Free Web NovelChapter 243: Chapter 246: Give Charlotte Shaw to Me
"If we can’t get anything out of him, then check his dashcam," Mason Shaw said. "He can lie, but the dashcam can’t."
"But what if his dashcam is broken?"
"Well..." Mason Shaw’s expression turned grim, and for a moment, he was at a loss for words.
Felix Preston adjusted his glasses, his eyes now completely devoid of emotion. "Willow Quincy is an incredibly cunning person," he said. "If he could come up with a plan this convoluted, he absolutely wouldn’t leave any openings."
"So, Uncle Collins, we have to be mentally prepared for the possibility that we get nothing out of him."
"Yes." Kevin Collins nodded in agreement. "The task force shares your concerns. We anticipated this might happen, so we’ve already dispatched a team to retrieve surveillance footage from the intersections near the auto repair shop. They plan to check every vehicle."
"I see." Felix Preston gave a strained smile, but the news did little to ease his mind.
Half an hour later, he walked out of the police station.
The sky had gone completely dark. Two rows of dim, yellow streetlights stretched out to a vanishing point.
Felix Preston pulled his phone from his overcoat pocket. Before he could even wake the screen, a call from Ethan Lockwood came in.
BZZT—
BZZT—
The phone vibrated relentlessly. Mason Shaw walked over and patted Felix Preston on the shoulder. "Felix, time to head home."
Felix Preston held up a hand. "I need to take this. You and Dad can go on ahead."
Mason Shaw: "Alright. Dad and I have a meeting back at the office, so we won’t wait. Head straight home after your call, and don’t catch a chill."
Felix Preston nodded. "Got it. Drive safe."
Mason Shaw grunted in acknowledgment, then turned and walked away.
CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH—
The crunching of footsteps on snow slowly faded into the distance. Felix Preston answered the phone just before it went to voicemail.
"Hello."
"Felix Preston, is this your idea of taking care of someone?"
Without so much as a hello, Ethan Lockwood launched into an interrogation.
"..." Felix Preston remained silent.
"A living, breathing person, and you just up and lost her. Are you completely useless?"
Ethan Lockwood’s voice, thick with rage, grated in Felix Preston’s ear.
"Felix Preston, Sonia Quincy has been missing for a whole day. Instead of focusing on finding her, you’re running around spreading the news of her disappearance all over the internet. What, are you trying to use this to build some kind of tragic, deeply-in-love persona online? All so you can promote that pathetic game of yours?"
"..." Felix Preston still said nothing.
He tilted his head back, staring up at the dim yellow streetlight. His breath froze into a hazy white cloud, twisting into an ethereal plume under the light.
On the other end of the line, Ethan Lockwood’s tirade was unending.
"Say something! Are you mute? Didn’t you swear up and down you’d take good care of Sonia Quincy? Weren’t you convinced you were the only one in the world worthy of her? Weren’t you going to love her for a lifetime? What happened? Did a dog eat your vows?"
"A living person vanished right under your nose. Felix Preston, for a useless piece of trash like you, what’s the difference between being alive and being dead?"
"..." Once again, Felix Preston said nothing.
Ethan Lockwood took his silence as a sign of guilt and righteously cursed him a few more times. Only when he’d vented his fill did he finally change the subject.
"Felix Preston, I’ve already put my people on finding Sonia Quincy. Once I find her, you can get ready to sign the divorce papers."
"Hah..." Felix Preston let out a cold laugh, finally speaking. "Me? Sign divorce papers? On what grounds?"
"Why on earth would I divorce Charlotte?"
"...’On what grounds?!’" Those three words pushed Ethan Lockwood’s fury to its breaking point. "Felix Preston, you actually have the nerve to ask me ’on what grounds’?"
A thin, cold smile touched Felix Preston’s lips. "And why shouldn’t I have the nerve to ask?"
Ethan Lockwood: "...Fine. Since you have the gall to ask, I’ll have the decency to answer. I’ll tell you exactly why."
"Because of that dead-end studio of yours, because of that ridiculous dating game, because of your barely-there sense of responsibility, because of your empty promises and your useless love!"
"You can’t even look after one person. How can you have the audacity to remain Sonia Quincy’s husband?"
Felix Preston just smiled. "So I don’t have the face to be Charlotte’s husband, but you do? You, the philandering gold digger?"
"Don’t you get snarky with me!" Ethan Lockwood’s voice was so loud that Felix Preston had to pull the phone away from his ear.
"Yes, I admit I wronged Sonia Quincy in the past. But compared to a spineless loser like you, what does that little mistake even matter? At least when Sonia Quincy was with me, she never got kidnapped, did she?"
"Right." Felix Preston couldn’t be bothered to argue these useless points with Ethan Lockwood, so he just let him talk.
"And?"
Ethan Lockwood: "My reputation might not be what it once was, but my Lockwood Group is still the same Lockwood Group. I have money and power. I can give Sonia Quincy the best life, and I can help Shaw Technologies climb even higher."
"So, Felix Preston, if you have any shame, any self-awareness at all, you’ll divorce Sonia Quincy immediately. Don’t stop her from moving on to someone better than you."
"Someone better than me?" Felix Preston arched an eyebrow. "Ethan Lockwood, are you referring to yourself?"
Ethan Lockwood’s tone was full of pride. "Felix Preston, am I not better than you?"
Felix Preston: "You talk about me being shameless, but it looks to me like you’ve never had any shame to begin with."
Ethan Lockwood was livid. "Felix Preston, what did you just—"
"Ethan Lockwood," Felix Preston cut him off, his voice ice-cold. "If you don’t have a mirror at home, I’m sure you can find a puddle of your own piss to look into. Don’t you ever take a look at yourself? If you were really so much better than me, why didn’t Charlotte choose you back then? Why does Charlotte despise you so much that she can’t even stand the thought of seeing you?"
"What happened to your self-awareness? Did a dog eat it?"
Felix Preston threw Ethan Lockwood’s own words back in his face. Then, not forgetting to add a final twist of the knife, he taunted, "When Charlotte was just a regular person, you couldn’t be bothered with her. But now that she’s Aethelburg’s most famous jewelry designer, you come crawling back with that shameless grin. Do you really want to be with her because you care, or are you just after her design talent? Or maybe it’s her status as the Shaw family heiress?"
"I..." Ethan Lockwood was struck speechless.
Felix Preston lifted his arm and glanced at the watch on his wrist. His tone suddenly turned peculiar.
"Ethan Lockwood, don’t waste your time worrying about Charlotte. You’ve got your own house fire to deal with."
"What?" Ethan Lockwood didn’t understand what he meant.
Felix couldn’t be bothered to repeat himself. "Charlotte is mine," he said. "She will only ever love me. Ethan Lockwood, Charlotte and I have been together long enough that our kid would be in school by now. Stop acting like a pathetic clown and just get lost. Get as far away from us as you can. Stop being an eyesore to my wife and me!"
