Under the bright moonlight, Bradfort City was illuminated with the festive decorations. The Hart Family was also undeniably quite busy. Apart from Myra and Tony, everyone else including Tony’s eldest brother were home for the Lantern Festival.
Shawn had received Tony’s message when he was at the dinner table. When Tony found out about the stalker, he immediately sent the person’s information to Shawn. Since the family was having a great time around the dinner table, Shawn did not want to interfere with the great atmosphere and remained silent about the matter.
Only Shawn and Sebastian were initially the ones to have known about the matter. Since others were in the dark, Shawn had to find another time to speak to Sebastian about this.
However, things became increasingly complicated. Before this, all the possible reasons that were hypothesized by Ben and Shawn for Tony and Myra being stalked were refuted. After all, all they could think of was their business enemies. However, a normal businessman had no power to hire such a stalker. Hence, it seemed like the incident was related to a government official, but Shawn proclaimed that he did not make any enemies.
Apart from that, it did not make sense to stalk Tony if the mastermind was targeting Shawn himself. No matter what, the explanation did not make any sense. Thinking about this, Shawn did not eat much for dinner.
The Hart Family had moved the table to their garden tonight so that they could enjoy dinner while looking at the moon at the same time. When Shawn raised his head to look at the moon, he was worried about Tony and Myra’s safety, especially the pregnant Myra.
Hence, he insisted for Tony to quickly return to Bradfort City. At least no one dared to do anything to them here and he believed that he had the ability to protect them.
However, Tony insisted on his own beliefs and refused to listen to Shawn to return to Bradfort City. Instead, he was firm on carrying out his original plan. Sebastian also hoped that Tony could quickly return because the Hart Group had not been performing well and he was even waiting for Tony to be back to take control of the situation.
Nevertheless, Tony’s reason was also logical—since the stalker’s intentions were unclear and did not harm them, he was worried that the stalker would discover something if he and Myra suddenly changed their plans. It would be worse if the person decided to hurt them after that.
No matter what, it was a rather complicated problem that made Shawn unable to enjoy the Lantern Festival in peace. In fact, he was quite envious of the people who were oblivious to the incident—at least they were able to laugh joyfully. He had a feeling that the opponent was aiming at the Hart Family, but he had no idea why the said person had decided to start with Tony.
There was another possibility that the Hart Family had been targeted a while ago, but they had not noticed it. It could have been a coincidence that Tony found out about it at this moment. As a result, Shawn had been quite careful these days and even Sebastian took extra note of the surroundings around the Hart Residence. To them, it seemed like something was always off somewhere.
Because of this, Tony was not in a rush to return. It was possible that the Hart Family was the target of their opponent and he could flexibly adapt to the situation now that he was abroad, but his options were limited if he returned.
He had his concerns surrounding this matter and had clearly addressed it with Shawn. Meanwhile, Shawn was trying to check and identify any suspicious characters around him.
While everyone had their focus on Tony and Myra, they had no clue that danger was slowly inching closer toward them. Heather thought that it was caused by some enemies that the Hart Family made, but none of them knew that the Hart Family was about to suffer from even more misfortunes.
Everything started on the afternoon of the Lantern Festival when Heather had a disagreement with Robert. Since he looked terrible, she did not dare to disobey him any further, no matter how stubborn she was.
Hence, she agreed to his request and rejected the date with Matthias. When he saw the message from her, he felt he had descended to hell from heaven.
Perhaps Evan was right wherein women were unpredictable. Without any elaboration, Heather had merely sent Matthias a simple sentence—‘Can’t make it during the Lantern Festival.’
She did not even make it clear whether they were going to postpone the date to sometime after the Lantern Festival; she merely said that she could not make it on this day. Without even thinking about it, he wore his sweater and immediately drove straight to the Langston Family. After all, he was quite resentful that she had canceled their date just like that.
However, Heather had already foreseen this happening. When Matthias arrived at the Langston Family, he was blocked by the servants outside, who did not even give him the opportunity to enter the house.
“Director Locke, the Langston Family has no plans to see any guests today. Please head home today.” The servants repeated the exact words that Robert used when Matthias arrived the day before as Robert could tell that something was wrong.
In the morning, she was arguing with Robert to head out today. He guessed that she wanted to meet Matthias for a date, so he did not allow Matthias to enter their residence.
She had no idea that he came to her place to look for her wheras he left in annoyance, thinking that she had deliberately asked the servants to give him a hard time.
To Matthias, Heather had broken her promise and was merely placating him the day before. It was a humiliation he had never experienced up until now, so his face was as dark as charcoal on his way back. Why did I insist on going to the Langston Family? I bet Heather is laughing at me now. Great. Since she dared to turn around and slam into my car yesterday, I should understand that she has no feelings for me.
He felt that he had failed miserably. When he finally summoned his courage to start all over with Heather, she already hated him. He had never felt such desperation in his entire life.
On the other hand, he also felt despair toward Myra as he had no opportunity to fight for her heart. When he faced Heather, she would give him a blow no matter what he attempted.
Sometimes Matthias would feel that such blows did not matter; other times, he felt that it was impossible for him to be with Heather again. Evan kept saying that she was a suitable match for him while Nicolai said that he was the only person compatible with her. To others, they seemed to be the perfect match.
However, Matthias did not feel that they were suited for each other at all. As time went by, she had merely expressed her disgust toward him in an increasingly obvious manner without even hiding anything. His pride did not allow him to continue to please her, but he sometimes wondered whether he had really treated her badly in the past.
Nevertheless, he still stood by the statement that he had done nothing wrong. After all, it was Heather who ruined his chances with Myra, so he thought the way he had treated Heather was perfectly justified compared to how she treated him back then.
Of course, Heather did not know his internal struggles and she didn’t even know that his perception of her had changed. She continued to defend herself against him for the fear that he might play some dirty tricks on her again.
All this while, she had been keeping Robert company and he did not explain yesterday’s events to her. In fact, he did not even tell her about today’s guests.
To Robert, there were many secrets hidden with some matters that he simply could not tell Heather. One of which was the Langston Family’s dark history. Whenever he remembered what his sister, Claris, experienced, an immense guilt bubbled out of him.
It was the Langston Family that wronged her. He was a dozen years older than Claris, who was born when their parents were already in their twilight years. Hence, they had all doted on her since she was young. Until now, he could still remember his first time seeing her as a tiny baby.
Since she was born prematurely, she looked wrinkled and small. Many of their family members were worried that she might not survive infancy, but it was true that she had been quite weak. Robert had been meticulously taking care of her, but she bore the heavy burden of the family many years later.
When Heather was born, he immediately recalled Claris, even though Heather was much healthier. However, her stubborn personality was exactly the same as Claris, so her second name was named after Claris.
Upon seeing Heather, Robert felt as though she was Claris’ reincarnation. At that time, he quietly decided to protect Heather’s happiness and doted on her. As Heather grew up, she became a cute kid, but Stephen insisted that she only brought misfortunes to the family.
Stephen had always wanted a son, but he had a daughter in the end. To him, even though Robert doted on Heather, it meant nothing. After all, daughters could not inherit the family business of the Langston Group. Since Robert had been pretty healthy, Stephen did not get the opportunity to run the business and instead placed his hopes in his children. However, he was disappointed that he had a daughter in the end.
Even though Stephen tried various ways to have another child after that, he did not manage to accomplish the feat. At that time, he did not dare to attempt in vitro fertilization. When the technology had finally improved, he no longer wanted to put in the effort. After all, it was quite clear that Blake would be inheriting the company.
Even if he managed to bear a son at this time, the youngster could no longer take the baton from Blake anymore. On top of that, Robert had also warned Stephen not to think of the sneaky tactics before.
The Langston Family had always been well-educated and there were many ideas that Robert was against, like illegitimate children and in vitro fertilisation.
At that time, he thought that since Heather was Stephen’s only daughter, their relationship as father and daughter might improve as time went by. Unexpectedly, Stephen’s dislike toward her increased as she grew up to the point where he did not even allow Camille to shower her with love.
There were many moments where Robert thought, Karma is real after all. Back then, Claris was well-loved by all the family members, but she sacrificed her life in return for all the love she received. On the other hand, Heather grew up in a family that was void of love.
Hence, she was strong and independent, completely different from Claris. It was just that she looked like Claris everytime she frowned, but she was able to accomplish the things that Claris did not even dare to do back then.
“Grandpa, wake up.” Heather gently nudged Robert who had fallen asleep on the couch as he tightly grabbed her arm in the process.
“Is he here?” He tried to widen his eyes. Since he was napping, he did not fall into a deep sleep, so he vaguely heard the servants announcing that ‘the guest has arrived’.
“Yeah, I think he will enter in a short while.” She shot a glance at her arm that he had tightly gripped for a long time. There were already some bruises on her fair arms.
After that, she supported Robert as he stood up. Since the morning, she had been curious about the precious guest whom they had been expecting and she could finally see the person face-to-face later.
When the man casually walked into the living room, his gaze accurately met Heather’s mid-air. She boldly returned his gaze with a stubborn look in her eyes.
Before they even met, she did not have a good impression of him. After all, she could not believe that someone would dare to make the entire Langston Family wait for him and she thought that he was putting on airs.
When she met him, she thought even more poorly of him. With a menacing air around him, he looked even more evil than Matthias.
It was clear that a person like him was up to no good and Heather was especially sensitive to characters as such. She could barely accept Matthias, who was sometimes evil, sometimes good, but she had no idea how to befriend someone who was entirely up to no good.
Matthias’ bad qualities even seemed to be a positive thing in front of this man. Heather had an ominous feeling as she could not feel any kindness from him, whose powerful air had already annoyed her.
