“Fine, we’ll do it your way. You write the settlement, you sign it.”
Seeing me hesitate to sign, Richard sneered with disdain:
“Now you feel guilty about your dad, worried he’ll haunt you? Too late for that!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll handle this myself. If I let you sign, I’d be afraid the old man would crawl out of his coffin in anger.”
So he did know this was despicable!
But this wasn’t the first vile thing he had done.
Earlier that year, he embezzled millions from a project and lost it all to gambling.
I was newly pregnant and didn’t want him to get into trouble, so I mortgaged the suburban house my parents had given me to cover his losses.
He thought it was a mysterious investor bailing him out again. He said someone had to take the blame, and told me to admit it while I stayed home to carry the pregnancy.
I thought, since it was our company and our money, it didn’t matter much. I let him handle it.
But what did he do? He had Bella expose me, ruining my reputation.
We fought bitterly, and I miscarried silently.
He insisted it was deliberate on my part, claiming I’d aborted in anger, and from then on, we grew distant.
I had loved him for years and couldn’t cut ties so easily. While I tried everything to salvage our marriage, he brought death into the company.
And now, he had killed his own father.
In that moment, I hated my blindness, and I knew I had to divorce him.
The families signed the settlement and left the company cheerfully.
I finally found George’s body.
Exhausted, I hauled him out of the dumpster. Richard pinched his nose and mocked me:
“Olivia, aren’t you disgusted? Or are you trying to do a little extra penance for your sins?”
Always the cunning businessman, his psychological games never ended.
I ignored him, but as we passed, he deliberately bumped my shoulder.
George had been a large man, and I was already drained from lifting him. The jolt made the body slip from my arms.
The thud made my heart shudder.
Richard feigned shock:
“Olivia, is this how you treat your own father? Aren’t you afraid he’ll rise from the dead?”
If George could see this, he’d truly die of anger again.
If I had known Richard was this monstrous, I would have sent him to prison when he first embezzled money.
Looking at George’s lifeless body, grief swallowed me whole.
My silence only fueled Richard’s contempt: