Chapter 86 Waited for Her to Come to Me on Her Own Initiative
It wasn't Sophia's imagination.
On the rooftop of the villa diagonally across from hers, a flash of a black figure ducked out of sight the instant her gaze turned that way.
Someone really was secretly following her!
With just one look from Sophia, the bodyguard at the door immediately understood and headed toward the diagonal villa with several men.
Rat also received the message and started checking the surveillance system around the Johnson Villa, flagging all suspicious individuals.
But before her people could identify who was behind it, Sophia received information sent by William's people first.
The owner behind that villa was officially someone she didn't know, but in reality, it was the Jordan family.
The moment Sophia learned it was Alvin's people watching her, her expression darkened.
Monkey came to report on work and happened to find out about this. He declared he'd go kidnap the guy and teach him a lesson, but Sophia stopped him in time.
"He just has too much free time. Let's find him something to do."
It wasn't that she didn't want to make a move against Alvin.
The Jordan family's parents had died early, and Seraphine had raised him all by herself.
Seraphine herself was still just a kid back then. How could she have experience raising a younger brother? All she could do was give in to every demand from her only brother. Gradually, it reached the point of spoiling him rotten.
The result was his current reckless personality, not knowing how to cherish the people around him.
"Sophia, Linda has woken up."
He pulled a folded envelope from his pocket. "This is a letter she wrote to you."
Sophia opened it. Inside were two thin sheets of paper.
One was an IOU for medical expenses.
One was a thank-you letter.
After reading the contents, Sophia's lips slowly curved upward.
She had agreed to save Linda for two reasons. First, she felt a moment of shared suffering—Linda had discovered Alvin's affair the very moment she learned the happy news of her pregnancy. This was so similar to her own situation two years ago.
More importantly, Linda's personality was too much like Seraphine's.
More like Seraphine's family than Alvin was.
Linda was someone who repaid kindness. She promised to work hard to pay back the medical expenses once she recovered.
Having a goal gave her a reason to live.
Sophia set the IOU aside and said to Monkey, "Have someone draw up a bill for her. The amount..."
She paused for a moment before continuing, "Make it high."
Monkey understood what she meant and joked, "Is Sophia worried she might have suicidal thoughts again, so you're planning to make Linda spend half her life paying it back?"
"A lifetime is too long. Half a lifetime is enough."
Sophia had tasted the bitterness of love herself and knew that heart-wrenching feeling. But fortunately, the Johnson family's bankruptcy came first, and those years of depending on each other with her grandmother had forged her willpower strong enough.
That's how she had her current career and life.
She smiled bitterly and shook her head inwardly. Who would have thought that one day she'd actually be grateful for the Johnson family's bankruptcy when she was young?
Sophia's gaze fell on the thank-you letter Linda had written her—just a few brief sentences.
Not much, but very sincere.
Although Linda's family background couldn't compare to Alvin's, her parents had been loving when she was young, and she was a girl who grew up surrounded by love.
Later, when both her parents died in a car accident, Alvin had helped her through the darkness, so she came to see him as the most important person in her life.
Right after graduation, she'd been looking forward to marriage, waiting to have children for Alvin, dreaming that she could build a happy little family like her parents had.
Who knew that before the wedding, the moment she learned of her pregnancy, she'd witness Alvin's betrayal with her own eyes. Unable to accept it, she chose to jump from a building.
Now Linda had woken up, but her will to live wasn't strong. If she encountered Alvin again, there was no guarantee other problems wouldn't arise.
"I remember Linda studied painting in college. Didn't we save an artist before? Send Linda to study under him."
"Sophia, that's a titan in the art world. Being his student means stepping into the top art circle with one foot. Why are you helping Linda so much?"
Sophia just smiled and joked, "Lab equipment maintenance is so expensive. Isn't it good to have one more person earning money?"
The maintenance of all precision instruments at ZN Lab, plus various research experiments, cost quite a bit each month.
Otherwise, Sophia wouldn't periodically see patients to earn money from those wealthy people's pockets.
For Sophia, she was just giving Linda a hand, but for the latter, this was the starting point of her bright future.
Later, the female artist who secured a place at the world's art summit wasn't like other artists who treated money like dirt.
What she loved most was converting her works into money, then transferring it to Sophia's ZN Lab to benefit all humanity.
Sophia picked up a pen nearby and left a note at the end of the thank-you letter: [I look forward to it.]
She kept the IOU, put the thank-you letter back in the envelope, and handed it to Monkey. "Cover her tracks well."
This wasn't difficult for Monkey. "Don't worry, Sophia. I'll complete the mission for sure."
Over the next few days, Alvin didn't leave the company.
Many partners whose contracts were about to expire refused to renew cooperation, and new partners they'd just finalized were also being vague and holding up contracts.
"Mr. Jordan, the partnership we just finalized yesterday—they've backed out!"
"There's been a policy adjustment from above, and that new project line in the south has been cut off!"
"Mr. Jordan, this is bad! That plot of land in the south of the city..."
Alvin just felt a headache coming on. The business had been fine, and now problems were popping up one after another. Only an idiot wouldn't know someone was sabotaging him behind the scenes. The first person who came to his mind was William.
...That petty man!
Little did he know, the man he was talking about was currently being blocked outside the Johnson Villa gate by Monkey and his bodyguards.
They said Sophia wouldn't let him in.
The exact words were...
[Sophia said that when James and Michael aren't at the Johnson Villa, Mr. Smith should avoid any appearance of impropriety.]
[After all, Sophia is single now. If her many suitors see this, it wouldn't look good. She's still planning to find someone satisfactory to remarry.]
If Monkey's first sentence made William's face turn cold, then after the second sentence came out, William's eyes already carried sharp knives, with the momentum to cut the speaker into a thousand pieces.
Before meeting Sophia, Monkey had been a desperado living on the edge of a knife.
Dancing back and forth on the line of death, he'd seen the Grim Reaper several times.
He shrugged his shoulders and looked at William innocently, the smile at the corner of his mouth widening. "Sophia's exact words. If you don't believe me... You can go ask her."
Now he wasn't even allowed to see her—what was there to ask?
Tony's face was stern as he stepped forward with the bodyguards behind him. "Mr. Watson, trouble comes from the mouth. Some words should be thought through before speaking."
The threat was clear.
Between the two groups, the tense atmosphere was about to explode!
William looked up toward the study on the third floor of the villa inside the compound. The delicate enamel-carved window opened outward from inside, white gauze curtains swaying in the wind.
The potted plants outside the window were already blooming abundantly, lush branches growing downward like a waterfall of flowers—a beautiful scene.
Just like the flowers she used to grow on the balcony of her study at the Smith Mansion, equally beautiful, but no longer a shadow within his reach.
His eyes, sharp as a hawk's, brewing with a hunter's fierceness, William slowly suppressed the emotions in his heart.
He glanced at Tony beside him, who immediately took out a document and handed it to Monkey.
William took one last look at the study window and left with a statement: "I'm waiting for her to come find me on her own."
The black Maybach quickly left the entrance of the Johnson Villa.
Monkey looked down at the document envelope in his hand, and the moment he saw the seal stamp on the back, his expression changed dramatically.
Meanwhile, Alice was trapped in a villa bedroom, enduring the crazed assault of the man on top of her.
Three minutes later, the pot-bellied man immediately deflated, lying on her chest, panting with breath reeking of cigarettes.
Alice turned her face away in disgust, fists clenched. If she hadn't been desperate back then, she never would have sought out this old man, only to be taken advantage of by him!
"Alice, wasn't that great? This past week, I nearly died on top of you."