Chapter 44 Chapter 44
Dr. Kai’s expression remained cold as he listened, but his mind was already several steps ahead.
“I’ll provide you with everything you need very soon,” he said at last. “I’ve already made contact with the restaurant, and I’ve sent a message across. My secretary will be working on it from our end as well. He’ll go to the scene personally if necessary and make sure we get the footage from that incident.”
He paused, thinking through each part of the plan with deliberate precision.
“The original recording, the angles, the timing, every relevant detail—I want all of it.”
The man on the other end made a sound of approval, but Dr. Kai continued before he could say much.
“We are moving to the next phase now,” he said. “This is no longer just about reaction. This is about control.”
His tone was calm, but it carried something darker beneath it.
“No problem,” he went on. “Everything will be handled successfully. Once the content is in my hands, once the call angles and the complete context are clear, then we move properly.”
He stepped closer to the desk again and looked down at the dim screen of the iPad.
“This is where we begin to turn things,” he said. “This is where we begin to shift the story.”
His voice dropped lower.
“We will install doubt. We will keep the pressure on. We will create enough confusion that by the time people start asking the next questions, they won’t even know what to believe anymore.”
For a moment, he said nothing more, as if savoring the shape of the scheme already forming in his head.
Then he added, slowly and deliberately, “Like I said from the beginning, we are going to play this.”
A faint, merciless smile touched his lips.
“And we are going to play it extremely dirty.”
It was not long after Megan arrived home.
As her car rolled to a stop in front of the mansion, something immediately caught her attention. Standing just outside, directly in front of the house, was a group of women. Megan narrowed her eyes slightly as she counted them.
“One! two! three.”
By the time she finished, she realized there were seven of them.
That alone was enough to make her pause, she had not been expecting visitors.
Certainly not a group of women gathered in front of her house with expressions that looked anything but friendly.
Megan remained seated for a brief second, studying them through the window. There was something stiff in the way they stood too deliberate, too united. They were not chatting casually like neighbors who had simply happened to meet outside. They were waiting.
Waiting for her.
She let out a quiet breath, then opened the car door and stepped out.
The vehicle she had chosen to ride was not one of the luxurious ones Mr. Oliver had offered her. He had insisted more than once that she should use something more expensive, something more eye-catching, something that would loudly announce status and wealth before she even stepped out of it.
But Megan had refused.
She had no interest in moving around like a public display.
The house, however, had been a different matter.
She had accepted living in the grand mansion because it offered privacy, comfort, and the life she really wanted to have, things that were harder to dismiss. And now, as she stood before it, facing seven women she did not know, she could not help but wonder if even this house had become some kind of statement she had not intended to make.
Closing the car door behind her, Megan adjusted herself and began walking toward them.
As she drew closer, the atmosphere grew clearer.
The women were all staring at her.
Not with admiration, not with politeness.
Not even with curiosity.
Their faces were hard, guarded, and faintly bitter. From the look in their eyes, Megan could tell immediately that whatever had brought them here, it was not goodwill. It was as if they had already judged her before she even opened her mouth.
That unsettled her more than she wanted to admit.
Still, she kept her expression calm and composed until she stood before them.
Then she spoke.
“I wasn’t expecting any guests,” she said evenly. “So what is going on?”
The women exchanged glances, and then one of them stepped slightly forward. From the way the others subtly deferred to her, Megan could tell she was the leader of the group.
The woman crossed her arms and lifted her chin.
“Well,” she said, her tone carrying open disapproval, “we weren’t expecting to come here either. But you failed to do what was rightfully expected of you.”
Megan frowned faintly, though she said nothing yet.
The woman continued, her voice firmer now.
“This is an estate,” she said. “And this estate has policies. Rules. Procedures. You just broke one of those policies.”
She held Megan’s gaze without blinking.
“So that’s why we came here.”