Sebastian lowered his eyes to stare down at him, his gaze as piercing as a blade, seeing right through the genuine malice and schadenfreude hidden beneath that warm, gentle facade.

"Don't trouble yourself over it," Sebastian said coldly as he brushed past him, the wind generated by his steady stride sending the second brother's hair fluttering back.

"Focus on your research, and don't squander the massive scientific funds the corporate group invested in you."

The moment the words left his mouth, the elevator doors slid shut.

Sebastian was openly using the research funding to threaten him!

The second brother's grip tightened over his armrest, a sharp gleam flashing through his eyes for a fraction of a second before he instantly masked it with his usual gentle expression.

So what if he threatened him? His methods were flawlessly covert; no one would ever uncover the truth.

The top floor arrived.

The personnel in the executive office immediately lowered their heads to focus on their duties the moment they saw him enter.

A junior assistant knocked on the door for him, "The Chairman is expecting you inside."

Sebastian understood the situation completely. He rapped his knuckles against the office door and pushed it wide open.

"How dare you show your face here!" A furious roar echoed through the room alongside a thick stack of documents flung violently straight at his face.

Loose pages fluttered through the air like autumn leaves drifting before his eyes, but Sebastian stood rooted to the spot, not flinching a single inch to dodge.

"What are you standing out there for? Get in here!"

The booming, booming voice barked from within.

Sebastian stepped onto the scattered papers littering the floor, walking into the private office and shutting out the prying eyes of the executive suite behind him.

The staff in the executive office instantly pulled back their craning necks and averted their gazes.

…

Home.

Although Sebastian's residence was full of low-key luxury where everything provided was of the absolute finest quality, staying there was ultimately uncomfortable for her.

Believing that the public frenzy should have mostly died down by now, Scarlett returned to her own rented apartment three days later.

She hadn't anticipated running straight into an unwelcome guest right beneath her building.

"Sister..." Chloe suddenly lunged forward from the shadows, her face deathly pale and her eyes swollen from weeping, appearing entirely haggard.

Her voice trembled violently, laced with a heavy sob as she barred Scarlett's path: "Please, I beg you to forgive me!"

Staring at Chloe's face, Scarlett felt nothing but intense disgust.

And what was this nonsense?

Scarlett arched an eyebrow, her tone cutting and sarcastic: "Forgive you? You went behind my back to sleep with Ethan, and now you want my forgiveness?"

How utterly farcical.

She made a move to head upstairs, but Chloe blocked her path once more.

With tears brimming in her eyes, Chloe looked on the verge of collapsing as she wept, "Sister, Ethan was the one who forced me into it! I was entirely deceived by him as well!"

The moment the words left her mouth, her knees buckled as she prepared to drop directly into a kneel.

Scarlett's reflexes were lightning-fast; she nimbly stepped aside to dodge the gesture entirely.

For someone to suddenly drop to their knees before her out of nowhere like this was never a harbinger of anything good.

Chloe hit the ground, going completely rigid when she realized Scarlett had avoided her kneel, a dark gleam flashing through her eyes.

Scarlett caught that subtle flash of darkness, a wave of suspicion rising in her chest. At that exact moment, her sharp ears caught a faint, rustling noise emanating from the nearby bushes.

There was also the distinct, muffled sound of a camera shutter.

"Heh," Scarlett let out a cold chuckle as she observed Chloe's fragile, pathetic act, instantly grasping the reality of the situation.

She was staging a performance, simply waiting for her to react.

"What exactly did he force you to do?" Scarlett asked, crossing her arms as she observed her with an amused, patient detachment.

Chapter 13

Seeing that she was willing to converse, a flash of secret delight darted through Chloe’s eyes, though her expression instantly turned pitiful when she looked back up.

She said, "Sister, you know how it is. I'm an artist signed under Ethan’s agency..."

Scarlett’s gaze remained dead cold.

Of course she knew that.

That agency was established by Ethan for the sole purpose of promoting her; she was the only artist on the roster.

Chloe continued, "He used my career to blackmail me. If I didn't submit to him, he would..."

At this point, she seemed to recall the humiliation she had suffered, and her tears condensed into droplets, rolling down her cheeks one after another.

Scarlett watched her tears, her heart freezing over yet finding it utterly farcical.

This performance was far better than any acting she had seen from her on television.

If Scarlett hadn't witnessed her true nature before, she might have genuinely been deceived by these tears and softened enough to forgive her.

"Why on earth should I believe you?" Scarlett asked in a freezing voice.

Chloe immediately pulled out her phone, saying, "I have proof!"

With her tears falling like shattered pearls, she showed her latest online post to Scarlett.

"Arranging resources, using those resources as blackmail to force me to accompany him, and the exploitative contract percentages... every single detail is recorded right here!"

Within the post, the chat history, bank transfers, and hotel records were indeed meticulously documented.

Yet Scarlett only felt a penetrating chill.

It turned out that all those moments Ethan claimed he was entertaining clients, all those times he said he was buried in work, and all those trips he said were for business, he had actually been tangled in bed with Chloe.

Her heart grew increasingly freezing.

Chloe, completely oblivious to her detachment, maintained her pathetic act: "Sister, the evidence is right here. Please, I beg you to forgive me!"

"What exactly do you want me to do?" she asked, looking down at Chloe.

The question seemed to throw a lifeline to Chloe, whose face instantly lit up with joy.

Chloe scrambled to her feet directly from the ground, clutching Scarlett's hand tightly: "It's no trouble at all! You just need to share and repost this article onto your profile!"

Staring at her ecstatic face, the corners of Scarlett's lips curved slightly into a cold smirk: "I never said I forgave you."

Chloe went completely rigid on the spot.

Watching the color drain from her face as she froze up entirely, the suffocating anger that had been locked in Scarlett's chest was finally unleashed.

"Chloe, I don't believe a single syllable of what you just said."

Scarlett tossed the phone back to her, casually pointing a finger at the bushes behind them.

"There are paparazzi hiding over there, aren't there? You arranged them."

Chloe’s gaze instantly turned icy, letting out a sharp sneak: "You knew?"

"I heard them."

Chloe wiped the tears from her face, her tone turning venomous and her eyes flashing with malice: "You played me?"

"Since you already knew, why didn't you expose me right away?"

Scarlett looked into her terrifyingly bright eyes and smiled faintly: "The show was highly entertaining; I simply didn't want to call a premature end to it."

Chloe’s hands clenched so hard that her nails dug into her palms.

"Scarlett, do you have any idea that because of what you did, the production I fought so hard to land is replacing me?"

"Even my brand endorsements are all demanding to terminate their contracts," Chloe gritted her teeth, "everyone online is calling me a parasite!"

She pointed a furious finger at Scarlett, shrieking: "This is all your fault!"

"Since you already chose to vanish two years ago, why on earth did you have to reappear!"

Scarlett only found the display utterly absurd.

Chloe truly possessed a supernatural ability to twist reality; even at this stage, she didn't believe she had done anything wrong.

"You were the one who intruded upon my marriage first. Do you genuinely not see your own fault?"

Chloe grew even more infuriated upon hearing this, her eyes flashing with a manic frenzy as she screamed at the top of her lungs: "I did nothing wrong!"

"In a relationship, the one who isn't loved is the real intruder! You were the one in the wrong!"

"I was the one who met him first! You were the one who snatched him away from me, you are the one who is wrong!"

What a brilliant twist—claiming she was the one in the wrong.

Staring at Chloe’s absolute delusion, Scarlett could only find her pathetic.

And her hatred toward Ethan deepened.

Chloe was still muttering incoherent nonsense, but Scarlett no longer had any desire to listen to it.

With her hair disheveled and her eyes bloodshot, the woman looked entirely manic, beyond the reach of any reason.

Scarlett shook her head, picking up a small stone from the path and casually flicking her wrist, sending it flying straight into the bushes to strike the paparazzi squarely on the head: "Delete the footage."