“What?!” Hearing what Lucas said, Frederick asked in puzzlement, “Why would your mother-in-law… end up in my home? What exactly happened?”
Lucas frowned. “Are you not aware?”
Frederick immediately exclaimed, “I really don’t know about this! When did it happen?”
Seeing that he didn’t seem to be faking it, Lucas reckoned that Frederick was really kept in the dark about this.
“Then you should be aware of the livestream that went viral on the internet tonight, right? Your son Scott sent his subordinates to abduct my mother-in-law and even threatened her to defame me on the stream. He even paid netizens to clamor about boycotting the Stardust Corporation’s Orange County branch! Now, my mother-in-law is still being held captive in your home, and you’re telling me that you don’t even know about it?” Lucas questioned.
Frederick’s heart dropped, and he hurriedly asked, “Is your mother-in-law Karen Turner? You mean, Scott forced her to say those things on the stream?”
At this moment, he felt like his brain was starting to run out of oxygen.
Of course, Frederick was aware of the stream that had caused a tremendous uproar in Orange County.
Even though he usually didn’t watch streams, the content of Karen’s stream today involved quite a large number of things, such as the revelation of Lucas Gray being the person in charge of the Stardust Corporation’s Orange County branch and the fact that he had allegedly tried to kill his parents-in-law in order to seize the family fortune to fill the company’s financial deficit.
Be it the impact on the economic situation of the Stardust Corporation or the entertainment value of watching everyone fight for money, everyone reported the matter to Frederick.
But he had never expected to hear from Lucas that this matter was done by Scott and that Karen was now in their home, so Lucas wanted him to hand her over!
Everything seemed surreal to him.
Seeing Lucas glaring at him with an icy cold gaze in his eyes, Frederick immediately shivered and hurriedly said, “I… I really don’t know about this matter! I only read the news about the stream, but I know nothing about the rest! Could there be some kind of misunderstanding in between?”
Lucas smiled sarcastically. “There’s no misunderstanding. Get Scott Taylor to come here now, and you’ll find out the truth! He’s now hiding my mother-in-law, and I’ve come to make him hand her over!
“In addition, this stream has caused me and my company to suffer heavy financial losses. I want you to make a clarification and compensate the Stardust Corporation for the losses. You don’t have an issue with this, do you?”
Lucas saw Frederick’s eyes widening all of a sudden, as if he was incredibly shocked. Afterward, his expression became extremely sullen.
“What? Do you have an opinion, Mr. Taylor?” Lucas frowned.
Frederick’s face was extremely gloomy, and his lips were trembling hard. Only after a long while did he ask while shivering, “Lucas Gray, don’t you know that my son Scott is dead?”
“What? Scott Taylor is dead?” This time, it was Lucas’s turn to be extremely surprised.
He quickly frowned and said with disbelief, “I just saw Scott Taylor more than an hour or so before I went to the Kingstons’. How could he die so soon? How did he die?”
Hearing this, Frederick revealed a mirthless smile while tearing up. He murmured, “In that case, were you the one who killed Scott?”
Lucas frowned. “Of course not.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he realized something and asked, “You mean, you’ve always thought that I killed Scott Taylor?”
Frederick nodded and said through clenched teeth, “He was suddenly shot dead while speaking to me on the phone about two hours ago. The bodyguard who escaped and returned told me that it was you who killed Scott!”
Lucas was quite speechless at this moment.
Based on the chronological events, Lucas speculated that after he had just confronted Scott, Scott should have been killed while he was on his way to the Kingston manor in San Francisco.
In that case, it made sense for Frederick to harbor so much animosity against him and treat him with so much hostility by making his bodyguards besiege him the moment he arrived here.
“Look, you should really investigate the internal situation of your family,” Lucas said indifferently without explaining much.
He knew that Frederick would definitely understand the meaning of his words.
Indeed, Frederick had understood from the moment Lucas said that he wanted to question Scott in person—Lucas definitely hadn’t killed Scott.
Lucas even had the guts to kill Jude of the Peerless Martial Association, so why would he need to cover up his actions if he had really killed Scott?
The only truth was that Scott’s death had nothing to do with Lucas, and the bodyguard who had escaped to testify against Lucas for murdering Scott was the most problematic one!
Standing at the side, Gaston was overwhelmed with shock. Lucas glanced at him for a moment, only to discover that he probably wasn’t faking his astonishment.
Therefore, this matter probably had nothing to do with Gaston.
By using the method of elimination, it seemed that the identity of the mastermind became clear.
“People!” Frederick suddenly yelled at the door.
The two bodyguards outside didn’t dare to delay at all and immediately hurried in.
But as soon as they entered, they saw Jude on the ground and dead in an extremely bizarre position. They couldn’t help being agitated.
The expert of the Peerless Martial Association, whom even the helmsman of the Taylor family respected, had actually died just like that…
The two bodyguards were so frightened that they didn’t dare to look at him any longer. They quickly hung their heads low and asked, “Mr. Taylor, wh-what orders do you have?”
Frederick said coldly, “Clean up this corpse and make sure no one finds out!
“Also, bring the bodyguard who followed Scott and was the only one who returned alive here. Remember, you must catch him and bring him back once you see him. There mustn’t be any mistakes!”
Frederick finally gritted his teeth and commanded, “Also… bring Preston here too!”
The bodyguards received orders and immediately carried Jude’s corpse out of the villa through the back door.
Frederick looked at Lucas and slowly said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Gray. If this is really… We will definitely give you an explanation!”
At this moment, it was as if he had aged several years at once, and even his spine was hunched.
But Lucas didn’t feel any sympathy for him.
At the end of the day, these were just the internal affairs of the Taylor family, while Karen’s plight and the cyber attacks and the financial losses that the Stardust Corporation had suffered were indeed caused by the Taylors.
Soon, the two bodyguards hurried over and said anxiously, “Mr. Taylor, bad news! The bodyguard who followed Scott is dead! Also, we can’t find Preston anywhere, and no one knows where he has gone!”
