“Scar, is Anthony with you? If he wants White Corporation, just give it to him! Remember that your safety is the first priority! Do not take any risk! And do not try to find me!”
Marcus spoke at such a hurried pace that I needed to listen to it twice. Only then was I sure he was actually asking me to be on guard against Anthony.
Still holding the phone in my hands, I shifted my gaze down towards the direction of Anthony. Looking at him socializing professionally among those men, I could not shake off the insecure emotions within me.
All the evidence told me that Anthony was building a huge web, while all of us were like fish trapped within it. I was no exception to this.
I turned and entered the bedroom. Then, I sat on the couch and let myself sank into deep thoughts. I came back to my sense only after Anthony opened the door and came in. Apparently, all the guests had left.
“Why are you still up?” Anthony asked with a drunken tone while he threw his suits on the couch. He approached me and gave me a gentle kiss on my forehead. “Sleep early.”
I could see that he was in an extremely joyous mood. Upon speaking, he wandered towards the bathroom, getting ready to freshen up.
But before he entered the washroom, I called out to him.
“Anthony, you invited all these people over. Was it to celebrate our soon-to-be-born baby? Or was it an opportunity to build your business network in advance?”
Anthony halted his steps. There was a long silence inside the room as the atmosphere turned suffocatingly tense.
Sometimes, one does not need words to say something; silence is enough to convey the message.
However, I would rather prefer Anthony to cover it up with a joke or something. At this moment, his complete silence was killing me.
It took a long moment before he turned towards me and held my shoulders with both his hands. He looked at me earnestly and said, “Your only priority now is to give birth. Let me handle everything in the company. There won’t be any problem. Trust me.”
Ultimately, he admitted it.
I furrowed my brows slightly as I recalled Marcus’ intimidated tone talking about Marcus. I bit my lips as I asked, “How about Marcus? Are you really trying to help him, or is he just a part of your plan?”
Anthony’s expression darkened when he heard Marcus’ name, and his arms defensively wrapped around his chest. “As I have said, we should know when to draw a line between personal affairs and work. My acquisition of White Corporation is fully legal and logical, and I have given them the best terms possible. You took part in the attack against the Moore family, so you should know better that there is no partiality in the business world. If I have not acted on them, White Corporation would have been left on the chopping block of others.”
When I looked into his eyes at that moment, I felt as if we were from two different planets. I have seen this ambitious desire in his eyes before. When we just got married, he dedicated all his attention to the company’s business. Those eyes were always so calm and fearless as if nothing in the world could ever stop him from getting what he wanted. There was no denying I was deeply attracted to that side of him. But as for today, I am starting to find it troubling.
Now I realized he had never let go of his ambition. He knew I would probably have opposed him, so he delicately planned this intrigue by using GW Group to trick me into signing the letter of authorization. His shadow game completely bluffed me. All this while, he has always wanted to collaborate with Winzone Trading.
As thoughts ran wild in my head, I grabbed his arm tightly as I could no longer suppress my worries. “Anthony, could you please tell me what exactly you are doing?”
Hearing this, Anthony wrapped his arms around my neck and smiled at me patiently. “I know that you would get worried easily due to your previous depression and your current pregnancy. That’s why I chose not to tell you. You should not endure too much stress for the sake of our baby.”
I found his explanation hard to believe. “It has nothing to do with my depression or pregnancy. Anthony, you know exactly what I am asking.”
I tried to collect myself, but I could hardly bear his lies anymore. “Why are you keeping so many secrets from me? You were the one who told me that launching in M Country would be like suicide. You said that you didn’t want me to take the risk. Yet you are risking it all now. Why can’t you do it a safer way?”
Right at this instant, I came to comprehend what Jackson had told me. All this while, what I knew was merely a tip of an iceberg.
Featherstone Corporation had just moved its headquarters to K City for a year. Thus it would still be immature to enter the international market. Numerous parties had given the same advice to Anthony, yet all had fallen short on his deaf ears.
Right then, the smile on Anthony’s face suddenly vanished. “Who told you about the finance project?”
I was stunned by this unexpected question, and I thought hard to find the most appropriate response. “It doesn’t matter who told me. I am one of the shareholders, so it is just a matter of time before I discover it. Do you really think that you can keep me in the dark forever?”
Anthony was out of words. With that, he headed into the bathroom, and what I heard next was the sound of the running shower. And thus, our communication failed.
I still could not wrap my head around it, while I found myself sitting on the couch waiting anxiously for him to come out.
His shower was short and sweet like usual. After a short while, he stepped out in his bathrobe, with his hair still dripping wet. Seeing that I was still up, he gave a long sigh and slowly sat down beside me. The next moment, I could feel his gentle hands pulling me into his warm embrace.
It seemed like ages ago when we sat down and spoke our minds. I leaned quietly on his chest, listening to his familiar heartbeat. A while later, Anthony’s low voice echoed in the room. “Don’t you always want to know why I didn’t attend Grandpa’s funeral?”
I got up and looked at him in confusion. “Yeah. Why?”
George was one of the few elders who treated me well. I had always felt bad that Anthony did not attend his funeral.
“Do you know that Nora’s and my parents all died in a car crash?” Anthony said.
“Yes.” I nodded without much thought. “Nora mentioned to me that it was an accident. Did it have anything to do with this?”
I could see Anthony’s eyes darkened as he lifted his head and gazed out the window. “You only knew both died in a car accident, but you did not know that both happened on the same day, separately in J City and A City. The day before that, they were meeting up for a business deal. What seemed to be two unrelated accidents was actually a long-planned scheme to eliminate the scapegoats.”
I was stunned momentarily in puzzlement. “But what did this have to do with Grandpa?”
Anthony took a deep breath and said, “Why do you think that my parents would be willing to become the scapegoats without any fight?”
He looked at me sternly and revealed all the truths that happened years ago.
Anthony’s parents had signed some important documents due to their close friendship with Nora’s parents. But unbeknownst to them, those were some illegal documents regarding heavy crimes. On the day of the car accident, Anthony would have been in the car too, if not for George, who kept him behind. Three hours after that, Anthony’s parents got killed in a crash from J City to K City. At that same time, George brought Anthony to meet an old friend, whom Anthony later found out to be the mother of the murderer.
Both accidents were carried out so flawlessly that the cops concluded them to be pure accidents even after thorough investigation. With their deaths, the ones who should have paid for their crimes remained at large. And the real culprit went unpunished up till this day.
“A week before the accident, Grandpa had been hanging out with that particular friend. Thus my parents failed to detect any suspicion. They thought it was a deal with a trustworthy friend, so they signed those documents without hesitation. Grandpa, who knew all along about the friend’s criminal background, did not say a word to prevent this. Undeniably he was an accomplice.”
I could hear the malicious hatred in Anthony’s last word of his sentence.
Never would I have thought that George would conduct this kind of secret crime. My brows furrowed as I asked Anthony. “So the reason you are so desperate to expand now is to revenge for your parents?”
However, the more I thought, the more unconvinced I was at Anthony’s plan. “If that’s so, you should be more careful to maintain your power, shouldn’t you? Based on your recent reckless move, anyone can see that you are aiming the skies. Anthony, both of us know perfectly that if you fail this time, you will lose everything. Since you have waited for so long, what do you have to lose to wait a little longer? Please at least wait till our baby is born.”
“I am running out of time.” Anthony shook his head unyieldingly. “I spent five years moving Featherstone Corporation to K City. I cannot afford another five, so I’ve got to defeat him within these two years. If all those officials who were behind this got ranked up, then I’ll lose this chance forever.”
Anthony sounded calm but extraordinarily persuasive. I agreed that if he did not do this now, he might regret it for his whole life. Sometimes opportunity could not stand the test of time.
That night, I hugged Anthony to sleep, but I could not close my eyes the entire night. I was fully aware of the danger my husband was in, yet I failed to find a good reason to stop him. I had never been in such a dilemma, between the fear of losing him and the love to support him. With those train of thoughts in my mind, I dozed off somewhere around dawn.
The moment I woke up, Anthony was not by my side. Mrs. Eriksen said he had gone back to the office.
It had been a long time since I last accompanied Summer to eat breakfast. Even though I hardly had any appetite, I drank a bowl of soup together with her.
I did not expect Jackson would come back again so soon, this time with a lawyer. The two tall men stood in front of me and looked at me with determined expressions. Jackson knew that I would never give up, so he might as well proceed with the judicial process without wasting time.
Summer ran over and hugged Jackson tightly. “Mr. Jackson, it’s good to see you again!”
Jackson smiled as he stroke Summer’s head gently while the lawyer beside him started speaking professionally, “Ms. Stanhope, I come to represent Mr. Jackson to discuss your child’s custody.”
I turned my back against Summer and whispered, “Don’t say this in front of the kid.”
Then, I gave a gesture to Mrs. Eriksen, signaling her to bring Summer upstairs. After that, the three of us sat down in the living room.
Jackson sat right opposite of me, with his arms crossed. He had been avoiding my eyes since arrival, while his lawyer was the one who did all the talking. “Ms. Stanhope, you and Mr. Jackson are not blood- related to Summer, and both of you were friends of the deceased Ms. Markle. Mr. Jackson thinks that since you are starting to focus on your own baby, it will affect Summer’s childhood. He hopes that you will voluntarily give up your custody, then there will be no need to bring this to the court.”
This lawyer seemed to be an experienced one, as he knew they would not find any actual negligence in how I treated Summer in terms of the law. The only possible way they could win this was going after the emotional aspect. Normally for custody cases, the judge would also fully consider the emotional condition of the guardian.
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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