Chapter 59 Get Down on Your Knees and Apologize to James
Being helped to sit down slowly, James looked up at the decisive Sophia. His body ached, but his heart felt warm.
He had never seen Sophia angry before. Seeing her beat up Leandro without a second thought just to defend him proved that Sophia did care about him somewhat.
Zane quickly sent Sophia Pax's contact information. With shareholders on one side and investors on the other, he was caught in the middle with nothing to say; in the end, he'd just be responsible for footing the medical bills.
Receiving the phone number Zane sent, Sophia immediately dialed it.
It rang for a long time before going to voicemail.
Sophia tried again, but still couldn't get through.
Perfect. If he wouldn't answer, that meant the McCall family wasn't planning to support Leandro, so she didn't need to be polite either.
"Amelia, don't go too hard on him. At least leave him half."
Leaving him half meant disabling one arm and one leg.
"You wouldn't dare! I'm the heir to Luminary Press!" Leandro curled up on the ground with his arms covering his head, still refusing to lower his proud head.
The wooden stick spun in Amelia's hands as the breeze lifted her short hair. She smiled with wild abandon. "A small magazine company's background makes you this arrogant? Unbelievable!"
This damn guy's horizons were too narrow. The McCall family might be considered well-off among ordinary families, and he was one of those wealthy but brainless trust fund babies people talked about.
But Luminary Press was such an insignificant small company, still far from being truly wealthy elite.
Even if they really disabled Leandro today, Luminary Press couldn't make much of a fuss.
"Sophia, maybe we should just let it go?" Seeing Amelia's posture suggesting she might actually strike fatally, James looked up at Sophia with concern. If someone died, it would be hard to clean up the mess.
"Fine."
Sophia tilted her head and raised an eyebrow, her posture casual yet carrying the oppressive aura of someone in power. "Leandro, get down on your knees and apologize to James, and we'll call it even."
Sophia had never planned to actually break Leandro's limbs, and Amelia understood her meaning. They weren't violent criminals like Andrew—just purely trying to scare Leandro.
Having been pampered since childhood, Leandro had never faced such threats. The humiliating act of kneeling to apologize was even more impossible for him to accept.
"Go ahead and kill me then! Two arrogant bitches who don't know their place—wait and see how my dad deals with you!"
Even Electra could tell these two girls had significant backgrounds. She didn't understand how Leandro could be stupid enough to still refuse to back down.
But this had nothing to do with her. She couldn't care less what happened to Leandro—even if he really got his arms and legs broken, it would be what he deserved!
Electra grabbed the crew's first aid kit and jogged over to kneel beside James, her expression full of concern. "James, how badly are you hurt? Let me put some medicine on it first?"
"No need, it's nothing serious." James smiled and politely declined.
Sophia glanced at the glaring Leandro, then at Electra showing interest in James, seeming to understand something.
She had no interest in getting involved in other people's love triangles. She only knew that James couldn't be bullied under her watch.
Since Leandro wouldn't kneel and apologize, she had plenty of ways to make him kneel.
Wasn't Pax refusing to answer his phone?
Then she'd just have to make Pax call her voluntarily.
"Hey, do me a favor." Sophia contacted a friend and briefly explained the situation.
After hanging up, in less than a minute, Pax called back.
Sophia answered and put it on speaker.
Pax's ingratiating voice came through the receiver, "Sophia, I'm so sorry. I was in a meeting just now and missed your call."
Hearing his father's voice, Leandro froze in place, staring at Sophia in disbelief.
How... how was this possible?
Why was his father being so deferential to this damn woman?
Sophia smiled, but her tone remained cold, "No problem. If I can't reach you next time, you won't need to attend any more meetings."
"Dad! This crazy woman hit me!" Leandro raised his voice to complain, not caring what the other party's status was—he believed his father would still care about his son.
"Shut up!" Pax's furious voice nearly broke the phone speaker, his tone commanding, "Has the family spoiled you completely rotten? Apologize to Sophia right now!"
Leandro couldn't believe this was real. His father wasn't helping him, wasn't even concerned about his injuries, but was commanding him to apologize to his attacker?
Clearly, from childhood, his father had never been willing to say a harsh word to him. Whatever he wanted, his father would satisfy him. Now he was yelling at him and demanding he apologize to a stranger?
Not hearing him respond, Pax suppressed his anger, gritting his teeth as he hinted, "If you still want to continue living comfortably as a trust fund baby, you'd better obediently apologize to Sophia until she's satisfied!"
This time, Leandro couldn't pretend not to understand. This girl in front of him had the power to control his family's economic lifeline. If he couldn't get her forgiveness, today would be the day the McCall family went bankrupt.
Though humiliation surrounded Leandro, thinking about what kind of life his family would have after bankruptcy, he suddenly felt that sometimes dignity wasn't that important.
He got up and reluctantly walked over to kneel in front of James, lowering his head with an air of bearing humiliation, "I'm sorry, it was my fault. Please forgive me."
His voice was as weak as a mosquito's buzz. James actually heard him and didn't want to make too big a deal of it, but just as he was about to speak forgiveness, Sophia pressed his shoulder, clearly unsatisfied.
Sophia's voice was as cold and clear as she was, "You were shouting so loudly just now. Why is your voice so quiet now? I have bad hearing and can't hear you."
Leandro visibly flushed red, gritting his teeth as he spent a long time building up his resolve. With an air of desperation, he raised his voice and repeated, "I'm sorry! I know I was wrong! Please forgive me!"
Sophia's lips curved almost imperceptibly. "What exactly did you do wrong?"
"I shouldn't have switched the prop to a solid wooden stick and targeted you under the guise of filming. Please forgive me!"
Now, Sophia was satisfied. She bent down and whispered in James's ear, "James, do you feel better now? Do you need more severe punishment?"
James smiled faintly and shook his head, understanding the principle of showing mercy when possible.
He responded softly to Sophia, "This is enough."
"Good."
Sophia herself didn't notice that this "good" sounded somewhat obedient. She straightened up and looked coldly down at Leandro again. "Get up. James says he forgives you."
"However, you used your personal vendetta to abuse your position, unauthorized changes to filming props that caused actor injury, and affected the crew's filming schedule. As the largest shareholder of Stellar Cinematics, I'm notifying you that you're fired, and you're permanently banned from participating in any Stellar Cinematics web series productions."