Free Web NovelChapter 281: Chapter 284: Ethan Lockwood Comes Begging
"Name my terms?" Felix Preston played dumb. "What is Mr. Lockwood talking about? What terms would I need to name?"
Ethan Lockwood’s breathing was heavy, perfectly clear even through the phone. "Felix Preston, you know what I’m talking about. We’re both businessmen, so there’s no need to deliberately play dumb."
"Just name your price. I’ll meet any demand I can!"
"Hmph," Felix Preston’s lips curled into a smirk, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Mr. Lockwood, what on earth are you talking about? I don’t understand a single word."
"Pfft..." Jasper Linden burst out laughing at his theatrical performance.
Mason Shaw wanted to laugh too but felt it wasn’t quite appropriate, so he stifled it. He clapped Jasper Linden on the shoulder, then pressed his lips together and gave the overdramatic Felix Preston a thumbs-up.
Felix Preston raised an eyebrow, a grim satisfaction gleaming in his normally gentle eyes.
"Felix Preston!" Ethan Lockwood was growing frantic under the pressure. "You know what I’m talking about! You know exactly what I mean!"
"I don’t." Felix Preston’s voice was nonchalant, his tone infuriatingly casual. "Mr. Lockwood’s words are coming out of nowhere. How could a ’low-class person’ like me, who can barely make a living running a small studio, possibly understand?"
"..."
Felix Preston was throwing the same insult Ethan Lockwood had once hurled at him right back in his face. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t seething, but he was the one asking for a favor now. No matter how furious he felt, he had to swallow his anger.
He gritted his teeth on the other end of the line, forcing himself to swallow the humiliation. He was so consumed by anxiety that he didn’t even notice anything odd about Felix Preston’s statement.
"...Robert Ford." He forced the name out, laying his agenda bare for all to see.
"You got Robert Ford out, didn’t you?"
"Robert Ford..." Felix Preston feigned a thoughtful frown before a smile spread across his face. "Yes, Robert Ford is with me. We were classmates, and we worked together at the Preston Group for so many years. It’s been a while. Of course we had to catch up."
With all pretenses dropped, Ethan Lockwood stopped beating around the bush. He ignored Felix Preston’s snide remarks and got straight to the point.
"Did Robert Ford give you everything? How much leverage do you have on me?"
"Hmm..." Felix Preston made a show of counting. "You’ve got quite a bit of dirt on you. It would be too much trouble to list everything one by one. So, let me just give you a couple of examples."
"Hiring a hitman, bribing officials, embezzling company funds, cooking the books, defamation, illegal competition, not to mention tax evasion and fraudulent donations."
"Oh dear, didn’t I say I’d just give a couple of examples? How did I accidentally let so many slip?"
Felix Preston put on a deliberately apologetic act, as if he had truly revealed all of Ethan Lockwood’s dirty secrets by mistake.
"Heh..." Ethan Lockwood let out a heavy sigh, swallowing all of Felix Preston’s taunts and mockery.
"Felix Preston, since you know everything, just get on with it and name your price."
"What do I have to do for you to hand all of it over to me?"
"What’s this? Is Mr. Lockwood trying to buy his dirty laundry back with cash?" Felix Preston asked, feigning surprise.
Ethan Lockwood: "Not necessarily with cash. It depends on what you want. Money, resources, connections, even an apology—just name it. If it’s within my power, I’ll do it."
"..." Felix Preston pursed his lips and said nothing.
"Ahem..." Mason Shaw gave two very deliberate coughs and shook his head at Felix Preston.
Felix Preston blinked, signaling that he understood.
"He knows what he’s doing," Jasper Linden whispered, leaning close to Mason Shaw’s ear.
Mason Shaw nodded, finally relaxing a bit. Felix Preston’s studio was in desperate need of resources right now, and he had been worried that Felix might trade the leverage from Robert Ford for resources he couldn’t get on his own.
Jasper Linden saw his concern and said with a hint of exasperated fondness, "Felix Preston has too much pride for that. If he wanted to take a shortcut, he would have aligned with Shaw Technologies the moment Charlotte Shaw returned to the Shaw Family. Why would he go through all the trouble of scraping together resources on his own?"
"...That’s true." Mason Shaw mulled it over, realizing he had judged the man too hastily.
Jasper Linden: "Let Felix Preston handle it. He knows what he’s doing."
"Alright." Mason Shaw breathed a sigh of relief.
Ethan Lockwood: "Felix Preston, we’re both businessmen. There’s no need to let things get ugly when they can be settled with a transaction, right?"
"Right," Felix Preston agreed.
Ethan Lockwood: "So, what do you want? Just say the word. If I can give it to you, I will."
"What do I want..." Felix Preston adjusted his glasses and actually seemed to consider it. However, he didn’t come to an immediate conclusion.
"Mr. Lockwood, you’re asking me so suddenly. I can’t think of anything off the top of my head."
"That’s fine," Ethan Lockwood said quickly. "I won’t push you for an immediate answer. You can take a few days to think it over."
"...Fine." Felix Preston agreed reluctantly. "Since Mr. Lockwood is willing to wait, I’ll give it a few days of careful consideration."
"Great!" Ethan Lockwood’s tone instantly brightened. "Felix Preston, you think it over. Call me whenever you’ve decided. I’ll be waiting."
Felix Preston: "Mm."
"..." Ethan Lockwood said nothing more.
Felix Preston: "Is there anything else, Mr. Lockwood?"
Ethan Lockwood: "No, that’s all."
Felix Preston hung up the phone the very next second.
"Felix, what was that all about?"
Jasper Linden, who just a moment ago had been so sure of Felix Preston, was now unsettled. "Why did you agree to Ethan’s proposal? Did you go to all that trouble to find Robert Ford just to squeeze some resources out of Mr. Lockwood?"
"Of course not." With a flick of his wrist, Felix Preston tossed his phone onto the bed.
"No?" Jasper Linden frowned at him, his eyes filled with confusion. "Then what’s your plan?"
"He wants to toy with Ethan Lockwood," Mason Shaw explained for Felix. "For a scumbag like him, a quick end would be letting him off too easy. If I’m not mistaken, the reason Felix agreed was to lead him by the nose and mess with him a little longer."
"Am I right?"
"You are," Felix Preston admitted freely. "But not entirely."
"Destroying Ethan Lockwood is a shared dream for Charlotte and me. Now that I finally have him by the tail, of course I have to wait for Charlotte to get back so we can do this together."
"But with Charlotte still in Willow Quincy’s hands, I don’t want to take my revenge on Ethan Lockwood alone. So for now, I’ll just keep him on the hook. Let him really feel what it’s like to be tearing his hair out in anxiety, to be at his wit’s end—a life worse than death!"
