Chapter 294
Chapter 294
Thomas's illness came on fast and faded just as quickly.
With Benjamin by his side at all times, he seemed to feel deeply secure, and by the next day, his fever had broken.
After that, he became even clingier to Benjamin than ever before.
Soon, something that would shake the entire Scott family to its core happened, almost inevitably.
Using his injuries and the need to care for the child as reasons, and with Sophie's silent approval, Benjamin temporarily moved out of Ares Private Hospital and into a guest room at the Scott Villa.
The news set Simon off completely.
That same afternoon, Simon rushed back from the office, bringing with him a chill it seemed to freeze the air solid.
He had one target in mind.
Benjamin's guest room.
"Throw him out." The moment Simon stepped into the living room, he gave the order to the bodyguards behind him.
"Mr. Scott..." The bodyguards looked uneasy. After all, this was a guest Sophie had approved.
"Are you deaf?" Simon didn't raise his voice, but the pressure behind his words drained the color from both bodyguards' faces.
"Yes, sir!"
The two bodyguards moved to step forward, and then a small but resolute figure blocked their path.
Sophie.
"Simon."
She looked at him, her eyes faintly red, but with a resolve she had never shown before.
"We can't make him leave."
Simon's brow tightened, his gaze sharp enough to cut straight through a person.
"Sophie, have you lost your mind? Have you forgotten what these past five years cost you?"
"You want to let the person responsible for all of it live under the Scott family's roof? You want Mom and Dad to resent you?"
Sophie's hands clenched tightly, her nails digging almost into her palms.
"I haven't forgotten!" Her voice shot up suddenly, trembling with something she could no longer hold back.
"Every scar on my body, every drop of blood I shed, I remember all of it. I haven't let myself forget a single day."
Sophie's outburst stopped Simon cold.
He let out a breath and looked at her, waiting for her to continue.
Sophie drew in a deep breath, forced her emotions back down, and spoke again. "Simon, the debt he owed from five years ago. At the bottom of that cliff, he paid half of it with his life."
"As for the other half..."
A cold, unbreakable light flashed in her eyes.
"Wouldn't it be better to make him spend the rest of his life right here, making it up to us?"
"Keep him where we can see him. Watch him suffer every day. Watch him atone. Watch him want what he can never have. Isn't that a far worse punishment for him?"
Those words stopped Simon completely.
He stared at Sophie's stubborn face.
This wasn't someone blinded by love. This was the clear-eyed, ruthless calm of someone who had thought it all the way through and decided to burn the boats.
Steve walked over from the study.
Without a moment's hesitation, he stepped to Sophie's side, making it two against one.
"Simon."
Steve spoke calmly, offering a rational way out of a family confrontation that was about to explode.
"Right now is genuinely not the best time to settle old scores."
"We all know Alfonso has local connections backing him in Monaco. Going after him on the Scott family's strength alone, it won't be enough."
Simon gave a cold snort. "So what? We rely on Benjamin?"
"Yes, exactly," Steve said plainly. "The Brown family's network built over years in Seraphim, along with their intelligence operation that reaches everywhere, is the only real weapon we have to break this open right now."
"Benjamin can mobilize all of it without holding anything back. Keeping him here isn't forgiveness. It's using him."
Steve's words always landed exactly where they needed to.
"Simon, our priority is to avenge Mom and Dad. Once we catch Alfonso and put everything to rest, throwing him out then won't be too late."
One of them had appealed to the heart. The other had laid out the logic.
Simon looked at Steve and Sophie, who stood completely united against him, his chest rising and falling hard.
His gaze moved past them to the doorway of the children's room on the second floor.
Thomas and Timothy peered through the gap in the door, their eyes full of longing and unease as they watched the tense scene downstairs.
Those two pairs of eyes were exactly like Sophie's when she was small.
For the first time, a hairline crack appeared in the wall of ice Simon had built around himself.
In the end, he didn't agree, but he stopped pushing to throw Benjamin out immediately.
"Fine. I want to see exactly how he plans to pay it back."
With that, Simon turned and walked out of the villa in long strides.
The confrontation that had been about to explode was, for now, put to rest.
For the first time, a faint but precious light began to break through the darkness inside this broken family.
......
Early the next morning.
The dawn light had just begun to show when Sophie made a decision no one had seen coming.
She called Simon, Steve, and Benjamin. Benjamin had only just gotten out of bed and was still moving stiffly into the living room.
She didn't say a word.
She simply took out the sealed manila envelope and held it up for everyone to see.
It was the Asset Transfer and Equity Assignment Agreement Benjamin had given her.
Benjamin's expression darkened instantly, his heart sinking.
He thought she had finally made her choice. That she was accepting the settlement and cutting ties with him for good.
But what happened next turned everything on its head.
Sophie gripped both ends of the agreement and tore it in two.
A sharp ripping sound rang through the room, and the document, the one that could have sent shockwaves through the entire Luminous City business world, split in two.
Benjamin's eyes went wide.
Simon and Steve both looked stunned.
Sophie's face stayed blank as she kept going.
Two halves became four. Four became eight.
Until the agreement, worth a fortune, was nothing but a pile of scattered scraps.
She raised her hand, and the pieces fell like snow into the trash can beside her.
When it was over, Sophie finally looked up.
Her eyes were red, but her chin lifted lifted with unmistakable pride as she looked straight at a speechless Benjamin.
"Benjamin."
"You thought you could settle things between us with money? With a few shares? With one act of saving my life?"
She let out a cold laugh, one that held tears but still carried the pride of a queen being crowned.
"Dream on."
"Five years of my life. For five years, my two children grew up without a father. Five years of blood debt for everything the Scott family lost and suffered..."
"That's not something you can pay off with what you're offering."
Her voice grew louder, clearer, carrying years of swallowed grief and resentment and a force that left no room for argument.
"What you owe me, what you owe the Scott family, you'll spend the rest of your life paying that back."
"You'll pay it back for the rest of your life, working yourself to the bone for me."
"Until I say it's enough. Until I've made you suffer enough. You're not going anywhere. Do you hear me?"
What she called debt collection was really something else entirely.
It was acceptance.
Not forgiveness, but a sentence. Not reconciliation, but a binding commitment.
Benjamin stood completely still.
He stared at her, at the tears shining in her eyes, at the iron certainty behind her words.
His heart, silent for five years, began to pound wildly again.
The dead ashes in his eyes caught fire in that moment, blazing into something fierce and burning, bright enough to set the world alight.
Benjamin nodded hard. His throat worked, his voice came out rough and barely held together, but it carried the weight of a vow.
"Okay."
"I'm not going anywhere."
Beside them, Simon and Steve exchanged a glance. In each other's eyes, they found the same thing. A touch of exasperation. A touch of resignation.
But more than anything else, relief.
Sophie hadn't chosen to forgive. She hadn't chosen to let go.
She had chosen the most Sophie way possible.
She would be Benjamin's creditor for the rest of his life.
And Benjamin was more than willing to let her.