2024-09-10 08:22:31Those words sent shockwaves through everyone who had heard them. They couldn’t believe it, but the person who was most in disbelief was the first saleswoman. She snatched the phone from her colleague and dialed the number.
“Are you sure it was $500,000 received?” she yelled, her voice sharp with frustration.
Her tone was so rude that the person on the other end snapped back. “Why are you asking me an obvious question?!” he demanded. “$500,000 has been received! Is there some hotshot there or something?”
The saleswoman's words stuck in her throat as the confirmation hit her. The others who had belittled Tedmond earlier now remained silent, lips tightly sealed.
“Did you do something?” the voice on the phone asked, but the saleswoman quickly hung up, lowering her head.
She turned to Tedmond, bowing slightly. “I am extremely sorry for doubting you,” she stammered. “Can I get you a cup of tea as an apology while your things are packed?”
Tedmond glared down at her in silence. As she raised her head to meet his eyes, she flinched under his cold gaze.
“We made a deal, didn’t we?” Tedmond said calmly. “You were supposed to apologize while crawling around the store.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief. She hadn’t actually expected to do it. “But... but…”
His eyebrows arched. “What are you waiting for? Did you forget what I asked you to do?”
Trembling slightly, she shook her head. “I never intended to do that. Couldn’t we just—”
“Your job or the deal?” Tedmond asked casually, cutting her off.
Without hesitation, she hurried away from the front desk and fell to her knees, shivering with embarrassment. She was about to start crawling when he stopped her with his foot.
“You seem to be forgetting something,” he said darkly. “I told you to apologize to your co-worker.”
She turned her head toward the salesman and yelled, “I’m sorry!”
The salesman was taken aback, awkwardly averting his gaze.
“Now, continue crawling,” Tedmond ordered.
The woman resumed, her face flushed with humiliation, while the other customers who had supported her earlier began recording the scene on their phones.
Tedmond glanced at the other saleswomen, and they all avoided his gaze in fear. “The one crawling could’ve been any of you,” he warned, and the women flinched.
“I’ll get your things ready,” the salesman said quickly, as though trying to rescue the situation. “Thank you for your help.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Tedmond replied. “I was only doing it for myself.”
Despite that, the salesman thanked him again and hurriedly packed Tedmond's purchases. Soon, Tedmond walked out of the store, and with the help of the staff, all of his items were loaded into the car.
“Should I drive you home, young master?” the driver asked, glancing back at Tedmond as he settled into the car.
Tedmond thought about it for a moment. He had left the house with only a few bags from his vacation, but he still had his things at the Griffin home.
“Drive me to Rolling Street,” he replied. “I have something to do there. Don’t wait for me—just drop me off.”
“Yes, young master.”
A few minutes later, Tedmond got out of the car far from his father's home to avoid drawing unnecessary attention. He waited for the driver to leave before walking toward the building.
The atmosphere was still cold, though not as biting as it had been earlier. After a short walk, he entered the Griffin compound. He wondered if his father had returned yet. Then, with a bitter thought, he corrected himself.
‘Ex-father.’
The man was no longer his father.
He pushed open the door and stepped inside, expecting to see his former family in the living room, but no one was there. He made his way toward the kitchen, glancing up the stairs as he walked.
His room wasn’t upstairs like the others'. Instead, it was in a small basement. The memory of the cramped space resurfaced as he approached.
“Didn’t you say he was in his room?!” a loud voice demanded, making Tedmond frown. It was Harold Griffin, his father—or rather, ex-father. “Where the hell is that brat?”
“He was here hours ago,” his stepmother, Evelyn, said, trying to calm him down.
“That brat!” Harold yelled.
Tedmond peeked through the open door. They were all in his room, no wonder the house had been quiet. Harold’s face was twisted in anger, the lines on his forehead prominent as he raged.
“Why are you looking for him?” Max, Tedmond's half-brother, asked. “We kicked him out of the family, like you said. He’s 19 now, and we no longer have to take care of him.”
Harold turned to glare at Max. “You should’ve done it while I was here!” he bellowed. “He has something important!”
Of course, Tedmond sighed. His father had no use for him unless it involved something valuable. Tedmond had considered giving them what they wanted and cutting all ties, but the next words made him pause.
“That stupid necklace his mother left him is valuable!” Harold claimed. “I just figured out its name and its worth!”
Tedmond’s hand instinctively reached for the necklace around his neck. It was the only thing his mother had left him, and for years, they had mocked it as something worthless. If they had known its value earlier, they would have sold it long ago.
His jaw clenched. Now, they wanted to find him only because they wanted something.
“I can get him back,” a voice said. It was Lisa, Tedmond’s ex-girlfriend, her face determined.
“And who the hell are you?” Harold demanded.
Apparently, he hadn’t attended the wedding.
“She’s my wife,” Max replied, and their sister Maxine nodded in agreement. “She’s Tedmond’s ex, and he’s still in love with her. She can trick him into giving us the necklace.”
Hearing that, Harold finally relaxed. “That’s settled then. We don’t need to bring him back here. That useless brat has caused enough trouble already. Get his stuff out of his room and toss it in the trash.”
“His room will become a storage space from now on,” Evelyn said, with a note of satisfaction. “I’ve wanted to get rid of him ever since he was brought here as a baby.”
Tedmond’s eyes darkened. He turned and left before they could notice him. Now he knew why they were looking for him, and he couldn’t wait for them to try. When they did, he would be ready with a nice surprise.
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CHAPTER 767
His gaze shifted to a cluster of mutilated photos. They were images of Millicent and Marek in their younger days, sharing a milkshake on a park bench, fingers entwined. In everyone, Marek’s face had been aggressively scarred away. The paper was shredded where his features should have been, gouged by a knife or a fingernail until only a jagged hole remained.The man reached out, his finger tracing the void where Marek’s smile used to be. "You were just a footnote, Marek. A distraction. A fly buzzing around a masterpiece."The display continued, growing increasingly invasive, less a record of a woman and more the lair of a predator. There were shots of her swimming in a lake, captured from the shadows of the treeline; photos of her sleeping in her childhood bedroom before the highway incident; even the most mundane fragments of a life: grocery shopping, reading on a bus after refusing the car the butler had sent, tying her laces.Every move she had ever made had been documented, ca
CHAPTER 766
Moving toward the wall, he approached an intricate spread of hand-drawn maps and genealogical trees, his bloody palm dragging a jagged smear across names that dated back a century."Do you know what happens to a masterpiece when a child scrawls over it in crayon?" he whispered, his voice hitching with an unhinged tremor. He turned back, a terrifying, crooked grin splitting his face. “Tedmond... little, brave Tedmond. He thinks he’s a savior. He thinks he’s found her. He hasn't found a mother; he’s found a ticking clock, and he’s just accelerated the countdown!"He grabbed a heavy bronze letter opener and began stabbing it into the desk, over and over, the wood splintering with every strike."Several years!" he shrieked, the calm shattering instantly. "For several years, I let Harold play house! I let that pathetic Griffin worm keep her in the dark because the darkness preserves the essence! I liked how she was sold off… panic ruins the flavor!”“It curdles the markers! And now? Her
CHAPTER 765
The air in the high-ceilinged penthouse was thick with the copper tang of fresh blood and the heavy, expensive scent of Cuban tobacco, a suffocating cocktail that made the lungs ache.In the center of the wreckage sat a man who looked less like a human and more like a mountain carved from scarred granite. Stripped to his waist, his massive, corded muscles gleamed with sweat and dark spatters. He didn't just sit in the velvet armchair; he dominated it, his presence sucking the oxygen from the room. A black silk mask lay discarded on a side table, but his face currently wore a mask of far more terrifying proportions: pure, unadulterated rage.At his feet, the floor was no longer visible. A dozen men, all seasoned fighters, were piled like discarded lumber. Some were groaning, their limbs bent at angles that defied nature; others were hauntingly silent.The man reached for a crystal tumbler of amber liquid, his hand so large the glass looked like a toy.He didn't drink. He simply st
CHAPTER 764
The dialogue remained light for hours, drifting from Thomas’s failed attempts at gardening to Marek’s stories of the city’s changing skyline. The horrors of the basement and the Crossroad Men were kept at bay, locked away by the sheer force of their collective happiness.Eventually, the table fell into a comfortable lull. Millicent set her fork down and leaned back, watching the young couple at the other end. She watched the way Persis tilted her head to laugh at a whisper, and the way Tedmond looked at her, not with the predatory hunger of his father, but with a protective, profound adoration."You two," Millicent said softly, her voice cutting through the chatter with gentle authority.Tedmond and Persis both looked up, caught in the light of their own world. "Yes, Mother?" Tedmond asked.Millicent’s eyes sparkled with a hint of the girl she had been before the highway. "I’ve spent a lifetime waiting for things to be right. I’ve watched the moon through cellar bars and prayed fo
CHAPTER 763
The fury was there, sharp and cold, but as he looked back at the courthouse, he saw a small, frail figure standing by the pillars.It was Millicent. She looked exhausted, her shoulders finally sagging after hours of maintaining her monumental poise.Tedmond took a slow, grounding breath and folded the paper, tucking it deep into his pocket. The darkness in his eyes didn't vanish, but it receded, replaced by a weary tenderness."Not tonight, Persis," Tedmond said, his voice softening. "The docks can wait. Malachai Vire isn't going anywhere. They’ve lived in peace for twenty years; they can survive one more night of ignorance."Persis blinked, surprised. "You’re calling it off? Just like that?""Not calling it off," Tedmond corrected. "Just delaying. My mother has spent her whole life being a ghost or a servant. Today, she became a free woman. She shouldn't have to spend her first evening of freedom wondering if her son is out spilling blood.”“We’re going home. I want to sit at a tab
CHAPTER 762
The city had never seen a trial like the one that unfolded in the hallowed, marble halls of the High Court. It wasn't just a legal proceeding; it was an autopsy of an era. The Griffin Scandal had leaked into the press like oil on water, shimmering with the iridescent filth of the elite, and it was high time for Evelyn to be brought to justice.The courtroom was packed to the rafters. Reporters sat shoulder-to-shoulder with the very socialites who had once sipped champagne in the Griffin solarium. At the center of it all sat Millicent, dressed in a simple, high-necked charcoal dress.She didn't look like a victim; she looked like a monument.Across the aisle, Evelyn Griffin sat alone. Her children were not beside her. Her husband was dead. She was a woman stripped of her armor, yet she clung to a jagged, pathetic defiance.***The lead prosecutor, a man who had built his career on the very laws Harold Griffin once manipulated, called the first witness. Sarah, the younger maid wh
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