Perhaps it was because Tyler often left without telling Hannah, she was no longer surprised to hear the news. However, disappointment was still evident in her voice.
“He must be gambling somewhere again.I honestly thought he had changed for real.”
On the other end of the line, Natalie was completely quiet.
Now that she had realized how terrible Tyler was as a person, there was no point in putting in a good word for him anymore.
Somewhere in the city, inside a dark interrogation room, Sebastian sat on a chair and looked down at Tyler whose blood was dripping all over his body.
“Sir, let me go.I, I have tald you everything I know. What else do you want?”
Sweat mixed with tears fell down Tyler’s face.
He wasn’t a tough man at all.
After being whipped several times, he immediately confessed.
“Pour some saline water on his wounds.” Sebastian’s eyes flared up with rage and hatred.
With eyes wide open, Tyler stared at the man standing in the darkness.
All he could see was the man’s tall silhouette.
Despite the fact that Sebastian rarely spoke, Tyler was intimidated by him.
“I’ve already told you everything, Please let me go! Please…”
Before Tyler could even finish his sentence, a bowl of saline water was poured over his wounds, causing him to scream in agony.
After screaming at the top of his lungs for a long time, he could hardly breathe.
“I’ve tald you everything I know! I won’t do it again, I promise.Please! Please, let me go!”
Sebastian didn’t believe a word that came out of Tyler’s mouth.
The way he stared at the latter was truly frightening.
“Human traffickers, the casino, and a mysterious acquaintance. It’s all too much of a ‘coincidence’. It might seem as simple as
Tyler just intended to abduct Natalie and sell her off to pay for his gambling debts.But there’s definitely more to the story”
Sebastian walked out of the room with a recorder pen in hand and said, “Take ‘good care of him, but I want him alive.”
Having said that, he went back to the room next to the interrogation room, pressed the recorder pen’s play button, and carefully analyzed Tyler’s confession.
“There’s an acquaintance I knew, someone from my village and I met him in Blakewood a while ago.
He told me that my mom had been supporting a girl named Natalie Quinn. She works at a big company, and they say she hooked up with the Larson Group’s CEO.So, I figured I’d come here and ask her for money and mooch off her.
Later on, I met two human traffickers at a tavern and decided to join hands with them to abduct Natalie.”
In the recording, Tyler sounded fired up.He kept on repeating the same sentences, and he didn’t seem to be lying.
However, there two things that Sebastian just couldn’t figure out.
Firstly, Tyler had been in Blakewood.
It was miles away from this place, so the chances of him hearing about Natalie when he was in badly need of money to pay off his gambling debts was astronomically low.
Aside from that, Sebastian had asked his men in Blakewood to conduct a thorough investigation.
The “acquaintance” that Tyler knew in Blakewood had been living there for years and never met Hannah, nor Natalie.
It couldn’t have been possible for that person to know what was happening in Seacisco.
Secondly, human traffickers were usually very vigilant.
It was highly unlikely for someone like them to cooperate with a random stranger who they met at a tavern.
‘Tyler’s offer to join them that night was a spur in the moment decision. Why would they agree to his request so readily?’ Sebastian turned off the recorder pen, interlocked his fingers, and continued contemplating.
“Maybe Tyler is telling the truth. Maybe he really isn’t aware that someone has been using him as a pawn.Someone else is probably behind all this; someone who’s using Tyler to hurt Natalie”
At first, Sebastian thought that someone from the Klein family must be the mastermind, but then he cast the idea aside.
“Even if the Klein family does want to hurt Natalie, they’re not going to use such underhanded tactics. They prefer to attack head on.And even if their plans get exposed, they could easily deal with it.
They don’t have any reason to do samething like this and make things difficult for themselves. Thereafter, Sebastian told his man to call the police over, and Tyler was put behind bars, However, he had no intention of letting this go.He just didn’t want to alert the enemy that he was onto them.
His intention was to continue to look into this matter further.
It was late winter now and snow was frequent.
Seacisco, the concrete jungle, was covered in a layer of snow and frost.
Catherine Turner was calmly making tea in her residence.
After decades of experiencing the world, she had assumed a noble, elegant demeanor, “My dear daughter, you’ve been looking sullen these days.What’s the matter?”
After pondering for a moment, she smiled at Charis sympathetically and asked, “Is it about a boy?”
Feeling agitated, Charis stared at the tea in her cup with her chin propped on one hand.
“Mom, I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
Catherine could sense that something was wrong.
She eyed her daughter warily, wondering what had happened.
Although Sebastian had warned Charis several times, she couldn’t stop herself from hiring a private detective to investigate Natalie !
She had thought that she could use the Quinn family to hurt Natalie, but she found out that Natalie had cut all ties with the Quinn family.
The only family she had now was Hannah Stone, who used to serve the Quinn family.
But it was clear that Hannah loved Natalie and would never do anything to hurt her.
Charis couldn’t use her at all.
Fortunately, Charis also found out about Tyler, Hannah’s son who hadn’t been in contact with her for years.
Tyler was a scumbag and gambling addict.
He was deep in debt and was at the end of his rope, so Charis thought that he was the perfect guy to start with.
Charis spent some money and asked someone in Blakewood who knew Tyler to “casually” tell him that Natalie worked in the
Larson Group.
Two days later, as expected, Tyler came running back to Seacisco and went straight to Natalie.
Charis had thought that she had everything under control.
But what she hadn’t foreseen was that Natalie would ask Sebastian for help the second she found out about Tyler’s gambling debts.
And Sebastian had dealt with it easily.
Now, Tyler had no choice but to pay off his debts by himself.
Seeing that her plan was going to fail again, Charis felt frustrated and unwilling to let Tyler to start over again like that.
So that night, she used the Turner family’s connections to hire human traffickers to set a trap for Tyler to abduct Natalie for money.
But just before her plan could succeed, someone meddled and ruined things for her.
Little did she know that Sebastian had sent someone to replace Laney while she was out of commission.
The new bodyguard was good and she saved Natalie right after she was abducted.
Originally, Charis wasn’t that invested.
If her plan succeeded, then that would be good for her.
If it didn’t, then she wouldn’t lose anything.
After all, because Tyler was the one doing all the bad things, he would be the one to go to prison.
She could always back away.
But Sebastian didn’t seem to intend to let things go so easily even after Tyler was put in jail.
Now, Charis was distraught.
Sebastian had begun to investigate the matter thoroughly.
He’d find out that she was behind everything sooner or later.
“Mom, I need to go back to work.I’ll visit you another time.”
Lost in thought, Charis looked flustered.
She suddenly stood up from her seat, grabbed her bag, and hurried out of the room.
“But you just arrived!”
Catherine sighed regretfully.
She hadn’t spent much time with her daughter ever since she lived separately with Luke.
On her way back to the office, Charis worried nonstop.She couldn’t give Sebastian a bad impression; she just couldn’t In a panic, she called the private detective she had hired.
“Get me information on all of Natalie’s enemies by the end of today.Got it?”
“Miss Turner, how detailed are we talking about?”
“I want to know every single enemy Natalie has made ever since she was a child!”
Without waiting for a response, Charis hung up the phone angrily.She didn’t expect that Sebastian would pursue this matter so thoroughly.
Given the connections the Larson Group had, it’d only be a matter of time before he found out that she was the one behind all this.
Of course, Charis didn’t want Sebastian to know about the horrible things she had done.She wanted to stay perfect in his heart.
Fortunately for her, the private detective she had hired was really good.He got Charis the information she wanted within the day.
There was a woman in particular who stood out to Charis.
Her name was Elaine Sellers.
Charis had seen this name in the personnel files before.
Elaine was fired because of Natalie.
Later, she was even sent to jail because of Natalie again.She must’ve hated Natalie to the core.
Upon reading through the file the private detective had sent her, Charis sneered and went to see Elaine.
Elaine had graduated from a famous university in Seacisco, but now, she worked as a receptionist in a motel.
Elaine looked up in surprise when she saw Charis in high heels and sunglasses here.
“Miss Turner, what brings you here?”
When Elaine was working in the Larson Group, she had seen photos of Charis and thought that she was a really intelligent and beautiful woman.
But before she ever got to meet Charis in person, she was fired because of Natalie.
Charis delicately removed her sunglasses and glanced around the shabby motel in disdain.
“Miss Sellers, allow me to be straightforward with you.I’m here to ask a favor of you.Should you agree to help me, you will be rewarded generously.”
Because Elaine now had a criminal record, she could no longer find a decent job.Her current job was just enough to keep her fed.
“What do you mean?”
Elaine clenched her fists secretly.
She had to admit that Charis gave out an intimidating aura.
Charis leaned closer to whisper in her ear, “I want a scapegoat.”
Elaine shook her head immediately.
“No, I’ve already been in jail once.I can’t go there a second time.”
Her days in prison were so horrible that she shuddered at the thought of it.
If she became Charis’s scapegoat, she would inevitably be sent to jail again.
“Hear me out first before you make your decision,” Charis said calmly.
“The charge won’t be serious.Even if you are put in jail, it’ll only be for a few years. You’ve already been there once, it’s no big deal if you go back.But the money I’ll give you in exchange for this will be more than enough for you to live the rest of your life in luxury. What will you choose? To live like this forever? Or to spend a few years in jail in return for a lifetime of luxury?”
