Chapter 608:
Alyssa persisted, narrowing her eyes. “Then why go to them?”
A faint, almost secretive smile curved Rylie’s lips. “That’s my business. Your task is to work with Melany, our sole designer, and bring out the best collection possible.”
She knew perfectly well that Alyssa’s words — and her own response — would not take long to reach Laurel’s ears.
After two relentless days of work, Rylie finally returned to the community near the military compound. It had been some time since her last visit, and the elderly residents immediately gathered, lining up eagerly for her consultations. A crowd gathered inside the small clinic, making the already cramped space even tighter. Several seniors sat together, gossiping about recent military changes.
When the talk shifted to Brad, Rylie’s attention sharpened.
“It’s said that those two from the Morgan family are coming back,” a retired Navy veteran said gravely. “And rumor has it they’re bringing a son with them.” Another added with a knowing shake of the head, “I always suspected this day would come. With a fortune as vast as the Morgans’, how could they ever let it go so easily?”
As Rylie finished writing out a prescription, she slipped in a casual question. “But isn’t Mr. Morgan an only child? His parents are gone, and I thought he was raised solely by his grandfather.”
Her words brought the room to a brief hush before the veteran cleared his throat. “That’s what Mr. Morgan claims publicly. He wants nothing to do with his parents, and his grandfather, knowing the pain he went through, never challenged that story.”
Rylie leaned slightly forward, her curiosity quiet but insistent. “What really happened then?”
The veteran’s eyes grew distant before he spoke. “After his mother gave birth, she suffered from severe postpartum depression. She nearly harmed him more than once. His father, a scholar and scientist, was buried in his research and barely noticed the chaos at home. By the time he did, the family was crumbling. He abandoned his career to take his wife abroad for treatment, leaving young Morgan behind with his grandfather, Sean Morgan. He feared that keeping the boy near his unstable mother would be too dangerous. I thought, once she recovered, they’d return for him. But thirty years passed, and Admiral Morgan grew up in his grandfather’s care alone.”
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He let out a weary sigh. “I can’t recall a single birthday Admiral Morgan spent with his parents, not even when he was gravely ill as a child. His grandfather searched desperately for help, yet his parents never appeared. I later learned from a friend living overseas that during their treatment abroad, Admiral Morgan’s parents had another child. From then on, Admiral Morgan was completely forgotten — a neglected child, abandoned by the very people who should have loved him most.”
The listeners shook their heads in dismay. “Shameful. And now they return, dragging along another son, just to fight for the inheritance? Everything the Morgan family has today was built by Admiral Morgan and his grandfather through sheer merit and military achievement. To think of them coming back now — how shameless.”
Rylie listened quietly, gathering the prescriptions into a neat stack before slipping away to rest in the small compound building.
The intelligent system inside greeted her return, automatically playing recent messages stored in the mailbox.
When the last recording ended, Rylie sat at her desk, switched on her computer, and logged into her dark web account under the alias VS. With practiced ease, she entered an encrypted conference room.
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