Free Web NovelChapter 356: Chapter 354: The Mastermind Is Him
A casino in Calyx.
’Gambling...’
Mia Grant tried hard to remember, feeling as if she had forgotten some crucial piece of information.
"Who is that person?" Since she couldn’t remember, she decided to just ask directly.
Simon Adler paused for a moment before saying, "The man who attacked you outside the hospital that day."
"!"
Mia Grant’s hand trembled. The phone slipped from her ear and fell onto her lap.
She hurriedly picked it up, glanced around the classroom, then got up and walked outside.
Spring in Jynsia is short, so the recent weather already bore traces of early summer.
But for some reason, a chill ran through her entire body, and goosebumps erupted on her skin in an instant.
She walked to a quiet corner. "Are... are you sure?"
"Of course." Simon Adler wouldn’t have called her if he wasn’t certain.
For him to say so meant he naturally had sufficient evidence.
"..."
Mia Grant fell silent.
She frowned, thinking of the confident assertions she had made that day.
She wasn’t so annoyed that she wanted to slap herself, but she just couldn’t figure it out.
Last time, Silas Grant had told her the attacker was just bait; he wanted to lure out the mastermind behind the scenes.
She had gone through a list of everyone who held a grudge against her, and the most likely culprits were the other members of the Grant Family, aside from Silas Grant.
She had considered every possibility, but she never would have imagined the mastermind to be Julian Vaughn.
’Why, though?’
She couldn’t find a reason to convince herself.
"This guy was drowning in debt. The money Julian Vaughn transferred to him was enough for him to pay it all off and be set for the rest of his life."
"But..." Mia Grant opened her mouth, but she didn’t know what to say.
"You can never truly know a person’s heart. Perhaps you really have something he wants."
"Just because he hasn’t shown it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want it."
"He’s very cautious. This ’assistant’ is actually his former assistant. The two of them haven’t had much contact recently."
"I zeroed in on him because I checked all of Julian Vaughn’s call logs from a while back."
"What?!" Mia Grant looked up. "Why were you looking into that?"
"If I didn’t give you some proof, you’d go on thinking everyone is a good person."
The moment he found Julian Vaughn’s former assistant, he knew Julian had to be involved in this.
He continued digging just to make Mia Grant face the harsh reality.
"He had two calls in his recent logs to a number with a Jynsia area code."
"I looked into it. The number doesn’t belong to a private individual."
Mia Grant’s ears perked up, and she held her breath, listening intently.
"It belongs to a nursing home in Jynsia."
"..."
BOOM. The fragmented pieces of Mia Grant’s memory crashed together.
Silas Grant had said that Serena Grant was in a nursing home.
"Are you the only one who’s found this out so far?"
"There were other people investigating when I was, but I’ve temporarily wiped the account records over there. Your brother and the others don’t know yet. If you want, I can send it to them right now."
"No! Simon Adler, do me a favor."
Her sudden seriousness was a little unfamiliar to Simon Adler. "Go ahead."
"Destroy everything you found."
"..."
"Don’t let my brother and the others have a chance to find it again."
After a moment of silence, he asked, "What are you planning to do?"
"I can’t explain too much, but in short... if they find out, they will definitely go after Julian Vaughn."
"If we let things develop like this, believe me, the one who ends up dead won’t be Julian Vaughn."
"..."
She sounded so certain, as if she had already foreseen something.
In the end, Simon Adler agreed. "You need to be careful of Julian Vaughn."
"I know." Mia Grant let out a breath. "I’ll be extra careful from now on. Thank you for this, Simon Adler."
Simon Adler’s heart skipped a beat. Hearing her say that, he suddenly felt that all his recent hard work had been worth it.
He knew others were also investigating, so he had wanted to be the first one to show her the results, and as a result, he hadn’t rested well lately.
’Fortunately... the result was pretty good.’
He gave an awkward cough. "It’s what I should do. After all, he and I will be working together in the future. Now that I know what kind of person he is, I can be more careful."
"By the way, Julian Vaughn has planted quite a few people around you. I’d rough-estimate eleven or twelve of them, split into two groups. One group is at your school, and the other is at your off-campus residence."
Mia Grant replied, "I won’t be staying off-campus for the time being."
’It’s not safe.’
"I’ll be in Jynsia next week. If anything comes up, you can call me anytime. My place isn’t far from your school."
"Okay," she nodded absently.
Simon Adler waited for a moment, but when she didn’t say anything more, he had to ask himself, "So, when I land next week, want to get a meal together?"
Mia Grant snapped back to reality. "You’d better get rid of any inappropriate ideas you might have."
The person on the other end chuckled. "That’s why it’s just a meal. I don’t have any friends in Jynsia. My old circle is all in Portia."
"Now that I’ve moved, I can’t even find anyone for a housewarming party. I can only place my hopes in Miss Grant."
Mia Grant asked for the specific time.
"I think that should be fine."
"Then I’ll come pick you up."
Mia Grant sighed helplessly. "Fine."
After hanging up, Mia Grant leaned against the wall, gazing absently out the window.
She called out her system, trying to sort through her thoughts.
The system thought for a moment before replying, [The plot has a self-correcting ability, so we can’t rule out the possibility that the force of the plot pushed Julian Vaughn and Serena Grant to conspire together.]
Mia Grant rubbed her chin. "I’m wondering, if my dream was real, could the person Julian Vaughn eventually instructed Serena Grant to kill be the same male lead who kills me?"
[That possibility cannot be ruled out.]
[But why do you trust Julian Vaughn so much, Host?]
"Because I can’t find any reason for him to hurt me."
"If he were after the Sinclair family’s assets, I wouldn’t be the one he’d be putting so much effort into targeting."
"Look, so many years have passed, and while he and Carla Sinclair have never gotten along, they’ve never had a major conflict."
"He’s also focused his life on his art. If he had ever wanted to fight for the inheritance, he had plenty of opportunities when the Sinclair family elders were still alive. He could have even arranged for Carla Sinclair to stay abroad for the rest of her life."
"So for him to want to harm me... it just doesn’t make sense, no matter how I think about it."
"I can feel it. He treats me the same way Carla Sinclair does."
"Unless I’m just a terrible judge of character."
Mia Grant took out her phone and checked the time. Her thumb slid down, stopping on a contact in her address book.
She really wanted to call, but she didn’t know how to start the conversation.
’Confront him directly?’
’Would he even tell the truth?’
Mia Grant’s mind was a mess. She fiddled with her fingers in frustration, hesitated, but finally pressed the call button.
"Hello, is this Julian Vaughn?"
"It is." Julian Vaughn was surprised to receive her call.
"Are you in Portia right now? Are you coming to Jynsia next week?"
"Yes, I’ll probably arrive about two days after Simon Adler. Something urgent came up at the art studio."
"That’s fine. When you get here, let’s meet up. I think we need to sit down and have a serious talk."
Julian Vaughn’s brow twitched. He felt there was something strange about her words and subconsciously asked, "Of course. What did you want to talk about?"
Mia Grant tapped the back of her phone, her voice low and laced with cold indifference. "Hmm, let’s talk about why you want to kill me."
