Chapter 4

"Lydia Lynn, give me an explanation."

Ethan Pierce's Adam's apple rolled. The room was so quiet you could hear the monitor beeping.

I panicked.

After all, panic was exactly the reaction I should have.

Lowering my head, I clumsily pulled a document from my bag, hands trembling slightly as I handed it over.

"This... I discovered it last week. I checked — someone hacked my authorization in the approval system. The funds flowed to... the account for that villa in Heron Bay."

Ethan Pierce's pupils shrank violently.

That was the residence of his sixty-seventh mistress, Yvonne Zoe, whom he'd dumped just a month ago.

The breakup had been ugly. Yvonne had even threatened to expose him, but Ethan had silenced her with a lawyer's letter.

Ethan Pierce snatched the report, his eyes flying over every line of data.

Then, gritting his teeth, he threw the report down.

"That bitch!"

After cursing, he didn't look at me again.

After all, in Ethan Pierce's world, Lydia Lynn was just a dog.

Would a dog bite?

No.

That night, I sat in the darkness of the study, the blue screen light reflecting on my face.

When I pressed Enter for the last time, my finger was steady.

Over the past thirty days, the old Lynn family guard had completed the final round of capital swaps.

The core assets and underlying equity structure of Pierce Group had been hollowed out by me, thread by thread, over seven years.

From the outside, Pierce Group still looked glamorous.

But the bones were gone.

I closed the laptop, walked to the window, and looked out at the city's night view.

A month later, at Pierce Group's year-end gala.

Under crystal chandeliers, Ethan Pierce appeared on the red carpet with Sophie on his arm, camera flashes crackling.

I was seated at the most remote table in the corner, without even a nameplate, sitting with three drivers from supplier companies.

Ethan Pierce stood on stage holding a wine glass, confidently describing his business empire.

He looked much worse than a month ago.

Sunken eyes, night sweats, and then swollen lymph nodes appearing on the side of his neck.

Ethan Pierce thought it was just too much socializing and not enough rest. A few days ago, he'd gone for a checkup, gotten an IV drip at a private hospital, and taken a few fever reducers.

This time I didn't stop the checkup. I didn't need to anymore.

After all, what's coming will come.

At the gala's climax, Ethan Pierce suddenly called my name.

The entire ballroom went silent.

He threw a document in front of me, his tone like ordering a servant to pour water: "Sign it. Just a formality. Sophie likes the garden at the old Lynn estate. I've already transferred the deed to her name. You don't mind, do you?"

I looked down and made out the line: Lynn Family estate Property Transfer Agreement.

That was my father's last possession before he jumped.

That was the courtyard where my mother had grown magnolia flowers for twenty years.

That was the only place I could still call home in these seven years of hellish existence.

One mistake in a hundred calculations. My hands began to tremble.

This time, they were really shaking.

I finally looked up at him with reddened eyes: "Ethan Pierce, do you have to be this ruthless?"

He looked down at me like an ant blocking his path.

"Lydia Lynn, don't be ungrateful. Without me, you wouldn't even have the right to stand here. Sign it, and you're still Mrs. Pierce."

"If you don't sign..." He didn't finish, but of course he didn't need to.

Sophie walked over with a wine glass and high heels, deliberately thrusting out her waist, smiling broadly: "Ms. Lynn, Mr. Pierce dotes on me now. If you still want to be Mrs. Pierce, be smart about it, won't you?"

I bit my lip, my hand holding the pen still trembling.

Over three hundred pairs of eyes in the room watched me — some sympathetic, some indifferent, most just watching the show.

And just as I was about to sign...

Bang!

The side door of the ballroom was violently pushed open.

The private doctor I'd bribed, pale-faced and sweating, clutching an urgent report in trembling hands, stumbled in.

His voice exploded across the entire hall, uncontrollably shaking: "Mr. Pierce! Something terrible has happened... Your physical examination report..."