ANMELDEN"Sorry to disappoint you I haven't gone fully mute after all. My voice is coming back.""But that doesn't change what I've already discovered about this particular medicine, does it?""This isn't just harmful. It's an abortion drug one that does serious, lasting damage to a woman's body.""So that night, Mom, you deliberately forced me to drink this. And Nathan carried it out right alongside you.""If I hadn't specifically dosed Jessica's glass this morning with something that just causes some cramping, I doubt you'd have panicked and knocked her bowl out of her hands like that.""Isn't that right, Mom?"Jessica gasped. Richard's stare snapped hard onto Nathan and Diane."What did you two do?"Nathan, knowing there was no version of this that didn't implicate him, just dropped his head.Only Diane stayed rigid, adopting a stony denial-until-forced posture.So that's it. That bitch Claire orchestrated this entire soup incident just to expose me.Nathan, guilt written all over his face,
Claire Bennett.That name again.Her again.She'd been surfacing in Jonathan Reid's life over and over lately, each time with new shockwaves.Startling. Unpredictable. And this a genuinely bizarre coincidence.It took Jonathan nearly a full minute to absorb it."Is there any chance this list is wrong?""Impossible," Kevin said. "That team signed a full liability waiver. They're staking their entire reputation on this list being accurate."Jonathan pulled a cigarette from the desk drawer and lit it with a sharp snap.Kevin blinked, privately startled.How long has it been since the boss smoked?Because of Cynthia she'd get agitated at the sight of any open flame Jonathan had quietly quit, aside from the rare cigarette here and there. Kevin genuinely couldn't remember the last time he'd seen him touch one. Close to a year, easily.Today's revelation is clearly getting to him.After two drags, Jonathan asked, "Why did she need IVF? The man surnamed Wade wasn't sufficient?"Kevin nearly c
Claire nodded at Pete.That evening, at the Wade estate, the atmosphere hung heavy thunder rolling low, rain lashing the windows.Staff moved through the halls tense and quiet. Every member of the family looked like they were unraveling.The whole household inside and out was in freefall.Stock crashing. Claire missing. Three separate scandals breaking at once, none of them containable no matter how much money got thrown at PR.Richard knew his family had become a target.But there was another possibility, one he couldn't shake: maybe their own rot had simply invited the exposure."Someone's behind this," he said. "Deliberately.""Someone with resources beyond even ours.""Who.""WHO IS IT?"No amount of digging turned up a lead. Every connection he called came back empty.He smashed the study apart in fury.Everything he'd spent decades building reduced to rubble by a handful of scandals in under a week. Unacceptable.Thinking of the exhaustion of the past few days, Richard looked up
Instantly, every gossip outlet exploded over the story.Wade family matriarch secretly meeting a bank executive?!Wade Enterprises CEO and his first love or should we say, his mistress caught in a secret rendezvous, a passionate several-minute kiss neither could break away from.Wade Enterprises CEO's wife dead, under mysterious circumstances!Soon someone leaked that the Wade family had been actively searching for someone recently.Not just Qingyang Villa they'd combed every corner of the city.And it wasn't only the living they were searching for.Someone had even spotted a Wade family representative at the local morgue, inquiring about an unidentified female body.So is the Wade family's daughter-in-law actually dead?This new murder angle collided directly with the two affair scandals already circulating.The connections practically drew themselves.Mother-in-law's secret meeting. Husband's blatant affair.Did the wife know something? Is that why the Wade family silenced her?Spec
Claire froze.What did he just say?Jonathan lifted his teacup, took a slow sip, glanced down for a beat, then looked back up, holding her gaze with total sincerity."The Reid family needs your help.""This is the offer from me personally, and from the entire family behind me."Something stirred in Claire's chest.Everyone in Los Angeles knew what the Reid name meant. Wealthiest man in the city. A conglomerate that shaped the local economy. If Reid Industries so much as shifted its weight, half the city felt it.Anyone who secured the protection or the personal backing of the head of the Reid family could completely rewrite their entire future.Since walking away from the Bennetts, Claire genuinely had no one left to lean on. Only her own instincts and talent had kept her from ending up truly destitute.The offer was tempting. Genuinely tempting.But entangling herself with this man further would be insane.She still carried the one secret that made him dangerous to her.The only reas
Nathan had barely gotten Vanessa settled on the sofa when the sound hit him, and his face went white.He shot up, abandoning Vanessa without a word, and bolted outside."Damn it Claire, playing games with me tonight! I swear to god, I won't stop until I find you!"Claire had finally seized her window and made it off the property.She didn't dare run flat out every step had to account for the twins.So she moved fast but careful, one hand cradling her stomach.She knew it wouldn't be long before Nathan and his people noticed and started tracking her down.Which meant no stopping. She kept weaving through unfamiliar streets around the villa's perimeter.Rain fell so hard the streetlights barely cut through it.Her only hope was to zigzag enough that Nathan lost the trail entirely that even he couldn't run this one down.Eventually, exhaustion overwhelmed her. She dropped onto a low rooftop ledge, crouching.She wrung out the water from her soaked clothes fast.The apron over her head ha







