Chapter 3

"Lucas!" Elaine ran after me after I turned to leave. "If you continue to be stubborn, I'll make sure you'll regret this!"

However, I did not look back at her.

When I returned to work as normal the next day, my manager stopped me outside the door. "The CEO has informed us that you're not allowed to continue working here. Collect your salary from last month and leave."

The thought of my mother's endless medical bills made me speak out louder than usual, "On what grounds are you firing me? I can take you to court for violating labor laws!"

My manager sneered. "Mr. Jones, your father specifically asked our CEO for the favor. There is no point retaliating when you know it would come to nothing. You should save your breath."

With that, he threw a wad of cash at me and left me standing outside the door.

I suddenly had a bad feeling and immediately checked my bank account. My father had frozen all my accounts, and when I stumbled home in a state of shock, the movers were flinging everything I owned out of the door.

The new owner was harsh. "Get out. Ms. Denver sold this place to me. Those are your things over there. Take them and get out of here."

He pointed at the luggage strewn all over the ground. They contained every memory I had of Elaine and me in this house, but they were thrown out like common garbage. I grabbed the luggage and stood by the side of the road in disbelief.

I could no longer hold back and called Elaine to confront her about this. "Why must you push me into a corner?"

What I did not expect to hear was the sound of things being smashed over the phone, and the voice of a wailing man. "You were the one who forced me to do this! You humiliated Scott in public and now he has become emotionally unstable and is even asking me for a divorce. I told you before that if you would just accept the truth in front of you, everything would go back to normal, but you just refused to listen to me."

There was another loud bang over the phone. "Scott! Don't do anything stupid, Scott!"

After that, the call hung up.

My father texted me. [Things have already come to this point. If you continue being stubborn, I won't give you any money and will make sure that you end up homeless until you apologize.]

I could no longer hold back my tears, and they dripped onto the screen of my phone. I could not believe that they were willing to go this far for an illegitimate son who had once destroyed a family. I refused to take things lying down, and I could not watch as my mother's medical bills were stalled because of me.

So, I started sending out my resume as I was confident I would be able to find a job with my working experience, but received a hard reality check . Hundreds of my resumes were sent out without a single reply.

It was getting close to the hospital payment deadline, and I tried getting a loan from anyone I knew, only to be rejected numerous times.

"I'm sorry I can't loan you the money. Elaine Denver threatened us not to give you any loans."

"How about… Just giving in to them?"

My knuckles turned white while clenching the phone. I had no choice but to mortgage the house my mother had given me years before, and I returned home to get the house deed. When I walked into the house, my father, stepmother and Elaine were standing around Scott to celebrate his birthday.

Elaine turned to look at the door when she heard it open, and she walked over to me. "Have you finally come to your senses and agree to attend our wedding?"

She looked delighted at my appearance, but I did not say a word as I went right upstairs to find the deed.

"Haven't you suffered enough for the past few days? Besides, it's Scott's birthday today. Did you come home just to throw a tantrum in front of everyone?"

Elaine frowned unhappily as I looked up to meet her eyes. "Do you know who else has a birthday today?"

Scott and I shared the same birthday, and the expression on Elaine's face changed. She was about to explain when Scott suddenly exclaimed, "Ouch! I got burned by the candle!"

Elaine got distracted and did not come after me, and I did not look back at them.

The next morning, my mother suddenly called me on the phone, and she sounded hurt as she questioned me, "Lucas! Are you the third party in Elaine's relationship?! You know how much I hate anyone being the third party in relationships!"