Chapter 5

The banquet hall fell into dead silence, broken only by the infant’s wails echoing through the void. "Twenty years ago, Smith Medical Group deliberately leaked the formula of its competitor, The Williams Group’s pharmaceutical division, to seize market share. The anticancer drug my father developed ended up on the black market. The day he set fire to his lab to prove his innocence, he clutched this pocket watch." The room was a graveyard of silence. Clara stumbled backward, knocking over a champagne tower. "Y-you’re lying! Noah had no idea—" "Oh, he knew." I turned to Noah Smith, watching his Adam’s apple bob violently. "Three months ago, I overheard him in his study with Uncle Smith. ‘Once Alice Williams gives birth, get rid of her. The kid’s just a bastard anyway.’" Slap! The sound of a slap rattled the crystal chandelier. Grandma’s trembling hand hovered in the air, her eyes swimming with disappointment. "Noah, how could you—" "Grandma, she’s manipulating me!"