Chapter 165
Chapter 165
After a grueling international flight, the private jet touched down smoothly at Harbor City Airport.
The moment we landed, the Wilson Group's medical team was already waiting on the tarmac with an ambulance. Benjamin was still unconscious, immediately transferred onto a gurney. I followed the ambulance as it sped through the city, arriving at the private medical facility where Emily's grandfather worked.
The door to the sterile room closed, separating me from him. Watching the tangle of tubes and monitors reconnect to his body, Emily's grandfather leading a team of specialists into the room, I felt my anxiety finally begin to ease—just barely.
As long as he could survive, nothing else mattered.
But there were accounts that needed settling. Now.
I stood at the end of the hospital corridor, pulled out my phone, and dialed Brent's number.
The phone rang for a long time before someone picked up.
"Ophelia?" Brent's voice carried the authority of someone long accustomed to power.
"Mr. Wilson, we need to meet." I stared out at Harbor City's overcast sky, my tone calm. "About my mother's death all those years ago, and what my grandfather uncovered in Solstice—I think it's time we had a talk."
Half an hour later, I sat in a discreet teahouse across from the hospital.
Brent walked in with only two bodyguards. He wore a dark suit, and though well-maintained, his features still echoed Benjamin's—just harder, more calculating. Where Benjamin's eyes showed obsession, Brent's revealed cold cunning.
"What did your grandfather find in Solstice?" He sat down, cutting straight to the point.
I didn't waste time either, laying out everything Sawyer had uncovered in Solstice, including the half-month wager we'd made.
"My grandfather believes that my mother obtained evidence of the Wilson Group's illegal acquisitions. He thinks you had the driver bribed to stage that car accident to silence her." I watched Brent's face closely, searching for any flicker of reaction. "Mr. Wilson, is that true?"
"Ridiculous!" Brent's expression darkened, his hand slamming the walnut he'd been holding onto the table.
His face went cold, but his eyes showed no panic of someone caught in a lie. Instead, they burned with the fury of false accusation.
"I've always owned my actions. I've used tactics in business, yes, but I absolutely did not hire anyone to kill your mother!" Brent lowered his voice, his tone sharp. "Your mother and I weren't enemies over some illegal acquisition. We were partners. Private partners."
My brow furrowed. "Partners?"
"Yes." Brent drew a deep breath, as if recalling an extremely unpleasant memory. "Back then, we jointly invested in a chemical plant in the suburbs. That car accident wasn't the source—it was the aftermath."
Brent lifted his teacup but didn't drink, setting it back down.
"That day, your mother went to inspect the plant. A valve malfunctioned, causing a high-concentration toxic gas leak. Your mother inhaled the fumes. On her way to the hospital, the poison triggered nerve paralysis. That's what caused the crash."
A chill ran through my entire body, my nails digging into my palms.
"If it was a plant malfunction, why did my grandfather find evidence you bribed the driver?"
"Because the leak wasn't an accident. It was deliberate." Brent's laugh was bitter, a flash of ruthlessness in his eyes. "I had a partner back then, someone I trusted completely. A close friend for years. He was jealous that I'd secured the core project, so he sabotaged the valve. His target was me—I was supposed to be there that day for the inspection."
Brent looked at me, his voice heavy. "But I had something come up last minute. Your mother went to the site in my place. She became the scapegoat."
I stood frozen.
So that was the truth. Not a hired hit, but a murder gone wrong—the wrong victim.
"After it happened, he panicked and fled overnight with a fortune." Brent's jaw tightened. "I've been hunting him for years. As for that driver your grandfather found, he was just a smokescreen—deliberately planted to frame me."
Brent's explanation was logically sound, but I wouldn't take his word alone.
After leaving the teahouse, I immediately contacted Luca, mobilizing Benjamin's intelligence network while hiring the best private investigators money could buy. I had them trace the partner Brent had named.
Three days later, the investigation results sat on my office desk.
Brent hadn't lied.
The man had fled the country years ago, moving through several locations before finally hiding in The Gilded Tripoint, living under an assumed identity. He'd even used the money he'd stolen to build a gray-market empire there.
But that wasn't what made my blood run cold.
I opened the second file the investigator had submitted—the perpetrator's overseas communications and financial records from the past six months.
Among the dense rows of offshore account transfers, I saw a name I knew all too well.
Marlowe.
Over the past three months, Marlowe's private account had multiple large transactions with a shell company in The Gilded Tripoint. Not only that, but they'd had frequent encrypted calls.
I stared at the name on the document, the pieces suddenly clicking into place.
No wonder Marlowe, just a VP at the White Group, had the nerve to conspire with Freya. No wonder she'd shown up so precisely at Sawyer's gala. No wonder she knew so much about my mother's death, deliberately using those half-truths to provoke me.
Marlowe had been working with the real killer all along.
The perpetrator, hiding in The Gilded Tripoint and afraid Brent and the White family would join forces to settle old scores, had Marlowe as his inside agent. They'd deliberately fed Sawyer the false lead about "Brent the murderer" to use him as a weapon, pitting the White Group against the Wilson Group.
If the White family and Wilson family destroyed each other, with Benjamin and Brent caught between enemies on all sides, the real killer would remain safe forever.
Meanwhile, Marlowe could use the chaos to take me down and swallow the White Group whole.
What a perfect scheme.
I closed the file, cold sweat breaking out across my back.
Marlowe, that snake, had been hiding too deep.
I was pregnant now, most of my energy devoted to staying at the hospital with Benjamin. On my own, I simply didn't have the bandwidth to fight a madwoman colluding with desperate criminals in The Gilded Tripoint.
The enemy was in the shadows, I was exposed. A direct confrontation would be suicide.
Without hesitation, I picked up my phone and contacted Brent again.
This time we met in the top-floor office of the Wilson Group.
I threw the financial records and communication logs directly onto Brent's desk.
"Mr. Wilson, the man you're looking for is in The Gilded Tripoint." I met his eyes. "And he's got a very useful blade here, currently pressed against Benjamin's throat—and mine."
Brent opened the file, his gaze scanning Marlowe's name and the transaction records.
The muscles in his face twitched slightly, the killing intent in his eyes no longer concealed. Old grievances and new hatred intertwined, making the air around him terrifyingly dangerous.
"Good. Very good." Brent closed the file. "Hiding all these years, and he still dares reach into Harbor City."
He looked up at me, something like newfound respect in his assessment.
"Leave this to me." Right in front of me, Brent pressed the intercom button. "If Marlowe wants to play games, I'll play with her to the very end."
After hanging up, Brent turned to me.
"I've already deployed the Wilson family's elite security detail for twenty-four-hour surveillance on Marlowe." His tone was glacial. "Her every move, every person she contacts—all under my watch. The moment she makes contact with The Gilded Tripoint again, I'll follow the thread and take them all down in one sweep."
I nodded. My objective was achieved.
With Brent handling it, Marlowe wouldn't be making waves much longer.
I stood to leave.
"Ophelia." Brent suddenly called out.
I stopped, turning back.
"Benjamin's condition..." He paused, his voice carrying a rare note of exhaustion and helplessness—a father's vulnerability. "I'm grateful you're looking after him."
I glanced at him without saying more, then pushed through the door and left the office.