Chapter 268
Chapter 268
The car pulled up to the preschool before four o'clock. When the teacher led Milo out, his face lit up with pure delight.
"Mommy! How come you're here so early?"
He threw himself into Sophia's arms. "I thought I'd have to wait till dark to see you."
Sophia crouched down and held him tight. "Mommy missed you, so I came early."
Milo beamed, then turned and waved. "Daddy!"
Gerald walked over and ruffled his hair.
On the drive home, Milo chattered nonstop from his car seat about everything that happened at school. Sophia tilted her head to listen, murmuring responses here and there.
---
After dinner, the housekeeper took Milo for his bath. Sophia sat on the living room sofa scrolling through her phone. Gerald came down the stairs.
"Sophia."
"What."
"Give me another chance."
"I'll be good to you."
Sophia's gaze settled on his face. Cold.
"Gerald, I moved back for Milo. I just want him to be happy. Don't read anything else into it."
Gerald's jaw relaxed slightly. His tone stayed gentle. "That's fine. I'll wait."
Sophia stood up. "Something's wrong with your head."
Gerald laughed quietly.
---
A few uneventful days drifted by.
One morning, Sophia had just returned to her desk from a meeting when her phone rang.
It was the chairman of the company whose contract Claire had stolen—calling to sign with her after all.
This time, Sophia knew there was no mistake. She could hear Gerald's voice in the background.
She hesitated, then agreed.
She couldn't let her entire team's work go to waste.
When the time came, Sophia went to sign the contract.
---
At the same time, in a private café in Skylake District.
Griffin sat behind the bar, gripping a red cord. The pendant dangled from its end.
His eyes were rimmed with red.
"There's a lead pointing to Shadow City. Grandpa's people found records. She's here."
Gerald sat across from him and took a sip of coffee.
Griffin's voice roughened. "Grandpa's health is getting worse. The thing he can't let go of is my sister. She's been missing over twenty years. He can't sleep at night—just sits there looking through old photos."
Gerald set his cup down. "What if you find her and she doesn't want to come back?"
Griffin stiffened.
"...Doesn't want to come back?" His hand clenched the edge of the table. "She's the Douglas family's daughter—lost for over twenty years. Why wouldn't she want to come back?"
Gerald didn't answer.
Griffin's throat worked. "If she won't forgive us, then we'll get on our knees and beg. We're the ones who lost her. I don't even know what kind of life she's had. How much she's suffered."
"Half the shares under my name—they're hers. Grandpa's already decided. Fifty-one percent of the family business goes to her."
Gerald looked down, tracing his fingertip slowly around the rim of his cup.
Griffin's voice turned urgent. "Help me find her."
Gerald looked up.
"Okay."
---
Outside the café, around the corner at the end of the corridor, a figure pressed against the wall.
Claire clutched an insulated lunch container in her hands.
Her lips trembled. No sound came out.
She turned and crept out of the café, one step at a time.
The hatred churning inside her was like boiling oil poured over a raw wound.
She could never let Matilda come back.
---
That day, after dropping Milo off, Sophia had just opened her car door when she caught a dark gray SUV parked at the curb.
The door opened. Griffin stepped out from the back seat.
He strode toward her and stopped, his Adam's apple bobbing, a thin redness surfacing in his eyes.
"Ms. Neville."
Sophia took half a step back.
"Mr. Douglas, can I help you?"
Griffin opened his mouth. "No... I was just passing by. Saw you. Wanted to say hello."
His gaze traveled from her brow to her eyes to her jawline, studying every detail, as if trying to carve her features into his bones.
Sophia's frown deepened.
She had no relationship with Griffin. This kind of stare was too much.
"Mr. Douglas, I have somewhere to be. Excuse me."
She ducked into the driver's seat and pulled the door shut.
In the rearview mirror, Griffin still stood in the same spot, one hand pressed over his mouth, tears leaking between his fingers.
Sophia hit the gas and merged into traffic.
What on earth was that about?
---
The car passed through an intersection. Sophia had just accelerated when a boy—five or six years old—darted off the sidewalk on the right, chasing a bouncing ball straight into the middle of the road.
Sophia's pupils contracted. She wrenched the steering wheel left.
The car slammed into a street tree. The hood crumpled. The airbag deployed, punching into her chest and face with a muffled thud.
Her ears rang.
The child was unhurt.
She leaned back and took two seconds to recover, then shoved the door open and stumbled out on unsteady legs.
A crowd had already gathered. Someone shouted "Call 911!" Someone else held up a phone, recording.
Sophia wiped her face, confirmed her nose wasn't broken, checked that her arms and legs still worked. She was reaching for her phone when a figure cut through the crowd and rushed toward her.
"Are you okay? Where are you hurt?"
Griffin grabbed her arm. His fingers were shaking.
Sophia pulled her arm free and stepped back.
"Mr. Douglas." Her tone was flat. "We're not close."
Griffin's hand hung in the air. His fingers curled inward, then slowly dropped.
---
In another car parked nearby, Claire gripped the door handle, her knuckles bone-white.
The opportunity she'd worked so hard to create—and Sophia had dodged it again.
What made it worse was watching Griffin leap from his car. That frantic, desperate, uncontrolled concern. All of it should have been hers.
She took a deep breath and told the driver to go. She'd find another chance to finish Sophia off.
But the car was blocked. Two bodyguards in black stepped forward and seized her.
"Let go of me!"
Griffin turned around. The panic had drained from his face, leaving only cold steel.
"Take her to the airport."
"Griffin! You can't do this to me!" Claire struggled as they dragged her backward. "I was wrong—I know I was wrong! I'll never go after Matilda again. Please don't send me away—"
A black sedan rounded the corner and braked hard at the curb.
Gerald pushed the door open, walked straight to Sophia, and checked her over with meticulous care.
"Where'd you hit? Any dizziness?"
Sophia pushed his hands away.
"I'm fine."
Claire spotted Gerald and clung to him like a lifeline, screaming with everything she had. "Gerald! Say something! Griffin's sending me out of the country—tell him to stop—"
Gerald turned his head.
His expression was ice.
"You need to go. Otherwise what comes next will be much worse."
Claire froze as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over her head.
The two bodyguards pushed her into the back seat of the SUV. The door slammed shut. The tinted windows swallowed her final look of hatred.
The car pulled away toward the airport.