She wondered how she was going to tell her son that she had gambled the entire family fortune away. There didn’t seem to be a gentle way to break the news, and with his poor state of health, she wasn’t sure whether he could accept the blow. Then, Jeremy woke up with a violent coughing fit and the heaving made his body shudder.
Within seconds, he was coughing up blood. “Doctor! Doctor!” Amelia looked as if she had gone insane as she scrambled out of the room, and she returned with the consulting doctor and a team of nurses in tow. While the medical team went about the emergency life-saving procedure, she stood out in the hallway and watched the entire episode through the glass. It was only a full hour later that Jeremy’s condition was stabilized, but the doctor walked out and informed wearily, “I’m sorry. We’ve done our best, but we can’t promise that he will survive the next fit.”
“No, don’t say that! My son was perfectly fine, so don’t tell me he’s terminally ill all of a sudden!” Hot tears streamed past her cheeks as she gripped the doctor’s arm and begged, “Please, please save my son. He’s only twenty; he’s still a child! He’s too young to die!” However, the doctor could only sigh ruefully and he couldn’t make any promises. At last, Amelia was exhausted from all the crying and she suddenly grew calm as she recalled Elise’s warning from the other day at the clubhouse. “When the Griffiths wind up the company for good, that will be the end for Jeremy.”
While the Griffiths were not bankrupt on paper, they were already on the verge of becoming so and this coincided with Jeremy’s inexplicable deterioration in health. Elise has to be the one behind all this! There isn’t anyone else! At the thought of this, she dried her tears and slowly sat up from the floor before she rose to hurry out of the hospital. She forked out a huge sum of cash, and within an hour, she managed to locate Elise. However, upon seeing the address, Amelia froze in astonishment. Elise was currently at the Silverton Club, the very same place where Nathan had told Amelia and Johan to hold the press conference.
Seized with a bad premonition, Amelia nearly retreated from the confrontation, but the thought of keeping Jeremy alive overwhelmed all reason. With a deep breath, she clenched her jaw and barged into the clubhouse. She was practically moving on instinct, but when she hurtled through the doors of the VIP lounge, she saw Nathan sitting insouciantly inside with Alexander and Elise. The three of them formed some sort of insidious triangle as they occupied the two couches in the lounge, and it was clear to see from their dynamics that they had known each other for quite some time.
“Mr. York…” Amelia began, a little startled as her gaze fixed on the man. “I’ve been looking for you.” Nathan, however, was heartless as he pretended not to know about this. “Oh, really? I had no idea. I mean, I’m sure there are plenty of things you have to deal with at the moment. Why are you so anxious to see me, Mrs. Olson?” She was as pale as a white sheet in fury before she turned red as blood rushed to her face. The Olson Family’s bankruptcy would have been headline news among the investors, and for a prominent figure like Nathan, there was no way he hadn’t heard about it.
He’s just pretending to be baffled on purpose! However, as things were, she had no leverage against him. The three of them were already on the top of the capitalist food chain and she was the bird whose wings had been clipped. She could neither soar above them nor make him bend to her every whim. “O-Oh, it’s nothing,” she finally responded bitterly through gritted teeth. “Well, that’s good to know,” Nathan replied impassively, indulging in cruelty. At the sight of his cold indifference, Amelia grew outraged, but she forced herself to turn away from him.
She took two steps closer to Elise instead and barked, “Come with me to the hospital right now, Elise! You’re the one who hurt my son, so you’ll have to save him!” Regardless of the financial troubles that plagued her family, the commanding edge in her tone did not seem to have softened. Elise was unbothered as she countered coolly, “Do you have proof to support that accusation?” “Of course I do! Everyone saw you touch him, which means you’re the one who landed him into such a sorry state! Don’t you dare deny this!” Amelia spat. “I had no idea that your son was so weak that he could become terminally ill from a light touch.
Is he perhaps made of fine china and he’d crack at the slightest bump?” Elise asked. At that moment, it was as if panic had turned Amelia’s brain to mush. She wasn’t in the mood to argue with Elise now and decided that pleading was the best way to go. As she humbled herself, she begged, “Please, Elise, you have to save my son. He’s too young to die like this. I’d do anything you want if you save him!” Elise wickedly eyed Amelia as she pointed out, “The Olson Family has no fortune to their name, and you’re nothing but a street rat now.
What right do you have to bargain with me?” It was only then that hard realization dawned upon Amelia as she fearfully took in the apathetic look on Elise’s face. She finally understood the full extent of Elise’s intelligence and how a young girl like her could make all the right moves through cold, hard calculation. Barely a month had passed since the Olson Family’s first encounter with Elise, but that was enough time for them to slowly lose everything. She’s a force to be reckoned with, Amelia thought with a chill down her spine. All this aside, Elise was the only one who could save Jeremy and Amelia had no choice but to beg.
Amelia had been a proud woman all her life, but at that moment, she cast her pride away and fell on her knees, her bones hitting the cold, hard ground. Bowing her head, Amelia could finally see why Thaddeus had such high regards for Elise. In hindsight, she should have heeded her father’s advice and known better than to trifle with the girl. “My son and I were wrong to have done all those things to you in the past. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive us and give my son a chance to live. I promise you he’ll change for the better!” “It’s too late,” Elise drawled icily.
“I gave you plenty of chances—like back at the car dealer and at the police station, just to name a few occasions. Jeremy could have changed for the better after he was rescued, but he didn’t.” Then, she paused and held Amelia’s gaze impassively. She parted her lips and emotionlessly added, “You have to pay the price eventually for all the bad things you did.” “Isn’t it enough that the Olson Family lost everything?!” Amelia shrieked, thumping her chest with her fists all curled up. “You took away our money, our reputation and our place in society.
We have nothing to lose now but the life of a young one and you don’t even try to sympathize with us! How could you be so heartless?!” Am I heartless? Elise wasn’t sure about this question, but she knew that an apology from Amelia was equivalent to sweeping the past under the rug. No longer wanting to stick around for this conversation, she turned to address Alexander, “I’m tired.” “Okay.” Alexander nodded and said in the direction of the doorway, “Take this woman out of here immediately.”
The next second, two men in suits walked into the lounge and flanked either side of Amelia, thereafter dragging her out. “No! I won’t leave until Elise promises to save my son! I’d rather die than be dragged out like this!” Amelia struggled in the security guards’ vise-like grip, and inadvertently, she caught sight of the cabinets that were built into one side of the wall. Seized with determination, she broke free of the guards’ rein and threw herself hard against the cabinets. The head-splitting pain that followed the collision made her see stars and black spots in her vision.
Fresh blood trickled down from her forehead almost instantaneously, staining half her face. She reached up to press a hand to her wound and tried to find her balance. When she did, she slowly opened her eyes and looked at Elise darkly, then bit out in a strained voice, “If you don’t save my son, you’ll have to watch me die right here right now!” The whole room fell into a deathly silence as Elise and Amelia faced off against one another.
The tension brewed and after what seemed like an eternity, an unaffected Elise took a deep breath and said, “Then go ahead and die.” Amelia’s eyes widened in disbelief as she couldn’t imagine anyone being so ruthless. The wheels in her mind turned as she concluded, Elise is only saying this because she thinks I wouldn’t kill myself out of desperation. She swallowed convulsively as she grew numb to the pain of her wound.
Mortality made her fear death, but she was more afraid of seeing her son die than anything else. If she had to choose, she wouldn’t pick living if it meant her son couldn’t be saved. A steely look flashed across her bloodstained face, and with one last glare at Elise, she ran out of the lounge. A few minutes later, one of the bodyguards brisk-walked into the room and reported, “That woman ran into the kitchen and slit her own throat with a knife!”
