Chapter 200

Chapter 200

The noise in the living room finally died down. It was past eleven at night.

Keith looked visibly exhausted. He glanced around the room, then waved for the butler to take Lester to an empty room in the back yard and keep him there for the time being.

Lester wasn't happy about it, but this was the Tudor Family's house, and he had no say in the matter.

He was still cursing as they dragged him away, his voice carrying all the way from the living room to the far end of the hallway.

After that, Keith asked the older relatives from the side branches to go get some rest. He said the matter was too serious to rush into any decisions, and that he'd bring in a lawyer tomorrow to sort everything out properly.

The elders weren't satisfied, but Keith had spoken, and no one dared push back. They drifted off in small groups.

While all this was happening, Marlowe hadn't been idle either. She had someone take Bianca away.

Bianca was in such a daze that she didn't even notice anything was wrong. She didn't resist at all, and the security guards half-dragged, half-carried her out.

Then Marlowe caught the look on Henry's face and didn't dare stick around. She hurried off, leaning on the nanny as they headed back to her room.

But she moved slowly, like she had aged years in a single night. Her back was hunched, one hand pressed against her stomach, her steps unsteady and stumbling. The nanny was practically holding her up as they climbed the stairs.

Henry stood in the living room and watched it all happen. He didn't move for a long time, just stood there as one person after another left, until he was the only one remaining.

Gloria gave him a brief, flat look, then turned and walked out.

……

Only a few ground lights were left on in the garden. The light was dim and murky, casting broken shadows across the stone path.

When Gloria arrived, Ryan was already sitting on the stone bench in the gazebo, a cigarette between his fingers, rolling it back and forth.

He looked up when he saw her coming. The corner of his mouth curved slightly. His expression was hard to read in the low light, but the casual, devil-may-care tone in his voice came through just fine.

Ryan pulled the unlit cigarette from his fingers and tucked it behind his ear. He leaned back, shoulders resting against the gazebo pillar, and studied Gloria's face for a moment.

"You spent all that time setting this up, put in all that effort, went through all those twists and turns, and this is what you were after? I thought you had something more brutal waiting in the wings. Feels a little anticlimactic."

Gloria raised an eyebrow. She reached out and ran her fingertip lightly along the edge of the stone table, brushing off a dead leaf that had landed there at some point.

"Don't you know that once suspicion takes root, things start to spiral out of control on their own? I always thought you were smart enough to figure that out without me spelling it out."

Ryan raised an eyebrow but didn't respond, waiting for her to go on.

"Under Brent's will, the conditions are spelled out clearly. Henry has to be his son to inherit the full share of the stock."

Gloria paused. She lifted her eyes and looked at Ryan steadily. In the faint glow of the ground lights, her gaze looked unusually deep.

"So what happens if that condition doesn't hold? Doesn't the will have to be renegotiated?"

Ryan's gaze sharpened slightly. The invisible rolling motion of his fingers stopped. He went completely still, only his pupils contracting slightly.

"I'm talking about whether Henry is actually Brent's son. Right now, no one's word means anything on that. After what Marlowe did, nobody's going to believe her. So who's left to prove Henry's parentage?"

She leaned back against the bench, tilting her head slightly. "So if someone says Henry isn't Brent's son right now, then he isn't."

Ryan suddenly laughed. It started at the corner of his mouth and slowly spread, barely visible at first, then growing wider and wider, until it became something open and almost gleeful.

"Gloria, you're even more ruthless than I thought."

There was undisguised admiration in his voice, and something else underneath it — a kind of excitement he wasn't bothering to hide.

"I figured you just wanted a divorce and to walk away with something. I didn't realize your ambitions ran this deep."

Gloria neither denied it nor confirmed it.

"Those shareholders you've been in contact with — now's the time to use them."

She didn't take the bait on his comment and steered things back on track.

Ryan dropped the smile and nodded. The excited gleam in his eyes hadn't fully faded, but his mind was already moving fast.

"Those shareholders have been unhappy with Henry for a long time. Before, they held back out of respect for Brent. Now that Marlowe's situation is out in the open, they've got the perfect excuse to make their move."

He stood up, paced a couple of steps around the gazebo, then stopped and turned to face Gloria.

"You're right. What business does some illegitimate kid with a murky background have sitting in the chairman's seat?"

Gloria looked at him and reached into her coat pocket, pulling out a small USB drive. She set it on the stone table.

Ryan glanced down at it, picked it up, and turned it over a couple of times between his fingers.

"What's this?"

"A detailed record of the funds Henry has been siphoning from the company over the years. In the time he's been with Bianca, he's bought her cars, property, jewelry, thrown a welcome party for that fake child — all of it adds up to over forty million dollars. Every cent came out of company accounts, none of it approved by the board."

Ryan's fingers tightened around the drive, closing it in his palm.

"Impressive. When did you start putting this together?"

"You'll find out when the time is right. Do your part, and when this is done, you'll be well taken care of."

Ryan thought it over and decided Gloria made sense. He didn't want to waste any more time. He got up from the bench, tucked the USB drive into his inner pocket, and brushed at his jacket as if there were dust on it.

"Alright. I'll reach out to the shareholders right now. Wait for my update."

Gloria gave a small nod and said nothing more.

Ryan didn't say anything else either. He turned and walked away with long, quick strides.

Gloria stood in the gazebo and watched the direction he had gone.

Moonlight broke through the clouds and fell across her face, lighting up her expression clearly.

The faintest curve touched the corner of her mouth, then vanished in an instant. There was no warmth in her eyes at all — only a cold that seemed to go all the way down.

She didn't linger in the gazebo. She turned and headed back.

As she walked, she took out her phone, opened her conversation with Leopold, and typed: [Time to close the net.]

The message sent. The reply came back instantly. [Got it. By the way, Lester's situation has been taken care of. All the shareholders will hear about it first thing tomorrow morning.]