Donovan Lawrence rubbed his reddened, slapped cheek, his eyes filled with venom.
Tiana Lynch stood up, locked the door, and turned off the music.
The private room fell silent in an instant. She looked at the remaining people, a strange smile playing on her lips. "I have something unbelievable to tell you all. In one month, the apocalypse will be upon us. What we need to do now is sell the company immediately and use all the money to hoard supplies."
"What? The apocalypse?"
"Are you kidding me?"
"For real?"
Aside from the three who were already in the know, everyone else was stunned, their faces etched with disbelief.
"It's true. I'm disappointed that Sue Lawrence gave up on this; she'll be the first to die in the apocalypse. But I won't give up on the rest of you. We'll save ourselves together. We'll sell the company and prepare for the end of the world."
In that moment, Mia Keller was flabbergasted. She furtively and quickly sent a text message to Sue Lawrence.
[Mia Keller]: Sue! Tiana Lynch has lost her mind! She's actually saying the apocalypse is coming in a month!
Sue Lawrence frowned when she saw the message. Who would have thought these people would drop such a bombshell right after coming back?
'Heh, interesting,' she thought. 'I just wonder how long they'll last this time without me.'
While replying to Mia Keller, telling her to stockpile supplies and cautiously delete the message, she immediately called home. Her father, Vincent Lawrence, answered.
"Dad, I'll be home with Leo in twenty minutes."
She had to hurry, too.
Before Vincent Lawrence could speak, Sue Lawrence continued, "This whole thing needs to be resolved. Have my brother and sister-in-law come back, too."
After hanging up, she looked down and met Leo Lawrence's timid yet determined gaze.
The five-year-old boy clutched her fingers, his knuckles turning white. Though fear was hidden in his eyes, he stood tall with his small frame, not flinching in the slightest. Sue Lawrence's heart clenched. She turned her hand and gripped her son's small one tightly, a warmth mixed with a sour ache spreading through her heart.
The villa halfway up the mountain was the Lawrence family's ancestral home. Sue Lawrence brought her son back to the house she hadn't seen in three years. Her mother, Vivian Young, rushed out excitedly to greet her, grabbing her hand. Behind her was her sister-in-law, Jenny Norris, who looked like she wanted to say something but held back. Inside, her father, Vincent Lawrence, sat on the sofa with a grim face, as if coated in a layer of frost. Her brother, Elliot Lawrence, was nowhere to be seen in the living room.
"G-Grandpa, Grandma, Auntie..." Leo Lawrence said, looking up with his small face, his soft voice timid. The moment the words left his mouth, Vincent Lawrence's brow furrowed as he snapped, "The Lawrence family has no grandson of unknown origin like you!"
The child's tears instantly hit the floor with a soft PITTER-PATTER.
Jenny Norris, being kind-hearted, hurried forward and swept the boy into her arms, coaxing him toward the kitchen. Before leaving, she shot a worried glance at Sue Lawrence.
Only the three of them were left in the living room. The air was so thick it felt like a block of ice.
"Dad, whether you acknowledge him or not, he is my son."
Sue Lawrence's tone was just as firm. As expected, Vincent Lawrence frowned.
"I was set up that day. The person you should hate is the bastard who set me up. I'm innocent, and so is the child. If someone has to be sliced into a thousand pieces, it should be the person who plotted against me, and the irresponsible man from that night."
"Sue Lawrence!" Vincent Lawrence roared in anger, but she didn't give him a chance to speak. "I missed you, and I missed Mom. I did nothing wrong. I wanted to come back. That's all there is to it."
"Who was it? Who on earth set you up?" Vivian Young grabbed her daughter's hand, her voice trembling with heartache. Her precious daughter, who had suddenly come home pregnant all those years ago, had actually been victimized!
She snatched her phone, her fingertips trembling as she dialed Elliot Lawrence's number. "Where are you? Why aren't you back yet? Your sister was set up back then! You're her older brother, are you going to stand up for her or not? Get your ass back here right now!"
The living room fell silent. No one said a word.
After the call, a deathly silence descended upon the living room.
Vincent Lawrence's face was dark as he stewed in silent anger, his knuckles tapping on the armrest at an ever-increasing speed. Vivian Young clutched Sue Lawrence's hand, her eyes filled with anxiety as she waited for her son to return. Sue Lawrence kept her gaze lowered, her fingertips caressing the warmth her son had left in her palm. Her own heart was pounding.
'In this family, the ones least willing to accept her and Leo were her father and her older brother, Elliot. Would he be on her side this time?'
「The Sovereign Club.」
A few friends stared at Elliot Lawrence.
"Your mom told you to go back?"
"My mom said Sue was set up six years ago." Elliot Lawrence tugged at his tie, his voice hoarse and his eyes swirling with fury. "She wants me to find out who did it. I'm gonna rip his goddamn arms and legs off!"
The private room went quiet in an instant. The men looked at each other.
The affair of the Lawrence family's youngest daughter getting pregnant out of wedlock had caused a city-wide scandal back then. None of them, his close friends, believed someone with Sue Lawrence's character would stoop so low. They always felt there was more to the story, and now it was finally confirmed!
"Sue brought that kid back with her? His name's Leo, right? He's already five."
"Elliot, as her brother, you were a bit harsh on Sue back then. It's not easy for a single woman to raise a child on her own for three years."
"Fuck! I looked into it six years ago, but someone wiped all the traces clean. I didn't find a damn thing!" Elliot Lawrence gritted his teeth, picked up a glass from the table, and chugged more than half of it. The strong liquor burned his throat but couldn't quell the fire in his heart. "This time, I'll dig three feet deep if I have to, but I'll drag him out!"
"There's someone who can help you," one of them suddenly said. "The youngest of the Hawthorne family, Silas Hawthorne. He passed on inheriting the Hawthorne Group and suddenly ran off to Meridia six years ago to study network technology and artificial intelligence."
"Silas Hawthorne?" Elliot Lawrence narrowed his eyes. The name sounded vaguely familiar.
"Yep, he just got back two days ago." The man took out his phone. "I'll find someone to contact him for you. Guaranteed to be reliable."
Elliot Lawrence pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to soothe his throbbing headache, and nodded. "Thanks. I owe you one!"
He grabbed his suit jacket and headed out. "I'm going home first."
'Sue Lawrence was finally back.'
'How on earth did she survive out there for three years, a single woman with a child?'
'She's so stubborn and has such a bad temper, running away from home with her kid after just a few words. The marriage alliance with the Sterling Family was so perfect. Jason Sterling was a great guy—looks, education, character, he had it all. It was all ruined by some bastard child.'
'Now the Sterling and Lawrence families are on bad terms. The Sterlings even deliberately cause trouble for them sometimes. Because it was Sue Lawrence who had messed up first, he'd been enduring it, considering it compensation to the Sterling Family. And now you're telling him there was more to the story, that she was deliberately framed?'
'Which bastard with a death wish did this?!'
Rage burned within Elliot Lawrence.
The heartache for his sister and the hatred for those bastards made his fury peak in an instant.
"Mr. Lawrence, back to the company?" the driver asked cautiously, seeing his grim expression.
"Home," Elliot Lawrence said in a low voice. "First, stop by the mall. Pick out the latest toys for a boy."
Half an hour later, the door to the Lawrence family's home was pushed open.
He stood in the entryway, a large box half a man's height tucked under his arm. A macaron-colored bow was tied crookedly around it, clearly done in a hurry to get home.
He stood in the entryway, his gaze sweeping over Sue Lawrence. He breathed a sigh of relief internally, but his expression remained stern. His tone was stiff, laced with a suppressed heartache. "So you finally decided to come back? You've gotten bold, haven't you? Staying away for three years, your wings have really grown, huh?"