I only found out about this when I woke up. I slept through the night, and when I woke up the next morning, Zachary and Cameron had already returned to the hotel.
I had slept very well that night, and it showed on my face. After the doctor cleaned off the rotting flesh, the skin on Anthony’s back had nearly healed completely.
Emery dropped by early in the morning again, but Hunter felt too worried to let her come by herself. Besides, it was nearly new year’s eve, and he didn’t want to deal with the airport crowd that always swelled during this time of the year.
After cajoling her for a while, we all managed to get Emery to return to K City with Hunter.
For the next few days, Zachary and Cameron remained in W City. With them around, I was relieved of much of my caregiving duties and felt much more relaxed.
It was only a few days later that we heard about Old Mr. Crest’s death. Apparently, an investigation into the Crest family’s business activities in W City revealed all sorts of business malpractices they had been involved in. As a result, their factories had been forced to halt production.
The Crest family’s business dealt with the production and distribution of daily items. Although it wasn’t a high-end sort of enterprise, their products faced huge demand because everyone needed those products. The Crest family had established a monopoly in the industry in the past ten years, and almost all the daily items lining the shelves of supermarkets were produced in their factories.
Hence, the Crest family enjoyed a never-ending stream of demand for their goods. This was where most of their immense wealth came from.
However, because daily items proved so vital in people’s lives, every small problem in the products attracted the attention of the Bureau of Industry and Commerce immediately. Once that happened, the entire supply chain collapsed in a domino effect, causing a barrage of problems to descend upon the company.
In addition, the Quest family from W City had been looking to break into supply production for the military. The moment the Crest family’s business ran into problems, the Quest family swooped in like vultures and finished up what was left of the Crest family.
Because of this, Old Mr. Crest had died of rage.
Their son had just been sentenced to prison, and now their patriarch was dead. In a span of a few days, the Crest family was thrown into utter chaos.
“The Crest family has maintained its hold over W City for too long. It’s time to change masters,” Cameron mused. She walked over to me and handed me a glass of water.
I kept my phone away and sighed. I had to admit that Cameron had a pretty good eye for these things.
She walked over to me and asked with trepidation, “What plans do you and Anthony have for the future?”
I felt a little startled. Honestly, I was rather confused as well—weren’t Anthony and I doing very well right now?
Seeing the look of confusion in my eyes, she continued, “Both of you are in your thirties, and you are no longer young. As much as you love Summer, she isn’t your biological daughter. Haven’t you considered having one of your own?”
I was zoning out a little. She had said something to this effect to me before.
She ignored my silence and plodded on. “I know you younger people have your own ideas, but everyone wants to live out their golden years in peace no matter how much they’ve struggled in the first part of their life. The older you get, the more you enjoy the company of others, and the more you want to be surrounded by children and grandchildren. Sienna, Summer was raised by you, and there’s nothing wrong with lavishing your love on her. However, a woman needs to have a child of her own. This isn’t some silly old-fashioned idea I’m spouting—it’s just a life experience you should have.”
I mulled over her words and felt that she was right. “We can talk about this again when Anthony recovers from his injury.”
Cameron smiled, looking more cheerful. “Good! In the future, your father and I can look after the child for the both of you.”
My fingers tightened around the glass as I felt a rush of warmth in my heart. Honestly, this felt rather nice.
In the future, Anthony and I would raise Summer and our child together and lead out the rest of our lives peacefully. Lady Luck was finally starting to shine on me.
A cold gust of air blew down the corridor and into the room. Cameron got up and said, “You can return to the hospital room first. I’m going to ask the doctor if they can discharge Anthony earlier or transfer him to a hospital in K City. Since it’s the festive season soon, let’s try and get the whole family back in K City so we can celebrate it together.”
I nodded and watched as she left for the doctor’s office. I returned to the room, only to find Zachary and Anthony locked in a heated argument.
I wasn’t planning to eavesdrop, but the door was ajar, and I could hear Anthony’s voice clearly from outside the door. He sounded very serious. “There’s no real need for you to kill off the entire Crest family, you know.”
Evidently, this was directed at Zachary.
Zachary’s voice was thick but indifferent. “You might have ties to the Crest family, but what’s that to me? All I know is that they’ve caused much suffering to my daughter.”
“It’s unlikely that the Crest family will return to their previous glory after this.” Anthony was probably speaking up on Jared’s behalf.
Zachary laughed coldly. “I don’t care about what happened between you and the Crest family. Back when you joined forces with Jared to take down the Moore family, the war had already begun.”
I felt a little stunned. Had Anthony really tried to do something to the Moore family?
Anthony spoke again. “That’s all in the past. If you’re going to bring that up again, I have nothing more to say to you.”
Zachary sounded cold and cruel in his reply. “When you swapped Sienna’s DNA back then, you were already planning on taking down the Moore family, weren’t you? You got Jared to strike up a fake alliance with my wife, pretending that they would work together to defeat you. However, Jared betrayed my wife and stole the Moore family’s information from her. You were so against Sienna becoming a member of the Moore family then because you didn’t want to implicate her when you took down our family, right? If that happened, the two of you could never be together.”
I froze on the spot and the memory of the messages Stacey showed me surface in my mind. Jared and Cameron had indeed been up to something privately for quite a long time previously.
However, during that time, the messages Stacey showed me were about Jared and Cameron teaming up to vent their anger for what happened to Naomi.
I couldn’t help but take a step back as I stared at the men in the ward. They were both people from the business circle. There was no way I could guess any of their schemes.
Anthony could finally sit up by now and he said indifferently, “The Moore family might be formidable in K City but it’s not enough to have the same influence in J City. Saying that I have no moves at all is just ridiculous.”
“Hmph!” Zachary scoffed. “Even though the Moore family have been in the mafia for so many years, we’ve always been just and righteous. The reason we want to get a hold of J City is just to find my daughter. We don’t mean to cause any trouble to you.”
“But Naomi’s dead and that’s the truth!” the former said, a hint of anger in his voice.
Zachary furrowed his brows. “That was an accident.”
“And we’re only settling the score for this accident today,” Anthony replied coldly.
“The matters between you young people are now hurting other insignificant people for no reason. Yet you still think you’re right. Anthony, if you want to continue living a great life with Sienna, we better call it even and stop talking about things that happened in the past. Otherwise, both of us will be having a hard time.”
I pursed my lips and decided not to continue listening to their conversation. I went back into the hallway and sat down with a cup of water in my hands.
It seemed like Anthony’s purpose of switching the DNA reports four years ago wasn’t as simple as I once thought.
Jared was close to Cameron, but he left even though they hadn’t done anything. I had never analysed the situation carefully previously.
And there was Naomi’s death. I never imagined that I would get involved in this matter.
Cameron saw that I was still sitting in the hallway, daydreaming when she was back and she couldn’t help but say, “What are you still doing here? It’s too chilly here. Get back into the ward.”
With that, she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the ward.
Meanwhile, Anthony and Zachary were already done with their conversation. At the sight of us, the latter instantly got up and pulled Cameron into his arms. “Where did you go?”
“I went to ask the hospital staff if we could transfer Anthony to a hospital outside of K City. That way, we can celebrate the festive season as a family this year,” she replied joyfully.
She then said to Anthony, “You should be able to walk around now, right?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
Cameron smiled and added, “The doctor said that if you can get off of the bed and move around without opening up the wound, you’ll be allowed to transfer to another hospital. New year’s eve is just around the corner. We’re not even that familiar with W City or the people here so it isn’t really convenient for us to celebrate here. How about I get you discharged from the hospital in a few days, and we’ll return to K City?”
She was obviously asking for Anthony’s opinion.
The man nodded and there weren’t any changes in his expression when he said, “Sure.”
Cameron was extremely happy and told Zachary that she wanted to explore W City. After all, it was a bustling city with lots of foreign luxury goods available.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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