Chapter 111
Her brow furrowed slightly. She swiped across the screen twice and opened the latest voice message.
"Lucinda... Lucinda, please pick up... I know I was wrong... Please let the Wipere family go... The Douglas Group cut off all our partnerships, the bank's demanding payment, suppliers are blocking our doors... Drop the lawsuit. We really can't come up with fifty million dollars... Please spare us. I'll treat you well from now on... Come back. The Wipere family is still your home..."
Preston's voice was hoarse, choked with tears—none of the dignity he once carried as head of the Wipere family remained.
Lucinda listened expressionlessly, the light in her eyes growing colder bit by bit.
She called him back.
The phone rang once before he answered. His voice came through, humble and desperate. "Lucinda! You finally picked up! I knew you wouldn't abandon the Wipere family... Drop the lawsuit, okay? That fifty-million-dollar settlement—we really can't pay it... Please let the Wipere family go. I'll do whatever you say from now on..."
"Fine." Lucinda's voice was flat.
Silence on the other end. Then Preston's voice erupted with disbelieving joy. "Really? Lucinda, you're really willing to—"
"On one condition. Pay for Grandma's care." Lucinda cut him off, her voice ice-cold. "Grandma's nursing home costs twenty thousand dollars a day. Pay three years upfront. Once you've paid, I'll drop the lawsuit."
The line went dead silent.
"Three... three years..." Preston's voice trembled. "Lucinda, three years is over twenty million dollars... The Wipere family doesn't even have two million in the account right now... Can you drop the lawsuit first? Once I recover—"
"Then there's nothing to discuss." Lucinda's voice held no warmth.
"Lucinda! You can't do this! We're family! You can't just watch us die!"
Lucinda laughed—a sound that didn't reach her eyes. "When you pushed Grandma down three years ago, did you remember she was family? When you abandoned her at the hospital, did you remember she was family? And now you want to talk to me about kinship?"
Her fingers tightened around the phone, her tone frigid. "Preston, I'll say this one last time. Pay for Grandma's care, or wait for bankruptcy. Your choice."
"Lucinda—"
She had no interest in wasting more words. She hung up.
She stood there, took a deep breath, and forced down the emotion surging in her chest.
Her phone buzzed again. She didn't look. She switched it to silent, shoved it back in her pocket, and turned toward the research institute's main entrance.
Meanwhile, at the Wipere Villa.
Watching the call disconnect like that, Preston shot to his feet, exhaustion filling his eyes. In the end, all he could do was shout bitterly, "At this point, we have no choice but to sell the house!"
Gemma's head snapped up, her pupils contracting violently. "What did you say?"
"I said, sell the house." Preston's voice was hoarse. "That villa on the east side—sell it first. And those commercial properties under your name, the vacation apartment down south—list them all. Sell whatever we can."
Gemma's face turned ghostly pale. She shrieked, "Preston! Are you insane? I bought that villa with my own savings! What gives you the right to sell it?"
"What gives me the right?" Preston whirled around, glaring at her, eyes bloodshot. "Your daughter stole someone's design. You slandered someone at the awards ceremony. Now they're suing us for fifty million dollars! Are you going to pay? What are you going to pay with?"
His voice grew louder and louder until he was practically shouting, his roar echoing through the entire villa.
Gemma staggered back a step under his yelling, her leg hitting the edge of the coffee table. She winced in pain.
She opened her mouth to argue back, but found all her words stuck in her throat.
Allegra huddled in the corner, head buried in her knees, shoulders shaking violently as she sobbed silently.
"And you!" Preston suddenly whipped his head around, glaring at Allegra. "I spent so much money on your design education—hired the best teachers, entered you in the best competitions—and this is how you repay me? Stealing someone else's work and getting caught red-handed! Do you know what people are saying about you now? That you're a thief! A fraud! Who's going to work with you after this? Who's going to want you?"
Allegra's sobs finally broke through, her voice tearing out of her throat. "Dad... I was wrong... I really know I was wrong... Please stop..."
"What good does knowing you're wrong do?" Preston slammed his hand on the coffee table, grimacing. "Does knowing you're wrong mean they won't sue you? Does it mean we don't have to pay fifty million dollars? You cry—does crying put food on the table?"
Gemma watched her daughter cry so pitifully, her heart torn between pain and resentment.
She bit down hard, lifted her head, and glared at Preston. "This is all your fault! If you hadn't brought that bitch into our home in the first place, would any of this have happened? You picked up some bastard off the street, raised her for twenty years, and now she turns around and bites us! And you have the nerve to blame Allegra?"
Preston's face flushed crimson, veins bulging at his temples. "I brought her in? Who was it that said we needed someone to cook? Who said Allegra was lost and we needed a replacement? You forgot? Want me to refresh your memory?"
Gemma's mouth opened and closed, her expression shifting from anger to guilt. "You—stop bringing up old history! What's the point of talking about that now? The house can't be sold! It's mine! No one touches it!"
"Not selling it?" Preston let out a cold laugh, grabbed a stack of documents from the table, and threw them in front of her. "Look for yourself. Bank payment notices—three overdue loans totaling eighty million dollars. All our partners terminated their contracts—penalties add up to over twenty million. And your daughter's twelve-million-dollar compensation. All together? Over a hundred million dollars. If you don't sell the house, what are you going to use to cover it?"
Gemma stared at the dense numbers on those documents, her face draining of color bit by bit.
She collapsed onto the sofa, eyes vacant, lips trembling as she forced out a weak sentence. "That bitch... doesn't she have money? She's hooked up with so many men—whatever scraps fall through her fingers would be enough for us... Go beg her. Beg her to help us..."
Preston looked at her, the last trace of warmth in his eyes freezing over. "I already begged. Called over fifty times. Sent nearly a hundred messages. She said a few words and hung up."
The living room fell silent again.
Allegra lifted her head, her swollen eyes filled with resentment. "How can she do this... The Wipere family raised her for twenty years... and this is how she treats us..."
No one responded.
Finally, Preston took a deep breath, as if making a final decision. He picked up the contract from the table, flipped to the last page, pulled a pen from his pocket, and signed his name in the signature line.
Gemma watched him sign the contract, biting her lower lip so hard it nearly bled, but in the end, she said nothing more.