The moment he finished his sentence, the study room fell into an awkward silence.
Armond had revealed his trump card. Now, everyone was aware of his ambition to make a comeback by leveraging on petroleum.
“No,” I replied in a serious tone. “Armond’s reputation is in tatters, but how will we know if he won’t somehow reinvent himself and make a comeback? If he gains control of the oil, that would be equivalent to getting the backing of all the countries within Meudari. By then, the shockwaves he may cause won’t be something that we can handle.”
It doesn’t matter if I die. If my death could guarantee my family’s safety, then it would be well worth the risk. Even if I could somehow survive by a stroke of luck, I still couldn’t bear letting everyone else fall into such a dangerous predicament.
Armond had gone crazy. Since that was the case, he should be imprisoned for life instead of allowing him the opportunity to recover.
Louis and John remained silent. All they did was furrow their brows and looked at Ashton skeptically, waiting for his response.
It was obvious that they were considering Armond’s demands, or else I would not have heard about it. The Stovall family was only concerned about my survival and not about how great the risks were.
“Ashton.” I gave him a pleading look and shook my head solemnly. “We can’t do this.”
Pursing his lips in silence, Ashton remained expressionless, making me wonder if he could read the look in my eyes. After a long while, he turned around and answered Louis. “I agree with Letty that being controlled by someone is bad. Armond’s greed is boundless. Even if we give him the contract, we might still not get the antidote. Separately, I have contacted the most advanced medical researchers in the world and invested huge sums of money for them to analyze her disease. I believe we can look forward to some positive news soon.”
“Huh?” I was surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”
“I did.” Ashton’s expression remained distant. “I told you that you can trust me. And that you won’t die without my permission.”
I was stunned by the look he gave me. It was true that ever since I knew I had a terminal disease, I was always worried about my death despite claiming otherwise. Hence, I was mentally prepared for it to occur at any time because I knew how vicious Armond could be.
Before I could reply, Ashton’s tone grew more solemn. “Don’t tell me you’re considering nobly sacrificing yourself? Thinking that your death would somehow grant us some ridiculous form of ‘stability?’“
Feeling my heart sink, I furrowed my eyebrows as I had nothing to rebut him with. He didn’t care whether I believed him or not. Instead, he was more concerned that I subconsciously wanted to leave him by dying.
With his eyes fixated on me, his gaze felt like a bottomless lake, ready to drown anyone that fell into it.
Sensing the tension in the atmosphere, John quickly eased the situation. “Alright now, since we already have a solution, let’s just ignore Armond. Anyway, it’s getting late. So let’s go down and have dinner.”
Ashton’s cold stare swept across the room as he scowled. “How can you still have any appetite? I’m not hungry at all, so I’ll take my leave first.”
Just as he spoke, he stormed out of the room without even saying goodbye to Louis nor turning back to take another look.
It was a long while before everyone else regained their senses.
“What’s up with him?” John asked curiously. “Did you two argue again?”
“Huh? Uh… yeah, you can say so…” I pursed my lips, unwilling to explain further.
A few days later, John suddenly picked Emma and me up from the mall, saying that he wanted to take us somewhere.
After driving for less than five minutes, the car entered the basement carpark of the most glamorous skyscraper in the city center.
Upon entering the elevator, Emma asked curiously, “Why are you acting so secretive? Where are we going?”
Whirling a key around his finger, John smiled smugly as he continued to keep us in suspense.
As Emma’s face grew red in anger, I could only try and calm her down.
Ding!
