Chapter 159 Buy Out a Life for One Billion Dollars? Elodie Blocks Adrian Face-to-Face

Chapter 159 Buy Out a Life for One Billion Dollars? Elodie Blocks Adrian Face-to-Face

The laugh was soft, but it hit Adrian like a hard slap across the face.

Elodie pushed herself up on her aching arms and slowly sat up. The movement was too sudden — it pulled at her chest, and she pressed her hand over her mouth, muffling two rough coughs.

She pulled her hand away. No blood in her palm. Just a patch of cold, clammy sweat.

She raised her head, looked past Adrian to where Chloe was still putting on her little act with the ceramic shard, then brought her gaze back and fixed it on the man in front of her.

"Any condition?" Elodie's voice was hoarse, but her tone was calm in an almost unsettling way.

"Yes." Adrian answered immediately. "Whatever you ask."

"Alright." Elodie nodded. She looked at his eyes, red at the edges from desperation, and let a cold, mocking smile curl at the corner of her lips.

"Since Mr. Stewart is being so generous — willing to throw out every last principle just to save her life."

Elodie paused, then said slowly:

"Does that mean you'd give me half of the Stewart family's assets for her?"

Adrian went completely still.

He stared at Elodie as if he were seeing her for the first time.

Her demands were steep.

Half of the Stewart Group — that was a fifty percent controlling stake. If he agreed, the entire Stewart Group would effectively belong to Elodie.

"You—" Adrian's throat moved, but he couldn't get a single complete sentence out.

"What? Having second thoughts?" Elodie watched his frozen expression with cold eyes, the mockery on her lips growing sharper.

"Didn't you just say any condition?" She leaned back against the pillow, her voice light and careless, but every word cut deep. "So I guess Ms. Johnson's life isn't worth half of the Stewart Group after all."

Standing behind them, Chloe felt a chill run through her whole body. She hadn't expected Elodie to throw out a condition that was completely impossible to meet.

She panicked. She waved the ceramic shard around wildly. "Elodie! Don't push it! You know perfectly well Adrian can't possibly—"

"Shut up." Elodie cut her off without even glancing at her.

She looked at Adrian and gave her dismissal directly: "Lucas, please tell the officers I'm not accepting any mediation or settlement. Let the court decide."

Lucas adjusted his glasses and turned to the coast guard officers. "You heard my client. Her position is clear."

The officer nodded. He stepped around Adrian and walked straight toward Chloe.

"Chloe. Last warning. Put down the weapon."

Seeing the officer closing in, Chloe completely lost it. She screamed and backed away, slashing the ceramic shard wildly through the air.

"Don't touch me! Back off!"

The sharp edge caught the lead officer across the back of his hand. Blood welled up instantly.

"Assaulting an officer?!" The officers behind him moved in immediately. One pulled out a baton and brought it down hard on Chloe's wrist.

"Ahh!"

Chloe let out a piercing shriek. The ceramic shard dropped from her hand and shattered on the floor.

Two officers moved in fast and pinned her down. Chloe fought and twisted, her cheek pressed against the cold tile, her face smeared with the spilled hot cocoa and blood from the floor.

Click.

Metal handcuffs locked around her wrists.

"Adrian, help me! Adrian!" Chloe writhed on the floor, screaming at the top of her lungs. "I don't want to go to prison! You promised you'd protect me! You promised!"

Adrian looked at Chloe pinned to the ground, at the wound on her neck still seeping blood. Whatever was left of his reason vanished.

"Stop."

He stepped forward and tried to push the officers away, but an officer blocked him with a baton.

"Mr. Stewart. Do not interfere with police business."

Adrian's eyes were bloodshot, his chest heaving. He spun around and fixed his gaze on Elodie in the hospital bed.

"I agree."

Everyone froze.

Ellie's mouth fell open. Even Lucas frowned.

Adrian walked back to the bedside in long strides, both hands gripping the bed rail, the veins on the backs of his hands standing out sharply. He looked at Elodie, his voice worn down to almost nothing.

"Fifty percent of the Stewart Group. I'll give it to you. First thing tomorrow morning, my lawyers will have the transfer agreement in front of you."

He ground his teeth. "Just sign the settlement letter right now and tell them to let her go."

Elodie looked at him and suddenly found the whole thing absurd.

For a lying con artist. For some pathetic, misplaced guilt. He was actually willing to hand over half of the Stewart Group.

Back then, she had stayed up all night reading through project proposals for him, drank herself sick at dinners to keep him from having to, pushed her body until it broke down — and none of it had earned her a single moment of his care. Now Chloe cried a few tears and got a few scratches, and he was ready to hand her half his empire.

How sad, Elodie thought.

She looked at Adrian. The face she had known for five years now felt so foreign it turned her stomach.

The air in the room went still.

Elodie looked away and turned to Lucas, who was standing at the foot of the bed.

"Lucas."

Lucas stepped forward right away.

"Draw up two documents." Elodie leaned back against the raised pillow, her voice quiet but every word clear. "A criminal settlement letter, and a severance agreement."

Lucas pushed up his gold-framed glasses, asked no questions, and pulled out the tablet he always carried.

"What are the terms?"

"One billion dollars." Elodie paused, then said it again to make sure it landed. "Cash."

Ellie's eyes went wide. Even Christopher drew a sharp breath.

"That money buys Ms. Johnson's freedom from prison." Elodie kept her eyes on Lucas's screen. "Also, add one clause to the severance agreement. Once the money clears, Adrian and Chloe are to disappear from my life completely. From this point forward, neither of them is to come anywhere near me. If Adrian breaks that condition, the billion goes back to him and the settlement is void."

"Elodie, are you out of your mind!"

Ellie threw herself to the bedside, tears streaming down her face.

"This isn't about the money! She pushed you into the ocean — that's attempted murder! You almost died! And now you're letting her go for cash? Do you even need a billion dollars?!"

Ellie was shaking with rage, pointing at Chloe still gasping on the floor.

"Someone like her belongs in prison! If you let her walk, she'll come after you again!"

Elodie lowered her eyes and said nothing.

Under the blanket, her hand was clenched tight around a blood-stained tissue.

The tissue had been soaked through with cold sweat, sticking to her palm — damp and cold against her skin.

She didn't want to let Chloe go. Of course she didn't.

But she couldn't afford to wait.

Cross-border evidence gathering and litigation took forever.

She didn't have time to outlast it.

The blood she had just coughed up was a reminder — the disease was moving faster than anyone had expected. Every treatment option available at home had been exhausted. Her only hope now was a targeted therapy and experimental treatment being developed at a top medical facility in Eldoria.

That level of care was not something ordinary people could pay for. It was a bottomless pit, and it needed a massive, steady flow of cash to fill it.

She had to stay alive.

And to stay alive, she had to turn Chloe's crime into the currency that would save her.

"Lucas, draft it the way I said." Elodie ignored Ellie's breakdown. Her voice was flat.

Lucas's fingers moved quickly across the screen.

"Done."

Across the room, when Adrian heard "one billion" and "disappear completely," the tension that had been wound tight through his whole body slowly began to ease.

He looked at Elodie in the hospital bed, and the fist he'd been clenching loosened.

Good. She was willing to name a price.

In Adrian's mind, any problem that money could fix wasn't really a problem. Elodie asking for a billion in cash — and throwing in that absolute condition about disappearing — was clearly just an emotional outburst driven by hurt and anger.

She was throwing a fit.

That was his conclusion.

It made sense that she was angry after nearly dying. But as long as she was willing to let Chloe go, he could manage the rest. A billion? He'd give her two if she asked. Handle the immediate problem, get Chloe out of this, and then there would be plenty of time to make things right.

He had all the patience in the world to smooth this over.

"I agree," Adrian said it straight out, his voice rough but decisive.

He turned to Christopher.

"Contact finance. Pull together one billion in cash and wire it to Elodie's account. I want confirmation it's cleared within thirty minutes."

Christopher hesitated, opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then swallowed it and walked out to make the call.

On the floor, Chloe heard those words and went completely limp.

She was saved.

She wasn't going to prison.