Chapter 598:
I turned to him. I took his rough, work-worn hands in mine. “Uncle Wei, look at me.”
He looked up, his eyes watery.
“It is not about the land,” I said, my voice steady and hard. “It is about principle. You raised my father. You watched over this house when no one else would. If we give them the land today because they killed a cat, what will they ask for tomorrow? If we bend the knee to Luke Strong, we dishonor everything the Vance name stands for. Bullies don’t stop when you feed them. They stop when you break their teeth.”
Wei straightened his spine, a flicker of the old Vance pride returning to his eyes. “You sound just like Sebastian. God rest his soul.”
Across the city, in the glass-walled office of the Strong Development Group, the air conditioning was set to a freezing temperature.
Luke Strong sat behind a desk made of reclaimed timber and steel. He was a mountain of a man, his suit straining against biceps that were built in a gym, not a boardroom. He was playing with a cutter and a thick cigar, the snip-snip sound echoing in the silent room.
“The message has been delivered,” a voice crackled over the speakerphone.
Luke smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. It was the smile of a predator who had just scented blood. “Good. Let them sweat for a few hours. She’ll sign by noon.”
Bella, his partner in both business and bed, was sitting on the edge of his desk. She was filing her nails, the emery board making a rhythmic rasping sound. She wore black nail polish that matched her soul.
“You think scaring them with roadkill will work?” Bella asked, blowing dust off her nails. “That girl Aurora. The reports say she’s the lost Kensington heiress. You’re poking a sleeping dragon, Luke.”
Luke lit the cigar, puffing smoke into the air. “She may have the Kensington name, but does she have their army? She’s here, in the mud, playing house with an old servant. The Kensingtons are in New York, drowning in their own board meetings. By the time they realize what’s happening, I’ll have the deed. She’s a woman with too much sudden money and no street smarts. Everyone has a breaking point. If the cat doesn’t work, we grab something she actually cares about.”
𝘼𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙤𝙤𝙩: 𝗀ⱥ𝗅𝗇𝗈ν𝗍𝖊𝗅𝗌﹒ⅽ𝗈𝗆
Bella looked up, her eyes narrowing. There was a flash of envy there—jealousy for a woman she had never met but whose beauty and sudden fame dominated the headlines. “I heard she’s pretty. If we have to get rough… leave her face to me.”
Luke chuckled, a low, rumbling sound. “You’re vicious, babe. I like it.”
Back at the Vance Estate, the atmosphere was suffocating. The Shadow Guards had arrived—men in black suits who stood like statues at every perimeter wall.
Elias walked into the living room, holding a small, velvet box.
I looked up from my laptop. “Jewelry? Now?”
“Protection,” Elias corrected.
He opened the box. Inside sat a vintage-looking leather wristwatch. It looked unassuming, classic, something an old man would wear.
“It looks like a Patek from the fifties,” Elias explained, taking it out. “But the internals are custom. It has a GPS tracker, a heart rate monitor, and a panic button disguised as the winding stem. If his pulse goes above 120 or drops below 50, Cloud gets an alert instantly.”
I looked at him, my chest tightening. This man thought of everything. He didn’t just offer comfort; he offered solutions.
“Put it on him,” I whispered.
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