"Dad, do you really have no idea why our company’s like this?" Yonina said in rage.
"It was you who insisted on investing in mining. I, on the other hand, warned you several tis that the mining industry is too unstable and that we shouldn’t take such risks. Besides, our company was already one of the largest corporations in Lake City, so what’s the point of us taking that enormous risk anyway?" she continued to scold her father.
"Even if you wanted to make so quick money, you could’ve just invented a couple of million dollars, but that’s not what you did. You dumped almost all our money and lost 90 percent of it in less than six months. Do you not realize that I’m the one who’s been cleaning up your ss?"
Mr. Collins smacked her face before she could say anything more.
Yonina’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets in shock as this was the first ti her father hit her.
Without saying another word, she grabbed her purse and the car key on the desk and stord out of the house.
Mrs. Collins started to chase her, trying to explain, "Yonina, your dad didn’t an to hurt you. Yonina!"
Yet she couldn’t catch up with her daughter, who disappeared in the dark.
...
Wendy threw herself back to work after getting back to HR Enterprise as the new project was advancing more quickly than expected.
The only leisure she had was to video call Michael at night.
Earlier today, Wendy took out her phone to scroll through so gossips as she didn’t have any new ideas for the project, and then, she ca across a piece of news about Collins Group.
The news wasn’t a bombshell at all as it only repeated how Collins Group was going downhill.
However, Wendy was empathic to their failure as a sense of crisis arose in her heart.
After all, Collins Group used to be a prominent company in Lake City. However, currently, it was on the verge of bankruptcy. As for Christian’s company, it fell from grace after being beaten by Michael’s.
’Could this be Michael if he was the one who failed?’ Wendy frowned as she thought of it.
However, the more she dug into the story, the more confused she beca.
She couldn’t figure out why DR Group was trying to edge Collins Group out.
’Why is DR Group so fixated on destroying Collins Group? They’ve been suffering from trendous losses for several months... Why would they pay so much attention to a group that seems to have nothing to do with them?’ she contemplated.
’Even if there were so feuds between them that I don’t know of, how does DR Group have enough funds to do sothing like that?’
She had been thinking about this since she ca back to Lake City, yet she still hadn’t co up with a proper explanation.
As she contemplated the reason, soone knocked on her door.
"Co in," Wendy said.
Her assistant walked in with an envelope in her hand.
Her assistant put the envelope on her desk and said, "Soone just dropped by the reception, and he said it was for you."
"For ?" Wendy was dumbfounded.
Her assistant nodded.
"Who was it?" Wendy didn’t open the envelope. She shook it instead, trying to guess what was inside.
"He was wearing a baseball cap, but we’re not sure of his identity. Would you like to investigate him, Ms. Swift?" her assistant offered.
"No need," Wendy replied. She didn’t think it would be that easy to find out his identity given how fast he left.
Wendy waved her hand at her assistant while staring at the envelope. "Show yourself out."
After her assistant walked out, Wendy examined the envelope carefully.
She had received an envelope like this before.
Back when Winnie was trying to sabotage the relationship between her and Michael, she sent photos to both of them.
Wendy caressed the envelope and speculated that they were photos as well. She then opened it, and she was right.
A man and a woman were in all those photos, and Wendy easily identified who they were: Michael and Yonina.
In the first photo, they seed to be intimate as Michael was helping Yonina to tie up her hair. In the second photo, Yonina was having dinner with Michael.
There were six photos in the envelope in total, and all of them showed Michael and Yonina hanging out with each other.
If it were before, Wendy would be triggered by these photos. However, after Winnie deliberately used the sa tactic to drive a wedge between her and Michael several tis, she easily figured that soone was behind this.
Moreover, they didn’t cross any boundaries in any of those photos.
Wendy kept contemplating who had the motive to do this, pursing her lips.
After a short while, she rang her assistant and asked, "Could you go figure out who was the person that dropped by just now?"
In a few minutes, the assistant inford her that she couldn’t find out who that person was.
The ssenger covered half of his face and was wearing a cap, and he left imdiately after handing the envelope to the assistant.
If Wendy wanted to dig deeper, she would have to ask the assistant to look for where he went after leaving HG Enterprise, which would take a much longer ti and might not end with a clue.
Wendy stopped the investigation. After all, there were only a handful of people who would do that, Winnie Quinn, Christian Lucas, and Yonina Collins.
Winnie had already used this tactic several tis before, but she was ntally unstable at the mont. Besides, Winnie had never been a businessperson and probably didn’t even know her company address, which was in Rheinsville City.
Thus, Wendy reckoned it was unlikely that Winnie did this.
’Then it’s either Christian or Yonina,’ she thought.
However, she couldn’t guess which one it was.
As she thought of it, she got a call from Michael. She picked up the phone with a smile on her face.
It was almost nine o’clock back in Lake City and ti for Leah and Jake to go to school. This was usually the ti when they had video calls. At this ti, Wendy was about to finish work; and Leah, Jake, and Michael were all ho.
Wendy saw Leah’s face on the screen, which brightened her mood. She waved at her and said, "Are you going to school soon, Leah?"
Leah was always the first one to speak to Wendy whenever they were calling. After all, she was the apple of the eye of Wendy and Michael.
"That’s right, Mommy. Have you arrived in the office?" Leah asked her, blinking her starry eyes.
Suddenly, Leah recalled the thing called ’ti zones’ that her father taught her,
which ant it was almost nightti in Rheinsville City when it was morning in Lake City.
Leah didn’t quite understand how it worked in general, but she rembered this one specific example.
She then pouted and said, "Wait, no, Mommy. What I ant was, are you still at work?"
"I..." Wendy turned around and looked at the clock on the wall behind her and said,
"I’m finishing up soon."
"What ti is it there, Mommy?" Leah asked worriedly. "Don’t work overti."
***
Wendy had been stressed out because of work lately, but after hearing how caring Leah was, she imdiately felt relieved.
"It’s still pretty early here, Leah. It’s not even nine o’clock yet," Wendy said as she stood up. "See, I’m getting off work now."
"Perfect! Finish work soon, Mom, then you’ll have enough ti to rest," Leah said,
clapping her hands.
"We need to go to school now, Mom. Let’s talk again tomorrow," Jake chid in,
squeezing into the screen.
Wendy waved at them and said, "Sure. Don’t be late!"
Leah and Jake said goodbye to Wendy and disappeared from the screen.
Soon after, Michael’s face showed up on the screen after Leah and Jake left the chat.
"Wendy," Michael greeted, "have you had dinner yet?"
Michael was in the car because Leah and Jake were on their way to school, but it was Mr. York who was driving as he previously injured his legs, which gave him so space to call Wendy.
"I have," Wendy said.
Although she had been drowned by work since she got back to HG Enterprise, she almost always had her als on ti. If she was too busy to do eat, Timothy and Todd would remind her to do so.
Wendy’s assistant was basically working for Todd to check in on Wendy to make sure that she was leading a healthy lifestyle, and Wendy could expect a call from Todd if she delayed her als for more than an hour.
Wendy glanced at the drafts she made, cleaned up her desk, grabbed her bag, and headed out of the office.
She couldn’t co up with any new ideas today because of the photos, and it was almost eight o’clock. She might as well just head ho early to take a good rest.
"Are you heading ho now?" Michael asked, seeing her packing up. "It’s better for you to get off work on ti."
"Can you finish work on ti, Mr. Lucas?" Wendy retorted with a smile on her face.
"Well, I can’t even if I try," Michael replied, shrugging his shoulders.
It wasn’t late to finish work at eight o’clock, but what Michael didn’t know was that it was one of the few days when Wendy went ho before that.
"How’s the wound on your legs?" Wendy asked. "Aim the cara at your legs."
"What’s the point of seeing that?" Michael frowned.
"Because I want to make sure you’re okay," Wendy said.
Michael complied and moved the cara downwards with one hand under Wendy’s insistence. He then pulled the trousers up. "See, it’s all bandaged. Do you want to take the bandage off?"
"No need for that," Wendy refused as she didn’t see any blood, which ant his wound was gradually healing instead of dehiscing. She felt more or less relieved.
She suddenly switched to a much serious tone. "Let’s talk about sothing serious."
"Oh, are you saying that we weren’t talking about anything serious?" Michael sighed,
teasing her. "Turns out my injury isn’t sothing serious to you."
"Stop with this nonsense," Wendy replied, annoyed. "Soone dropped by my office to hand an envelope earlier today.
"Envelope? What envelope?" Michael foresaw that sothing fishy happened.
After all, Wendy would’ve already shared it with him and the kids if sothing great happened.
"There are a couple of photos in the envelope, all of them showed you and Yonina were hanging out together," Wendy explained as she carried all those photos in her bag.
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