LOGINJust then, the hacker beside them spoke up. "There's nothing useful on this phone."Julliard asked, "What about the old, broken one?"Meredith said, "It was smashed beyond repair at the time. There was no point fixing it, so it went straight in the trash."Julliard looked at Sharon. "Sharon, isn't it a strange coincidence that Thomas's phone just happened to break right after your bid failed? Did Meredith really just drop it, or did she use that as an excuse to destroy it for him?"Thomas let out a light sigh. "Your imagination is really something else. An ordinary accident, and you're already pinning the whole thing on me."Julliard scoffed. "Whether it's a frame-up or not, we'll find out soon enough. Don't think that staging an accident to break the phone and then tossing it out counts as destroying the evidence."The way Julliard put it, it was as if Thomas had deliberately broken the phone himself.He turned to Sharon. "Sharon, you could send someone to retrieve that old pho
Julliard looked at Thomas, the corner of his mouth curling into a barely perceptible smile.After today, he'd finally be rid of this man who'd been such an eyesore to him.Julliard stared at Thomas, his voice cold. "Thomas, Sharon's been so good to you. Why would you betray her?"Thomas looked puzzled. "What do you mean? I'm not following."Julliard struck first. He'd already made up his mind — today, he was going to bring Thomas down for good."Don't play dumb, Thomas. The reason Sharon lost that bid was because the quotation and the project proposal were leaked. During that period, only a handful of people had access to her office. Aside from you, who else could it have been?"Thomas looked taken aback. "So just because I've been in and out of Sharon's office, you've decided I'm the traitor?""Of course that's not all." Julliard tossed the file of investigation materials from the table onto the ground in front of Thomas. "Thomas, you and the Malcolms have shown up at the same
Just then, a car sped past and crushed the phone flat against the pavement.Thomas watched the car disappear, his eyes deepening slightly."Thomas, I'm so sorry," Meredith said, looking apologetic. "I tripped on something without meaning to. Let me buy you a new one to make up for it?"He looked at her, an unreadable smile crossing his face."Sure. I won't say no to that."Meredith let out a breath of relief. "No need to thank me, this was my fault to begin with."After dropping off the sheet music in Sharon's office, Meredith insisted on taking Thomas straight out to buy a replacement phone. He didn't refuse.She bought him a model identical to the one he'd had before, apologized once more, and then left.Thomas turned the new phone over in his hands, a look of unreadable depth in his eyes....Three days later, Sharon sat staring grimly at the investigation report spread across her desk.Wendy simply couldn't accept it. "This... this can't be right. There's no way Thomas w
"I can't think of another explanation," Sharon said.Silas frowned. "But what would anyone gain from keeping you out of the Kalen Group?""There's too little to go on," Sharon said. "I can't quite work that part out yet. Maybe Samantha bribed someone close to me because she doesn't want to see me doing too well. Perhaps she's worried I'd overshadow her even more.""Sharon, do you want us to step in on this?" Scott asked.Sharon let out a sigh. "No need. This is something I'll have to deal with sooner or later. If I can't learn to handle it myself, it's just going to keep happening, again and again."Scott and Silas nodded.Situations like this were common enough in the business world, especially at a company the size of Kalen Group. Down the line, Sharon would face far more dangerous, complicated corporate battles. Even if she never ended up working at Kalen Group full time, being part of the family meant someone, somewhere, would always have designs on her. Surveillance, hac
Sharon glanced at Samantha. "Winning some, losing some, isn't that just how bidding works? Was it really worth your waiting here in person just to gloat at the losers? Or have you never lost at anything in your whole life?"Sharon's words drew disapproving looks from the representatives of every other company that had lost the bid.Murmurs rippled through the crowd. "A Malcolm, competing against small companies like us for a project this size, and then gloating on top of it after winning? Is this really the kind of face the Malcolm family shows the world?""So this is what passes for class and manners in that family? Embarrassing.""I met Uriah once, and he struck me as someone with real character and wisdom. How did his descendants turn out like this?""Truly a disgrace to the Malcolm family name."The murmurs around her made Samantha's face flush red, then go pale.She despised Sharon's sharp tongue more than anything, the way Sharon could shift every ounce of blame back onto
Samantha locked eyes with Sharon and taunted her. "Whoever loses has to publicly apologize to the other. What do you say, Sharon? Or are you scared?"Even though Samantha's own standing wasn't inferior to Sharon's, she'd never dare propose something like kneeling and begging forgiveness, given who Sharon actually was. Win or lose, a bet like that would be an insult to the whole Kalen family, and if it ever blew up publicly, no one would take Samantha's side. A public apology, on the other hand, wouldn't tell outsiders exactly what had happened, but it would still mean Sharon had lost.Watching the confident look on Samantha's face, Sharon's brow furrowed slightly, an inexplicable sense of foreboding creeping over her. It wasn't that she was afraid of losing the bet. It was more that she felt, somehow, that something was about to happen.Behind her, Wendy murmured a quiet warning."Sharon, don't agree to it. She might just be trying to stall you, or set something up."Sharon nodd
"Besides," Victoria added, "he sided with Sharon so openly just now. It's hard not to suspect something's off."Victoria and Jamie had already analyzed the situation. The likelihood that Johanna had successfully passed herself off as Thomas's long-lost love was slim. Otherwise, why would Thomas sho
Thomas spoke from the side. "Jamie even had the audacity to demand an apology from Sharon."Wendy let out a cold snort. "Shameless brute."If she wanted revenge on Jamie, it wasn't enough to target him alone. She needed to strike from within the Walton family itself.Now that she had come to Marc
Everyone present had heard of Jamie's methods, but seeing them firsthand made stomachs turn.Worse still, the victim was one of their own. In that instant, the Kalen family's faces fell into dark, ugly masks.Victoria frowned and averted her eyes from the screen. She could not bring herself to watc
Wendy exploded."What the hell do you mean?! Are you saying Sharon crippled her own hands just to kidnap Lex? Do you honestly think Lex is worth that much?"Damien sneered."Everyone knows Sharon's ex-husband is Carter, and that her pursuer is Xavier. For the two of them, staging a kidnapping in







