Chapter 3

Seeing that I was silent, Mandy thought that she had me, and she immediately wore an expression that screamed, “I’m just doing this for your own good.”

“Miss Jackson, our brand is a global franchise, and we have a legal team. If the reporters report about this, they won’t be digging around for news from us, but from you.”

Then, she lowered her voice even more as her gaze turned meaningful. “Besides, you’ve earned so much money. I’m sure that some of it is dirty money. Can you really handle being looked into?”

I scowled, which somehow made her think that I felt guilty. So, she started talking gently, like she was trying to convince me to just listen to her. “I’m doing this for your sake, Miss Jackson. If there’s smoke, there’s fire, right? Why didn’t that woman do this to anyone else but you? I’m just saying that what if your son really cheated on your future daughter-in-law? If you cause such a ruckus and he did cheat, you’d be humiliating your own family. That’s why you should just let this slide, don’t you think?”

I scoffed. Even at this point, she was still throwing mud at Apollo.

I took a deep breath and could not be bothered to continue dancing in circles with her. “Will your shop pay those two million dollars?”

Honestly, I could understand her.

She was just an employee. The moment such a major flaw in management appeared, her first reaction was to hide it and convince me not to blow this out of proportion.

To my surprise, the moment she heard that I wanted the shop to pay for the two million dollars, her eyes went wide. “Why should we pay? My monthly salary is just eight thousand dollars! Of course you’re paying for it! You own a huge company. Two million dollars is nothing to you. You can earn it back immediately!” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

She even shrugged, and her innocent expression made it seem like she was talking about a simple problem.

As I stared at her self-righteous expression, I suddenly thought that saying even one extra word to her would be a waste of my breath.

Before she could react, I walked back to the police officers and told them all that she said to me. Then, I stared into their eyes as I said, “Officers, according to Article 40 of the Consumer Protection Act, when a seller has elements of deception in the products or services they sell, they need to pay monetary compensation. I suspect that she was trying to coerce me into spending money.”

Mandy’s expression turned as dark as a thundercloud.

As for the police officers, they flew into a rage because of her outrageous behavior.

“Mandy Williams, is it? Please come to the station with us for an investigation.”

For a fraction of a second, I could see Mandy warring between choosing to be a lawful citizen or an unreasonable banshee.

The unreasonable banshee won.

She stomped on the floor and screamed so shrilly that her voice could shatter glass. “I’m not wrong! That woman is her future in-law! She’s the one who won’t recognize it! What does that have to do with me?!”

Her voice grew increasingly louder as she pointed at the air. Her spit flew everywhere. “I’m just an employee! Why should I clean up this mess for you rich people?! Arrest that woman! She’s rich but heartless!”

Phones came out, and cameras flashed.

The jewelry shop turned into a huge live stream event.

Layla frowned and instinctively hid behind me.

Just as Mandy was kicking up a fuss, the most cliche thing happened.

Someone from the crowd suddenly shouted, “Hey, look! The person who bought the diamond ring has gone live! She says that she wants to argue with Miss Jackson!”

Everyone went wild, and they turned to me.

The police officers frowned.

Mandy stopped kicking up a fuss too. A flash of panic rose on her face for a brief moment before slight confidence replaced it.

After that, the crowd turned restless and went to that live stream channel.

Indeed, even I had not expected the person to show themselves instead of running away.

I took out my phone and popped into the live stream channel.

I wanted to see what sort of lies that mother-and-daughter pair was going to weave.

The moment I connected to their channel, a sickeningly sweet voice came through my phone.

“Hey, Leto. Why did you call the police? This is just a small matter!”