“Natalie, over here!”
Natalie nodded in greeting. They hadn‘t seen each other for over a month. Lila had lost a lot of weight. Her makeup was not as pristine as before, and her eyes were full of undisguised fatigue.
“I know several good cafes in the area. How about we talk there?” Natalie suggested, glancing at the men from the corner of her eye.
“This place is owned by a friend of Jeff‘s. I don‘t have that much money now, so I could only afford the food here,” Lila explained with a smile.
“Oh, Jeff‘s my brother.” Left with no choice, Natalie sat down at the table. The restaurant was empty other than the group of men.
There were barely any people outside, too. This was clearly a place for doing illegal stuff. The staff soon brought them two plates of steak.
Lila pushed one of them in front of Natalie and said, “Try it. I like their food.”
As she spoke, she glanced meaningfully at the man who had served the steak just now. She knew that Jeff and his friends were hiding in the kitchen. With Sebastian guarding outside, Natalie wasn‘t afraid at all. She sliced a piece of her steak and put it in her mouth.
Suddenly, Jeff burst out of the kitchen, holding a stick and some ropes, followed by a group of thugs. However, before they could even get close to Natalie, a group of men in black swarmed inside the restaurant. In a matter of seconds, the men in black quickly subdued Jeff and his friends. Lila was shocked. She stood up from the table and shouted, “Who the hell are you? I‘m calling 911!”
Natalie continued to eat her steak calmly. The steak here was pretty good; she had to give Lila that.
Sebastian, who was wearing a dark brown windbreaker today, strode in. He sat next to Natalie, took out a handkerchief, and handed it to her.
“Honey, it’s time to go.”
Taking the handkerchief, Natalie folded it neatly and wiped her lips. She glanced indifferently at the panic–stricken Lila and said,
“Okay. Let‘s go, honey.”
********
Lila and the others were all captured for interrogation.
“Please let me go, Brandon! I was just trying to apologize to Natalie!”
Inside the cold interrogation room, Lila was scared out of her wits and kept defending herself hysterically. Jeff was also tied to a electric chair. He was so scared that he wet his pants. He tried to explain stiffly, “I… My friends and I were just curious to see what Natalie White looked like. We never intended to hurt her!”
“So what were the ropes and sticks for?” Sebastian‘s men didn‘t want to waste time listening to his measly excuses and flipped a switch. The chair sent bolts of electricity through Jeff‘s body. Very quickly, the interrogation room was filled with screams.
Neither Jeff nor Lila had been tortured before. They confessed everything after only a short while. In the room behind the steakhouse, Sebastian‘s men found cameras and all kinds of aphrodisiac drugs. Obviously, they were meant for Natalie.
“They confessed. It‘s all in this video. How do you want to do this?” Sebastian slid the flash drive in front of Natalie.
“I couldn‘t care less about Jeff, but I know that my parents still care about Lila. I want to talk to them first.” Natalie was hesitant.
She didn‘t think it was a good idea to put Lila behind bars without consulting her parents first.
Upon hearing this, Sebastian‘s expression darkened. He reached for Natalie‘s hand and said softly but firmly, “I respect that, but you shouldn‘t be asking your parents for their opinion. You should just be informing them about what lila has done. I‘m not going to let her go this time, honey.”
Unlike Natalie, Sebastian wasn‘t as indecisive. He sent the video directly to the Whites. When Johanna watched the video, she was furious.
“I raised her for twenty years, but this is what I get in return? A criminal? How dare she do something like this?!” Even Beal gave up on his former daughter completely. What she had done this time was simply too despicable for words. He rubbed his temples and sighed, “Do whatever you want with her. She has to be punished. She is no longer a member of the White family. Whatever she has done has nothing to do with us.”
After Jeff and Lila were brought to court, they were sentenced to jail. The Gillian family was poor, so they couldn‘t hire a good lawyer for Lila and Jeff. And even if they did have the money, they had offended Brandon Larson. No lawyer in Barnes would be willing to take their case.
As if that wasn‘t bad enough, the Gillian family‘s small grocery store was in shambles. A group of thugs kept showing up at the store and made a scene, which forced them to shut down the business. Glenn and Eva couldn‘t get Jeff out of prison and had no means of livelihood in Barnes.
*******
Unbeknownst to everyone, Charis had been living in Barnes this whole time. Even her parents thought that she was traveling abroad. She hadn‘t made any moves lately.
After all, Sebastian had almost found her out after the parachute incident. Luckily, she reacted quickly to get rid of Lila‘s coach in time. Although the woman didn‘t die in the end, she could never talk again as a vegetable. Now, she knew she had to lie low. But lying low didn‘t mean she couldn‘t keep a close eye on Sebastian‘s and Natalie‘s movements.
What had unfolded recently was really interesting. It never occurred to Charis that Lila would be expelled from the White family so soon. She had been the Whites‘ daughter for over twenty years after all. What surprised her more was that very soon after Lila joined the Gillian family, she conspired against Natalie with her brother.
And now, Sebastian had put the two siblings behind bars for good. Charis had no pawns left. She had never thought that Lila would be this stupid. If she had continued to work with her, she might‘ve gotten her own ass in trouble, too. Jeff, on the other hand, had piqued Charis‘s interest. He looked like a reckless fool who would do anything for money. Charis felt that she had found a new pawn. At first, she had had no hope for the Gillians, but now it seemed it was necessary for her to drop by Barnes‘ Prison.
In Barnes‘ Prison There were a few people on the open–air training grounds. The prison guards each wielded an electric baton, and the sound of their leather boots stepping on the ground was particularly heavy. The prisoners were all dressed in orange jumpsuits. They would look at the dazzling sky, but the serious glares of the prison guards would soon force them to lower their heads.
Jeff‘s hair had been shaved to a buzz cut. A bulky man stood behind him, constantly rubbing his bald head with a smug smile.
“This guy‘s head is like a pickled egg!”
Hearing this, the inmates around all burst into laughter. The bulky man gave a signal, and several inmates moved to block the sight of the prison guards, while others dragged Jeff into a cramped corner.
“Take off your pants!” A man with a tattoo of a scorpion on his face shoved Jeff to the corner and stepped on his bald head.
“You should know what‘s good for you.” Of course this prison was full of criminals–some of which were gay. Jeff‘s face fell in horror. Even though he grew up in a poor family, Eva had always spoiled him. He couldn‘t even stand working in the laundry, let alone being bullied like this.
“Please don‘t do this. Please… Just let me go…” Jeff fell to his knees and burst into tears, snot running down his nose. He had never been humiliated like this in his whole life. The prisoners turned a deaf ear to his pleas and began to take off their pants.
Just then, a prison guard shouted in the distance, “Jeff Gillian? You have a visitor!”
Jeff bolted towards the visitation area as though his life depended on it. He thought that his parents had come to visit, so on his way there, he started to think of ways to force them to get him out. However, when he saw the beautiful short–haired woman sitting on the opposite side of the glass, he was confused. He picked up the phone and asked, “Who are you? Where‘re my parents?”
With a smile on her face, Charis spoke into the receiver in a casual tone.
“I‘m a… ‘friend‘ of Natalie‘s. I came here on her behalf to see how you were doing.” Jeff‘s expression instantly hardened and he was about to hang up the phone. By now, he knew better than to mess with Natalie and her husband.
“Wait, don‘t go so fast, you poor fool. Look at yourself. You‘ve offended the Whites. Count yourself lucky they didn‘t take your life.”
With contempt in her eyes, Charis continued to jeer at Jeff.
“You fucking bitch! Say one more word and I‘ll skin you alive!” Jeff was so angry that his eyes turned red and he jumped up onto tặe table. The prison guard next to him immediately subdued him.
“Hey! Get down from there!” Seeing this, Charis just smiled.
“Natalie has already asked someone to ‘take good care of you in this prison. You stupid idiot, you should really think about who you‘ve offended. I doubt you‘ll make it out of here alive.”
“Fuck you!” Jeff was so furious that he smashed the phone against the glass. His hatred towards Natalie and her husband had been festering for a while now.
In his eyes, he had done nothing wrong yet the damned couple had abused their power and put him in jail. Charis‘s goading made him even more furious. Natalie thought she could do whatever she wanted just because she was the daughter of the White family. These rich people could all go to hell!
Seeing that she had successfully pissed Jeff off, Charis put down the phone and left. Jeff, on the other hand, was taken back to his cell because of his outburst just now. After going back home, Charis moved on to the next step. She had secretly pulled some strings and spent a lot of money to get Jeff out of prison.
Jeff was accused of attempted blackmailing. Although Sebastian had found the camera and the aphrodisiac he intended to use, Jeff refused to admit that they belonged to him and had shifted the blame to Lila.
This had made things much easier. Blackmailing was only a small crime and deserved only a light sentence. Charis knew that the second Jeff got out of prison, she wouldn‘t have to lift a finger. Jeff would go after Natalie himself.
Ever since that woman‘s visit, Jeff had been living a life of fear every day.Whenever he‘d see those menacing men in the distance, he‘d run away.Those men were all tall and strong; violating him would be a piece of cake for them.And as the days passed, he hated Natalie even more.
