The Good Girl's Revenge

Chapter 9

The consulting fee Lucien spoke of, I paid all night long.

The next day, I woke up sore, as if I'd been taken apart and reassembled.

But unlike the previous times, this time we were intimate with less pretense and more of a dangerous and naked emotional pull.

I was leaning over the bed, pondering what kind of storm the whistle-blowing email would cause, when Lucien's cell phone rang.

He picked up the phone and put it on speakerphone, and his assistant's calm voice came from the other end of the line: "Mr. Lucien, as you expected, Mr. Damian and Ms. Serena's company was subjected to a routine inspection by the financial regulator early this morning, and several important offshore accounts under their names have been frozen for the time being. "

The corner of Lucien's mouth hooked up a cold smile, "Got it, keep watching."

After hanging up the phone, he looked at me with a hint of approval in his eyes, "Looks like it worked well."

My heart trembled violently, both from the thrill of revenge and a hint of hidden uneasiness. I understood that the snake had been beaten and hurt, and the next step was its most frantic counterattack.

Sure enough, that afternoon, Serena came to my door.

She looked a little haggard, but when she saw me, she still braced herself to put on that high and mighty stance.

"Norah, can we have a moment alone?" She said as she opened the door, glancing past me to Lucien, who was sitting on the living room couch, reading a magazine.

"Sure." I smiled, inviting her into the tea room of the apartment.

Closing the door and cutting off Lucien's view, Serena immediately removes her disguise.

"You did this, didn't you?" She asked as she opened the door, her eyes sharp as knives and fixed on me.

I blinked in mock bewilderment, "Serena, what are you talking about? I can't understand."

"Stop pretending!" She yelled down a little out of control, "The company is being investigated! The accounts were frozen! Who else could it be but you?!"

I laughed coldly in my heart, but my face showed an even more innocent and scared look, and I even took a step back and said timidly, "I don't know what you're talking about ...What company? What account? Serena, are you in some kind of trouble?"

My reaction was seamless, causing the certainty in Serena's eyes to waver. Yeah, how could an amnesiac patient who couldn't even remember her bank account know how to make a professional anonymous report to a financial regulator?

Watching the confusion flash in her eyes, I decided that it was my turn to fight back.

I cautiously approached her and whispered in a tone filled with concern, "Serena, don't be in such a hurry. Did Damian offend someone out there? I heard Lucien say that competition in the mall is very cruel."

I skillfully directed the spear at an external enemy.

Serena furrows her brow as if pondering the possibility.

I continued to use an innocent yet confused tone, making an effort to remember, and tilted my head, "By the way, I seem to remember something ... That day in Damian's study, didn't I get lost? At that time, I was so dizzy that I accidentally bumped into the table, and I think I saw a notebook fall on the floor."

I said while gesturing with my hand, "On that notebook, there seemed to be a lot of company names I didn't recognize written on it, as well as some, um, like bank account numbers? I see Damian's signature on it, but there's another signature next to it that I don't recognize. Serena, is that your new business partner?"

My words were like a bomb dropped with precision. I didn't do any analysis, I just laid out the facts I saw in front of her, letting her panic and wonder if Damian was preparing a backhand behind the scenes, ready to take all the blame or transfer the responsibility.

Serena's face changed completely, the suspicion and panic in her eyes intensifying. She stopped looking at me and fell into deep thought. My plan was beginning to work.

After dismissing the distraught Serena, I returned to the living room, where Lucien put down the magazine in his hand and waved me over.

I walked over to him and was pulled into his arms.

"What's it all about?" He asked.

I repeated the conversation I had just had.

He listened, laughed lowly, and planted a rewarding kiss on my lips, "My Norah, just keeps getting smarter and smarter."

Over the next few days, as I had predicted, Damian and Serena's world was in complete disarray.

Lucien, through his channels, gave me a full view of their internal disintegration. Sometimes it was a few blurry wiretaps, sometimes a few photos sent by his assistant.

I heard them blaming each other on the phone for the frozen accounts, Serena suspecting Damian of being behind it, and Damian raging at Serena for not doing her job properly.

I saw them having a heated argument in a fancy restaurant, and it didn't end well.

I even saw a picture of Serena running from Damian's apartment in tears.

Watching them tear each other apart was the height of my vengeance.

Late that night, I was lying in Lucien's arms, enjoying the quiet before the storm, when my cell phone suddenly rang shrilly.

It was an unfamiliar number.

I picked up the phone, and Serena's spiteful and frantic voice came from the other end of the line, with the sound of the wind and cars driving by in the background.

"Norah, get down here!"

I cringed, "Serena?"

"Don't pretend! I know you did it!" She screamed hysterically, "You b***h! Don't you get cocky! I have something in my hand that you will never expect! You get your ass down here right now! Or I'll make it public, and you and Lucien will be ruined together!"

My heart sank. What other cards did she hold in her hand?

Lucien had heard the call as well, and he sat up with a cold glint in his eyes.

I took a deep breath and said to the other end of the phone, "Okay, I'll go down."

Hanging up the phone, Lucien pressed my shoulder and said in a deep voice, "I'll accompany you."

"No," I looked at him, my eyes firm, "This is between me and her, I'll sort it out myself."

I needed to see for myself what tricks this cornered woman could pull.

I arrived downstairs at Lucien's apartment alone, the late-night wind a little cooler.

Serena stood under the streetlight like a crazy ghost, her hair disheveled and even a faint bruise on her face, looking like she'd been beaten.

Seeing me, a monstrous amount of hatred erupted in her eyes.

"You're finally willing to come down, Norah!" She flung a Kraft envelope out of her bag and slammed it down hard in front of me. "Look at what this is!"

The photos in the envelope were scattered all over the floor.

I bent down and picked one up, and my pupils shrank violently.

In the photo, it was me before my car accident. I was joking with my friend in a cafe, and on the street corner not far away, Lucien was leaning against the car, looking at me with a deep, motionless gaze!

I quickly picked up the other photos, there was me looking at paintings in the gallery, his silhouette in the crowd in the distance; there was me walking in the park, his profile on a bench ...... The last one, surprisingly, was a photo of him holding a design for a necklace!

"You think Lucien is some kind of nice guy?" Serena looks at my shocked expression and lets out a wild, triumphant laugh, "He's been scheming against you for a long time! He's been stalking you like a pervert since you were his brother's fiancée, and he even had a gift for you long ago! You stupid woman, you just jumped from one fire pit into another deeper one!"