Chapter 9
Luxury items sold fast. That afternoon, Angelina called a courier to pick up everything that had been purchased. She checked the app on her phone and couldn’t help but smile–her sales had already hit nearly 100 thousand dollars.
It sounded like a lot, but in a city like Brookhaven, it was just a drop in the bucket. Downtown real estate easily went for thousands of dollars per square foot, and ever in the far–off suburbs, the price wasn’t much cheaper.
Her phone buzzed.
“Hey, open the door. I’m outside,” a cold voice said.
Angelina froze. The voice triggered something in her memory–the female side character’s memories.
“Joshua?” she asked.
Joshua Stevens was Chester’s assistant and one of his closest friends. Loyal to a fault, he had stuck by Chester through everything.
“Mr. Whitmore sent me. I brought fruits.”
“Chester sent you here?”
“Yeah.”
Angelina opened the door, and Joshua stepped in without another word, carrying a large crate of fruits into the living room.
“How do you know David?” Joshua asked abruptly.
Angelina blinked, caught off guard.
“I never mentioned him to you,” Joshua continued, his expression sharp. “Chester has a good memory, and when you brought David up, he asked me. I told him I didn’t say a word to you. So, how do you know him? Are you dealing with him behind Chester’s back?”
Angelina stared at him. “Did Chester tell you to ask me this?”
Joshua didn’t answer.
She sighed. “If Chester has questions, he should ask me himself, not send you to do it.”
Joshua didn’t have a response for that.
“Where is he anyway?” she asked.
Chapter
After Whitmore Group went bankrupt, Chester liquidated everything to pay off the debts. Instead of taking a corporate job, he rented a damp, windowless basement out in the suburbs
to start over.
The place was grim, cold, dark, and crawling with cobwebs. But it was cheap, and Chester had always been a genius when it came to tech. The Whitmore family’s fortune was built on cutting -edge electronics, and Chester’s skills hadn’t disappeared just because the company had.
The novel didn’t really describe this period in detail, but standing in the basement now, Angelina suddenly felt a lump in her throat. The lavish suits, the power, the prestige–it was all gone. This was the real Chester Whitmore. A man who refused to give up no matter how
low he had fallen.
“Did you drop it off?” Chester asked, his back still to her as he stared at his screen. “She reminded me of quite a lot of things.”
He turned around when he heard Joshua cough. When he saw Angelina standing behind Joshua, his expression shifted from confusion to panic. He shot up so fast that the cheap plastic chair beneath him cracked, its pieces clattering to the floor.
The basement reeked of mildew, and the sound echoed through the silence.
“What are you doing here?” he asked sharply.
“I came to see you.”
Chester looked genuinely unsettled. He grabbed a rickety wooden stool, testing it before pushing it toward her. “Here. Sit.”
He glanced at Joshua, silently asking, “Why is she here?”
Joshua shrugged. “What makes you think I could stop her?”
The room was small–barely a working space. There were no extra mugs or cups, and Chester didn’t even have disposable ones. Flustered, he grabbed the cup he had used, scrubbed it clean, and filled it with hot water.
Angelina smiled as he handed it over. “Is this your cup?”
“No. It’s his,” Joshua interrupted sarcastically, pointing to Chester.
“Alright,” Angelina said, taking a sip without hesitation.
Chester turned to dump the water back out, embarrassed. “This place isn’t comfortable for you. You shouldn’t stay here. I’ll take you home.
“You’re here. Why wouldn’t it be fine for me?”
Before Joshua could press her again about David Angelina cut straight to the point. “Do you know that David’s been close with Mr. Prescott recently?“.
Chester and Joshua both froze, the tension in the room palpable.
“You know Mr. Prescott?” Joshua asked, his brows furrowing in disbelief.
“David’s been cooking the books,” Angelina explained calmly. “If you want to know where the money’s gone, Mr. Prescott knows. He’s been funneling it offshore. I’m not saying you’ll get the money back, but David’s a ticking bomb. You need to deal with him.”
Chester narrowed his eyes and stepped closer. “Where did you hear this?”
“If you start going through the company’s financial records again, you’ll see I’m right,” she said evenly.
“Who exactly are you? Why did you approach me..
“Ouch! That hurts!” Angelina quickly pulled her hand away, wincing. “Chester, you’re hurting me!”
“Where did you hear all this? How do you know?” Joshua asked her the same questions as
Chester.
“Tell the truth.”
Angelina hesitated, scrambling for a believable answer. “You know Kierra, right? She knows people. She told me.
Chester didn’t look convinced.
Angelina added quickly, “There’s more. Mr. Prescott and David aren’t the only ones. Adrian Hendrix is involved too. After I found out you went bankrupt, I deliberately talked about divorce and aborting the baby. Many people came to me then, saying they could give me the kind of life I wanted.”
As Angelina spoke, her gaze lingered on the damp ground beneath her feet. “I went along with them. At first, I was tempted and thought about leaving you. But from those interactions, T gathered a lot of information. For instance, Adrian reached out to Kierra, saying he wanted me -pregnant and all–to keep him company.”
“What?” Chester’s expression instantly darkened. His fists were clenched so tightly that the
sound was audible.
“Adrian must have a death wish,” he said through gritted teeth..
Angelina took a deep breath and continued, “I had Kierra dig a little deeper. I’ve learned most of what I needed to know, but this is as far as I can get. Kierra is angry, thinking I’ve been stringing her along. She even cursed me out over the phone.”
“How did you know about David falsifying the financial records?”
“I…” Angelina hesitated. The truth was, no one had told her she had read it in the novel.
–
“It was Adrian,” she lied smoothly. “He mentioned it himself. He seems to have some business dealings with Mr. Prescott too.”
Whether they actually did, Angelina wasn’t sure. She was guessing, basing it on how characters in other novels usually worked together to take down the main character. She confident there was more than one person behind this scheme.
Joshua turned to the computer, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he typed furiously. After a while, he confirmed, “They’ve been in contact. There are records of their calls.”
e was
According to the novel, Joshua was a skilled hacker who had helped Chester resolve numerous issues.
“Can you
retrieve the financial records?” Chester asked.
“It’s difficult. They’re locked.”
“How long will it take to unlock them?”
Joshua shook his head. “If I access them now, I’ll leave traces.”
Standing up with a grim expression, he added, “We shouldn’t dig any further.”
“Why not? If we act now-
“David has left the country.”
Whitmore Group was already in shambles. Even if they uncovered proof of financial manipulation now, the losses from the failed projects were real and unrecoverable. David hadn’t acted alone either; he had numerous accomplices in the company.
“It’s okay. We’ll work hard, and things will eventually get better,” Angelina reassured him. Chester knew the timing wasn’t right. He wouldn’t stand a chance if he tried to go head with those people now.
head–to-
Angelina warned him about David because she knew from the novel that Chester would eventually rebuild his success and temporarily reuse David, which would bring him even more trouble. Only much later did he uncover the truth and finally deal with David for good.
By revealing this information early, Angelina hoped to prepare Chester so that he wouldn’t take the wrong path. Now that he had a heads–up, the future could change for the better.
