Chapter 504
At half-past eleven, Ethan was jolted awake by his ringing phone. He glanced at the screen and saw Wyatt’s number.
“What do you want at this hour p>
“Sir, the company is about to enter bankruptcy liquidation. The chairman wanted to ask if you could lend a hand p>
“Why doesn’t he ask me himself instead of making you do it p>
“The chairman is busy p>
“Busy with what? It’s midnight. Busy kissing up to people for favors? If the company’s going bankrupt, let it die faster. Put it out of its misery p>
Ethan hung up and went back to sleep.
Wyatt had the phone on speaker, and Adrian was listening nearby.
“That disgraceful son! Tell him about Lacey p>
Wyatt dialed Ethan’s number again.
“I’m not helping! It’s the middle of the night, let me sleep!” Ethan roared into the receiver. He had willingly allied with the Porters to strip Ethan of his power. Now that the snake had bitten him, he was crawling back for help over and over.
“Please don’t hang up yet, sir. Let me finish p>
“Speak. Let’s see what kind of garbage you can come up with p>
“Your mother is missing p>
“Did that old man do it? He’s gotten bold, hasn’t he? Trying to threaten me? Tell him we’ll see how this plays out!” Ethan cut Wyatt off fiercely. “What’s his plan? Thinks I won’t call the cops p>
Wyatt’s stomach dropped. If Ethan actually called the police, Wyatt would be dragged down with Adrian. He frantically tried to think of a countermeasure.
Ethan wasn’t bluffing. He immediately called the police and reported that Adrian had kidnapped Lacey to extort him.
“How do you know this?” the dispatcher asked.
“His secretary told me himself p>
Adrian and Wyatt stared at each other. Were they really that stupid?
Adrian’s attempt at building suspense only terrified himself, completely chasing away his sleep.
It wasn’t long before the police were pounding on Adrian’s door.
“Boss, if you don’t want to end up behind bars, you need to order them to release Lacey right now,” Wyatt suggested, it being his best available option.
Luckily, they hadn’t interacted with Lacey directly, meaning she didn’t know who orchestrated the hit.
Adrian stalled for a long time before opening the door, insisting to the officers that he had absolutely nothing to do with the kidnapping.
Coincidentally, just moments prior, Lacey had managed to slip away while her captors weren’t looking. The police confirmed her escape. However, the timing of her breakout aligning so perfectly with their visit to Adrian’s estate was too suspicious, and they took both Adrian and Wyatt down to the
station for questioning.
Ethan went right back to sleep after filing the report. It wasn’t until breakfast the next
morning that his assistant briefed him on the fallout.
He didn’t bother calling Lacey to check on her. If this incident didn’t teach her a lesson, she was beyond saving.
At that moment, Lacey was lying in bed, covered in rope burns with a nasty scrape across her forehead. Even after forcing down a bowl of oatmeal, she felt completely drained of energy.
She blamed herself for ignoring her
eldest son’s warning and firing all her bodyguards. If she hadn’t been so reckless, this wouldn’t have happened, Thankfully she had kept one maid around; or she wouldn even have anyone to bring her a glass of water.
For two days and two nights, those men had tied her to a chair. Though they hadn’t
beaten her, the sheer terror and starvation had kept her awake.
Over the course of fifty hours, they had only given her a single sandwich and a glass of cold water.
All she could do was pray her
children would notice her missing and save her. During those
agonizing hours, she had remembered Mira being locked in the basement for an entire day without a single drop to drink.