Looking at the man's cold face, Emily suppressed her inner discomfort and questioned, "What have you been busy with lately? What did that mysterious person assign you to do?"
Hearing this, Raphael impatiently replied, "It's best if you don't meddle in these matters. Don't forget that when you were in contact with that mysterious person, you didn't tell me either."
After saying this, he ignored Emily's grim expression and turned to the bathroom to freshen up.
Emily stared at the closed bathroom door, her hands clenched into tight fists.
A few minutes later, Raphael came out with a towel wrapped around his lower body.
Without even glancing at Emily on the bed, he grabbed a set of clothes and prepared to leave.
Seeing this, Emily's eyes filled with deeper resentment.
She didn't need to ask; she knew he was heading to the study.
Since returning from Espuenia, Raphael had been sleeping in the study.
Emily understood that if it weren't for the mysterious person involved between them, the first thing Raphael would have done upon returning would be to divorce her.
She also knew that it was impossible to hold on to this marriage any longer. So she had already planned to use the Howard family name to make a comeback during this time. Otherwise, after divorcing Raphael, if she had no money, Garrett would surely sell her for a good price.
Meanwhile, Deanna was unaware of these events.
For the past two days, she had been studying medicine during the day and video chatting with Lance at night. Sometimes she would include the two little ones, and the family would laugh and talk online.
These leisurely days lasted until the fourth day when Lance had something to deal with and couldn't video chat.
However, Deanna was still happy to receive his message.
That night, Deanna went to sleep sweetly holding her phone but was awakened by its ringing in the middle of the night.
Thinking it was Lance calling, she answered groggily without checking the caller ID.
"Lance?"
"Deanna, it's time to get to work."
A cold voice came from the phone, as if triggering something in Deanna's mind, making those words echo continuously.
After repeating them a few times, Deanna showed a noticeable change.
She sat up on the bed with vacant eyes and muttered, "I need to work."
The cold voice spoke again, "That's right. Find the computer Lance left behind, send the data inside to the email I gave you, and then erase all traces."
"Find Lance's computer, send the data to the email, and erase all traces," Deanna repeated.
The person on the phone was satisfied and gave another mental suggestion, "After doing all this, forget about tonight and go back to sleep."
Deanna repeated once more.
Hearing her repeat his words, the person on the phone hung up satisfied.
Deanna put down her phone and moved like a soulless puppet to Lance's desk in the room.
She clumsily turned on the computer and sent all the data inside to the mysterious person's email.
After completing these tasks, she shut down the computer and returned to bed, falling into a deep sleep.
The next morning, Deanna woke up naturally and was about to get out of bed when she noticed a bruise on her ankle that hurt a bit.
"Strange, I remember not having this mark when I went to bed last night."
She looked at the bruise on her ankle in confusion. "Did I accidentally bump into something while sleeping?"
No one answered her self-talk, and she quickly put it out of her mind since it wasn't important.
Meanwhile, in the president's office of the Cloudmere Howard family company.
Raphael, who was working overtime, suddenly received a call from the mysterious person.
"Tomorrow morning, something will happen to Mercer Group. Are you ready?"
"I'm ready. But what will happen to Mercer Group?" Raphael couldn't help but ask out of curiosity.
Unfortunately, the mysterious person didn't intend to tell him. "If you want to know the answer, watch the news tomorrow. Remember, no matter what you do tomorrow, get me ten percent of Mercer Group's shares."
With that, the mysterious person hung up.
Raphael put down his phone, his expression turning serious.
He believed that the mysterious person's information wouldn't be false. Something would indeed happen to Mercer Group tomorrow. He just didn't know what kind of event would allow him to buy ten percent of its shares from scattered stocks.
Though puzzled, Raphael didn't delay in making arrangements overnight.
By dawn, he had everything set up.
However, just as he was about to rest, his phone on the desk started vibrating.
At the same time, similar situations occurred in various mansions across Cloudmere.
The reason was simple: suddenly, information appeared on the black market claiming they had core data about Mercer Group. Simultaneously, a large number of internal project documents from Mercer Group surfaced online.