Chapter: Chapter 26CLARA "You made a deliberate comment about her background," Gabriel cut her off, his voice slicing like a razor. "Let me make something clear to you, and to every member of the domestic staff in this room. Clara is not a guest. She is not a servant. She is the lady of this house. If you cannot treat her with the utmost deference and care, you will not only be stripped of your position here, but I will also ensure you never find employment in this city again."Ruby’s knees trembled so badly that she nearly dropped the teapot onto the floor. "I am sorry, Mr. Vance! I am so sorry, Madam Vance! Please forgive me!""Give the pot to Mrs. Gable," Gabriel ordered coldly. "Report to the estate manager, take your wages for the week, and leave the property before noon.""Mr. Vance, please!" Ruby gasped, tears springing to her eyes."Get out of my sight," Gabriel commanded.Mrs. Gable took the teapot from the girl's trembling hands and gave a sharp nod to the two guards standing near the dining
Huling Na-update: 2026-11-02
Chapter: Chapter 25CLARA "I... I had debts, sir!" Thomas cried out, tears spilling down his pale cheeks. "Gambling debts with people from the underground docks! They were going to break my hands, they were going to hurt my daughter! Then someone came to me with an offer. They paid off my lenders and promised me five million dollars in foreign accounts if I placed the powder into your evening brew." "Who gave you the poison?" Gabriel asked, his tone unchanging, razor-sharp and cold. "I don't know his real name, I swear!" Thomas panicked, shaking his head frantically. "He used an encrypted voice call!" Gabriel did not raise his voice. He simply glanced at Luke. "Luke, call the county prosecutor. Have him file charges for aggravated attempted murder, corporate espionage, and high treason against the Vance estate. Then contact the maritime port authority and ensure every asset tied to his family's trust is seized under federal racketeering laws." "No, no! Wait, please, Mr. Vance!" Thomas screamed, pre
Huling Na-update: 2026-11-01
Chapter: Chapter 24CLARA "I... I had debts, sir!" Thomas cried out, tears spilling down his pale cheeks. "Gambling debts with people from the underground docks! They were going to break my hands, they were going to hurt my daughter! Then someone came to me with an offer. They paid off my lenders and promised me five million dollars in foreign accounts if I placed the powder into your evening brew." "Who gave you the poison?" Gabriel asked, his tone unchanging, razor-sharp and cold. "I don't know his real name, I swear!" Thomas panicked, shaking his head frantically. "He used an encrypted voice call!" Gabriel did not raise his voice. He simply glanced at Luke. "Luke, call the county prosecutor. Have him file charges for aggravated attempted murder, corporate espionage, and high treason against the Vance estate. Then contact the maritime port authority and ensure every asset tied to his family's trust is seized under federal racketeering laws." "No, no! Wait, please, Mr. Vance!" Thomas screamed, pres
Huling Na-update: 2026-09-08
Chapter: Chapter 23CLARA Not even twenty minutes after Gabriel and I sealed our agreement, the oak doors of the study swung open once more. Luke strode into the room, his tactical vest fastened tight and a tablet clutched firmly in his gloved hand. Behind him, two armed guards took positions on either side of the entrance, their expressions grim and alert. "Report," Gabriel commanded without turning his head from the window. "We initiated the lockdown across the entire compound the moment I left this room, Boss," Luke said, coming to a halt before the desk. "Every outer gate was shut down, the security perimeter was armed, and all domestic staff members were assembled in the west reception hall for questioning and bag searches." Gabriel turned his wheelchair around, resting his forearms against the dark oak wood. "Did you find whoever tampered with the medicinal brew?" "We found out who didn't show up to the roll call," Luke answered, sliding his thumb across the screen of the tablet before turning
Huling Na-update: 2026-09-07
Chapter: Chapter 22CLARA "To standard surgeons, it looks like irreversible dead tissue. But in classical medicine, that is dormant stagnation. The nerves are asleep under extreme compression, not dead." Gabriel stared at me as if the world had shifted beneath him. For two years, he had lived as a recluse in this cold fortress, surrounded by rumors, pity, and false sympathy, accepting the reality that he would spend the rest of his life confined to a mechanical chair. Now, the quiet girl he had taken in as a substitute bride was looking him straight in the eyes and dismantling everything his high-priced medical specialists had claimed. "Can it be reversed?" he asked, his deep voice carrying a rare, fragile edge of raw hope. "It will not be quick, and it will be agonizingly painful," I told him without hesitation. "You would need targeted pressure therapy to break the deep fibrotic adhesions, specialized herbal baths to stimulate microcirculation, and gradual meridian stimulation to force the nerve pa
Huling Na-update: 2026-09-05
Chapter: Chapter 21CLARA I did not flinch under Gabriel’s piercing gaze. I stood beside his desk, smoothing down the hem of my sweater, and met his eyes with quiet composure. "I am who I told you I am," I said softly. "I am Clara Montgomery. Or rather, Clara Vance now. No one sent me here as an assassin or an infiltrator. My parents simply hated me enough to throw me into the dark, and they were too foolish to realize what they had locked away with me." "You spent your youth reading them," Gabriel murmured, his voice low with growing intrigue. "I had nothing else," I told him honestly. "There was a small high window that let in sunlight for five hours every afternoon. While Evelyn was taking piano lessons and attending society galas, I sat on the concrete floor reading Grandfather's studies on nerve regeneration, botanical poisons, and acupuncture pathways. I read them until the pages fell apart in my hands. I memorized every formula, every Latin classification, and every case study because it was t
Huling Na-update: 2026-09-04
Chapter: Chapter 43The invitation came from Grandfather this time, not Margaret. That was why I went. "Vivian, come home for family dinner tonight, just family," Grandfather said on the phone, his voice tired but warm. "Margaret called, she cried, said she wants to apologize properly at home, no reporters, no cameras, just soup. She made your father's favorite fish soup, the one your mother taught her. She said she wants to cook for me one last time before... before she leaves the city. I said yes. I am old, Vivian, I don't want to die with hate in the house. Come, please. Bring Julian if he is free. Let’s eat one last time as family." One last time. Family. Fish soup. My mother's recipe that Margaret stole. My stomach twisted. Margaret never cooks. She has maids, she has allergies to fish, she says the smell makes her sick. And she never apologizes without cameras. I looked at Julian, who was reading a contract with his reading glasses — he looks so handsome in reading glasses, I almost forgot to b
Huling Na-update: 2026-09-02
Chapter: Chapter 42I should have known the Lin mansion's security was useless. My stepmother Margaret had fired all of my father's old guards after he died and replaced them with cheap men who spent more time looking at their phones than at the cameras. In my past life, that was how Chloe was able to bring Arthur into my bedroom while I was still technically married. That was how they were able to take me away to the asylum without anyone stopping them. I made a mental note. The first thing I would do after I secured the Sterling name was fire every single one of them. Because at 11 PM, when I had just come back from Sterling Tower and was trying to take off this red dress that felt like armor, my bedroom door clicked open. I froze. "Vivian?" Arthur's voice. Hoarse. Broken. Like he had been crying. He slipped inside and closed the door behind him, locking it. He was still in his wrinkled tuxedo from this morning, his eyes red, his hair a mess. He looked like a man who had lost everything overnigh
Huling Na-update: 2026-09-01
Chapter: Chapter 41: The $400 Million SlapThe bidding for the Trans-Pacific Green Shipping Corridor was held at the Grand Hyatt, 9 AM, in a glass room that looked over the sea — my sea, my father's sea, the sea where I fell when I was 10 and a boy crushed his legs to save me. I arrived at 8:50 AM, white suit, hair up, no diamonds, only my father's old pen in my pocket and the photo of Little Fish in my inner pocket, because I needed her — that 10-year-old girl with missing tooth who promised to marry a lonely boy — to remind me who I was fighting for. With me: Leo with three laptops and a power bank taped to his leg like a weapon, Julian in black suit in wheelchair today because his legs hurt from walking at 2 AM to my study, Mark with the Norwegian tech certificate in a bulletproof briefcase, and Uncle Chen, Liu, Zhao, Huang, Wang — my father's five brothers — in matching Lin Enterprises blue ties, because I asked them to wear blue for luck. Across the table: Arthur Vance. New suit again, this time tailored, hair combed, b
Huling Na-update: 2026-07-14
Chapter: Chapter 40: The Final ChallengeI didn't sleep after the photograph. How could I? I sat on the floor of Julian's private study, barefoot, in his t-shirt, holding a yellowed photo of a 10-year-old me with a missing tooth and an ugly fish, and a 15-year-old Julian scowling while holding my ponytail so I wouldn't fall into the sea, with blue ink on the back: Little Fish — 2008 — She said she will marry me when she grows up so I don't have to be alone. I said okay. — J Julian sat with me, his bare back against his desk, his legs stretched out, shaking from walking without his cane, his head on my shoulder, his tears dry now, his hands holding mine, holding the photo, like if he let go, I would fall into the sea again and forget again. "I didn't want you to find it like this," he whispered at 3 AM, his voice hoarse. "I wanted to tell you after you became President. After you didn't need me. So you wouldn't think you owed me." "Owed you?" I whispered back, my voice broken, Goodnovel heroine voice, small but fierce. "Ju
Huling Na-update: 2026-07-13
Chapter: Chapter 39: The Photograph in the Locked DrawerIt was 1:47 AM. I know because the clock in Julian's private study — the one room in Seabreeze Villa I was never allowed to enter, the one even Mark needed permission to clean — said 1:47 AM in cold blue light. I wasn't snooping. I swear I wasn't. Goodnovel heroines never snoop, they accidentally snoop. I was looking for a document. Grandfather's final test — Yangtze Deep-Water Port — required government approval, and government approval required Sterling Group's Norwegian deep-water tech certification, which Julian said was in his study, in the safe, file name Nor-Tech-2019-Deep. Julian was asleep. Finally asleep, not pretending, his black hair messy on my pillow, his breathing deep, his hand still holding mine even in sleep, because he does that now, holds my hand like I will disappear if he lets go. I didn't want to wake him. He hadn't slept properly since the fish soup night, since the $73M, since Vincent brought Arthur to his boardroom. So I slipped out of bed barefoot, in his
Huling Na-update: 2026-07-12
Chapter: Chapter 38: The Final TestThe morning after the poisoned fish soup, Grandfather called me at 6 AM again, but this time he wasn't crying. His voice was clear, strong, no sedatives in his blood anymore because Julian's private doctor had been giving him clean tea and vitamins for a week, flushing the benzodiazepine out. "Vivian, come to the house. Now. Bring your husband. Bring Leo. And bring that test kit your husband's doctor used on my tea." I arrived at Lin Manor at 7 AM, with Julian, Leo still in pajamas holding a lab report that said Sample A (spilled fish soup) — Digoxin 3.2mg/L — Lethal dose for 70yo male — Causes heart failure appearing natural within 12 hours. Grandfather was sitting in his study, not in his armchair, but at his desk — my father's desk — wearing his old presidential suit that he hadn't worn since my father died, his cane leaning against the desk, his hair combed, his eyes sharp. And on the desk: two cups of tea. One from Margaret yesterday, tested, with sedatives. One clean, from Ju
Huling Na-update: 2026-07-11
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