2025-01-20 14:18:55His breath caught in his throat as he stared at the screen.
He instinctively took a step back. “This… this has to be a mistake.”
Malisa, standing beside him, leaned in slightly to confirm the balance for herself.
Immediately her eyes widened, but she quickly masked her surprise with a composed smile.
“There won't be any mistakes, Mr. Raymond."
Raymond leaned back, his mind racing.
That woman hadn't lied. He was indeed wealthy, so it meant that what she said about his past might be true…
But why did he lose his memory? What happened to him? Was there any conspiracy behind this?
His eyes narrowed. He would find these things out and take back everything that belonged to him!
Then Raymond glanced at Malisa, gave her a brief nod. “Thanks for stepping in back there. I wasn’t expecting things to get that out of hand.”
Malisa offered a polite smile, her tone light yet professional. “It was no big deal, Mr. Raymond. They were completely out of line, and the situation needed to be handled.” Her eyes glinted with a mix of respect and curiosity. “Besides, ensuring our most important clients are treated with the dignity they deserve is part of my job.”
At that moment Malisa glanced at him, her voice becoming more conversational.
“Actually, there’s something I wanted to mention. This evening, the bank is hosting a charity dinner and auction. It’s a relatively relaxed event, and I thought it might be a good opportunity for us to talk further in a less formal setting.”
Raymond raised an eyebrow, intrigued by her casual tone. “A charity dinner?”
Malisa nodded. “Yes. And while the dinner itself is more about networking, the auction does feature a few rare items. Who knows? You might find something interesting.”
Raymond’s interest in social events was minimal at best. He wanted to reject it when his eyes caught a glimpse of the open tablet in her hand.
A list of auction items was displayed on the screen. Though he wasn’t particularly curious, his eyes instinctively scanned the images.
Then he saw it.
A simple ring appeared among the images, its intricate patterns catching his attention immediately.
Something about it tugged at him—a vague, indescribable pull that made his chest tighten. Immediately he froze, his gaze lingering on the image.
Without being told he could tell it wasn’t just a piece of jewelry.
He couldn’t explain it, but something about it felt familiar, significant. He was sure that it must have something to do with his past life.
Without any hesitation, he straightened, his decision made. “Alright,” he said finally, his voice steady. “I’ll attend.”
Twenty minutes later.
A sleek car came to a halt in front of the entrance of the grand banquet hall, Raymond stepped out, straightening his clothes.
Behind Raymond, Malisa remained in the car, her phone pressed to her ear as she handled an urgent call.
However Raymond barely had a chance to take in the elegant crowd milling about when a familiar voice called out, sharp and laced with disbelief.
“Raymond?”
Hearing his name he turned, his expression calm but cold as Dahlia stood a few steps away, her eyes wide with shock.
Beside her, was Caleb.
“What are you doing here?”
Dahlia asked, her voice cutting through the gentle hum of chatter around them. “Are you… following me?”
Immediately Raymond raised an eyebrow, “Why would I?”
Dahlia’s shock quickly turned to anger.
“Don’t lie. You have no reason to be here.”
Immediately Caleb stepped forward, his grin widening.
“Ah, the infamous Raymond,” he said, his voice dripping with mockery.
“Dahlia told me all about your little stunt with the black card. Fraud, wasn’t it? Trying to pass yourself off as someone important?”
Raymond met his gaze with an impassive stare, refusing to rise to the bait.
Dahlia’s expression hardened. “Raymond, how could you do something so reckless? All because of the divorce? Have you really fallen this far?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Raymond said flatly, not wanting to waste any more time on explaining himself to someone who wouldn’t want to trust him.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about!” Dahlia shot back, her voice rising.
“That black card. You stole it , didn’t you? Or got involved in some scam to make a false one! And you even got the information that I would be attending this event so you came here too, just to impress me and make me regret divorcing you, right? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? You could ruin yourself—if you haven’t already!”
“Dahlia,” Raymond said, frowning, his tone icy, “don’t flatter yourself. It has nothing to do with you.”
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Chapter 292
Melissa was quiet for a long moment after Raymond finished speaking.She was looking at him, but her eyes had the distant quality of someone who is simultaneously present in the conversation and somewhere else entirely—somewhere inside her own memory, moving through years of accumulated impressions, testing what Raymond had said against everything she knew about her uncle and finding the collision between the two deeply uncomfortable.Because she knew Raymond was serious.She knew he was not the kind of person who said things for effect, who exaggerated for drama, who built accusations out of nothing. She had seen enough of him by now to understand that when Raymond spoke with that particular quiet certainty, it was because he had a foundation beneath his words that he trusted absolutely.But she also knew her uncle.Or believed she did.She thought about him—the real, specific, human version of him that she had grown up alongside. Not the abstract figure that Raymond's words were pai
Chapter 291
Melissa's eyes searched his face, trying to catch up with where his mind had already gone."Things are making sense?" she repeated, her voice carrying the particular frustration of someone standing just outside a room where a conversation is happening that directly concerns them. "What do you mean by that? What is making sense? What are you seeing that I'm not seeing?"Raymond looked at her for a moment.Then he said, "How about we do this properly."He turned slightly, putting the doors behind him completely, removing them from the immediate field of attention. Whatever was in that chamber would wait. Right now, the more important thing was the woman standing in front of him, who lived in this house, who shared space with whatever her uncle was building in the dark, and who deserved to understand the danger she was potentially standing inside of without knowing it."Melissa," he said, and his voice had shifted into something more direct, more deliberate, carrying the weight of someon
Chapter 290
Melissa stood at the threshold of the double doors and looked at Raymond with an expression that was caught somewhere between confusion and concern."So what are you actually saying?" she asked, her voice careful, measured, trying to read him the way she had learned to read people who said less than they meant. "You don't want to go in anymore? Is something wrong? Did you just change your mind all of a sudden?"Raymond turned away from the doors fully and faced her.He was quiet for a moment—not the uncomfortable quiet of someone searching for words, but the considered quiet of someone deciding how much of the truth to share and in what order. He looked at Melissa's face and read what was there. Confusion, yes. But underneath it, trust. And underneath that, the particular openness of someone who had been sensing something wrong for a long time without having the vocabulary to name it.He made his decision."I don't think you would backstab me," he said, "if I told you what I'm actuall
Chapter 289
Melissa looked at him for a moment after she nodded, and then something in her expression shifted—a small, searching quality entering her eyes as she studied his face.“So,” she said carefully, “don't you want to go in? Don't you want to check it?”Raymond did not answer immediately.He was looking at the house.Not at Melissa, not at the entrance specifically, not at any one detail in particular. He was looking at the whole of it the way it sat in the night, the way the light fell around it, the way the air near it felt against his skin. He had learned a long time ago to trust that feeling, the one that existed below conscious thought and below language, the one that did not explain itself but simply registered, like a compass needle swinging toward something it recognized.Right now, that feeling was telling him something was wrong.“Something feels off,” he said finally, his voice quiet and measured.Melissa frowned slightly. “Off how?”“I cannot pinpoint it,” Raymond said. “I can
Chapter 288
Raymond ended the call and slid the phone back into his pocket in one smooth, unhurried motion.Then he turned and looked down at Jefferson's father.The man was still on the floor, one hand braced against the cold concrete, the other pressed to the side of his swollen face. His breathing had steadied somewhat, but the damage was visible and total. His lips were puffed and split. Dark bruising had already begun to spread along his jaw and cheekbone. Blood had dried at the corner of his mouth and along his chin. His eyes, though still burning with the stubborn ember of a pride that refused to fully extinguish itself, were glassy with pain and exhaustion.He looked like a man who had walked into a storm believing himself weatherproof and had discovered, too late, that he was not.Raymond regarded him for a moment without speaking. Then he said, his voice carrying the same unhurried calm it had carried all evening:“Well. Today seems to be your lucky day.”Jefferson's father looked up at
Chapter 287
He said it simply, without drama, without cruelty. The way a man states a fact that exists independently of emotion.“I have forgiven you,” he repeated. “Absolutely nothing to worry about on that front. But forgiveness and consequence are two different things, and one does not cancel the other.”Jefferson's father stared at him, processing this, and then something shifted in his expression. The relief that had begun to form at the word forgiven collided with the reality of the second half of the sentence, and the result was a kind of desperate, scrambling hope.“If you are forgiving me,” he said quickly, pushing himself further upright, his voice gaining a fragile urgency, “then—then let me go. Just let me go. I will walk out of here and I will pretend none of this happened. None of it. I will not speak of it. I will not act on it. I will simply—”“No.”The word was not loud. It did not need to be.Raymond looked at him steadily, and his eyes carried the same calm certainty they had c
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