed, a curious expression crossing his handsome face. "Laurel, tell me. If you told Marvin what you just said, do you think he'd believe you?"
Then, lowering his voice, Ethan leaned in closer, sneering. "If it weren't for you, Brady wouldn't be dead. You're the one who killed him, not me. Now, you're trying to pin it on me?"
Staring at Ethan before me, familiar yet strangely distant, I couldn't help but let out a cold laugh. "What are you afraid of? Don't you think I don't have any evidence? I'm not wearing any listening device—so why not just admit it?"
Ethan shot me a pointed look before pressing down on the accelerator, sighing deeply as he reluctantly spoke. "Laurel, you can't accuse me just because I haven't shared the case details with you, can you?"
He shot me a sideways glance, his face barely hiding the mockery and ridicule. I froze for a moment. 'So, Ethan's keeping his guard up around me, and he's far more calculating than I thought.'
"Ethan, I don't think you should be a police. You're much better suited for acting," I said, a playful smile spreading across my face.
'The best way to make someone slip up is to push them to the brink of anger.'
"Laurel, to be honest, I wanted to be an actor once. But you know how my family situation was." Ethan paused for a moment, lost in thought, before continuing, "It was a miracle that my grandparents could even afford to send me through college."
Ethan was born in a small, rural town. His father was a truck driver who died in a tragic accident before Ethan even turned one.
The truck had been purchased with nearly all of his father's life savings, scraped together with borrowed money from everywhere. It had barely been on the road for three years before disaster struck.
After his father's death, his mother was left to carry the weight of the family on her own. But when Ethan was five, she began feeling unwell and went to the local clinic for a checkup. The doctors told her she might have developed lung cancer from overwork and needed to seek treatment in the city.
On her way back home, Ethan's mother bought a bottle of pesticide and drank it. By the time the family found her and rushed her to the hospital, it was too late—she had already passed.
It was after they sent her to the hospital that they discovered Ethan's mother hadn't had lung cancer at all—it was a misdiagnosis.
Fearing she might become a burden to her child and elderly parents, or perhaps knowing the pain she'd have to endure, she drank the pesticide, ending her life without a second thought.
"Laurel, why is life always so unequal from the start?" Ethan said after a moment of silence, his voice laced with frustration.
I studied Ethan, my heart a tangle of emotions. His expression was calm, but his eyes betrayed a complex mix of feelings I'd never seen before.
"Ethan, life is full of injustices, but that doesn't justify making the wrong choices," I said, keeping my voice as steady as possible, searching for even the slightest hesitation in his response.
Ethan scoffed, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white. "Laurel, you've never had to struggle for anything. You've always had Marvin watching your back. How could you possibly understand what I've been through?
I worked hard to study and became a police, thinking I could change my fate. But what's the reality?" His voice was thick with resentment, his jaw clenched, his side profile tight with resolve.
"I know it's been hard for you all these years, but if you've truly gone down that path, it's not too late to turn back," I said, locking my gaze with his, hoping to catch a glimpse of doubt in his eyes.
Ethan slammed on the brakes, the car screeching to a halt by the side of the road. He turned to face me, fury blazing in his eyes. "Turn back? How am I supposed to turn back? Once you step onto this path, there's no way out! You think this is what I wanted?"
Ethan's breath came fast and uneven, his anger no longer hidden beneath the surface.
A knot tightened in my chest—I hadn't expected him to be this shaken. His emotions ran deeper than I had imagined.
"Ethan, it's not too late," I said gently, softening my voice in an attempt to calm him.
But Ethan turned away, staring out the window with a hollow gaze. His voice was low, laced with a trace of despair. "Laurel, you don't understand. Some mistakes can never be undone."
I frowned, about to respond, when Ethan suddenly let out a dry laugh. "Laurel, the biggest mistake I ever made was not going back to be with my grandparents after graduation. I should've been there to take care of them for my parents. If I had stayed with them, maybe they wouldn't have died so soon."
Ethan's grandfather passed away due to health issues shortly after Ethan was accepted into college. During his time at university, Ethan relied on a combination of part-time work and his grandmother's long hours of labor, doing whatever she could to help cover his expenses.
Unfortunately, his grandmother never managed to pay off all the debts from his education—old age caught up with her, and she passed away.
"Brady wasn't good to you?" I asked, my brows furrowing as I studied Ethan.
When Brady found out about Ethan's situation, he often invited him over for meals and would occasionally bring food from his home. Everyone knew about Ethan's struggles, and most tried to help him in whatever way they could.
"Brady treated me like a brother, and I'm grateful for that," Ethan said with a soft sigh. Then, his lips curled into a faint, almost imperceptible smile. "But now that he's gone, maybe it's a kind of release for him."
At this moment, I stared at Ethan before me, suddenly feeling like I had never truly known him at all.
"Ethan, have you lost all sense of decency?"