Matthew took his daughter’s hand with one hand and held a plastic of snacks with the other, walking
out of the supermarket. A bus was driving away, and the woman and her son who shopped in the
supermarket were on it.
When the boy was getting on the bus, he looked back at the girl in her father’s arms. He could tell that
the girl was quite naive, also quite cute.
“Hurry up,” his mother urged him.
The boy could only get on.
“Where is Samuel?” Simona looked around. There were cars, buses, and people everywhere. She
hadn’t found that behind a window on a bus, a pair of black sparkling eyes were staring at her.
Soon the bus was driven away, and the boy couldn’t see Simona anymore.
“Daddy, what are they doing over there?” Simona pointed at the stall where the sugarcoated haws on a
stick were sold. There were a group of onlookers.
She wrapped around Matthew’s neck. “Daddy, I want the sugarcoated haws.”
Matthew looked up in the sky and down at the plastic bag in his hands. He decided to buy them
because his daughter wanted them.
“Daddy, it’s so nice of you!” Simona held his face, kissing and rubbing. Even if Matthew were an
iceberg, he would be certainly melted.
The sugarcoated haws on a stick in the past only had the haws. Nowadays, all different kinds of fruits
were sugarcoated. Simona chose a skewer with all haws. The red haws under the crystal sugar looked
quite appealing.
She swallowed. “It must be quite yummy.”
Matthew paid for it. “We should go now.”
The little girl nodded. She had got all she wanted, so she was quite satisfied.
Back to the caravan, the tank was fulfilled with gas. Boyce had already taken Samuel back. Samuel
also had a skewer of sugarcoated haws in his hand.
“Why are you guys so slow? We’ve been waiting for you for a while.” Samuel cast a glance at the
plastic bag that Matthew took in and then glanced at his younger sister. He understood what had
happened. He slightly heaved a sigh.
Boyce gently patted him on his head. “Little one, why are you sighing?”
Samuel curled his lips, eating the sugarcoated haws while sitting on the sofa.
Boyce followed Matthew to the inner compartment. “Armand has resolved Maria Herbert’s matter...”
“Hold on for a second,” Matthew interrupted him. He didn’t want his daughter to overhear such filthy
things.
Boyce shushed immediately. “I’ll get off and wait for you.”
“Okay.” Matthew put the little girl on the seat and all snacks on the table. “Stay here with your brother.
Uncle Boyce and I have something to discuss.”
“I know.” Simona was quite sensible right now. She looked so adorable.
Matthew rubbed her hair.
She twisted her head. “My hair is already messy. You’re making it messier. If I’m too ugly, when we find
Mommy, she won’t recognize me!”
Matthew chuckled, pinching her cheeks. “Who has the guts to say my daughter is ugly?”
Simona was happy. She grinned ear to ear, exposing her white teeth.
Matthew got off the van. Boyce was standing in front of the door. Seeing that he get off, Boyce took a
few steps back to make space for him.
They took a few steps forward, but still quite nearby the van.
“Annabelle Flores is dead.”
Matthew was a bit taken aback. He didn’t expect that she was the one who had died.
At that time, Annabelle wasn’t injured at all, and Maria was tortured a lot. They left them both inside the
same room, aiming to let them kill each other. However, he didn’t expect that Annabelle would have
died.
He had thought that it might Maria who would die first. Anyway, no matter who died, it meant no
different to him. The survived one would have committed the homicide, and would surely be put into
jail. If it were a serious case, she would be sentenced to death directly.
“I’ve never found that Maria Herbert...” Boyce had the same guess as Matthew had. He thought that
Maria would be dead. Unexpectedly, he received the report that Annabelle died.
It meant how tough Maria was.
After she was injured so much, she managed to kill Annabelle.
“The evidence that she has killed Annabelle Flores is quite firm, and she couldn’t retort at all. Plus, she
also hired Terry Holmes’s brother to kill Dolores. She has been sentenced to death, suspended for one
year. All the guards now this time are my men. The matter that Sampson Herbert has done last time
wouldn’t happen again.”
They deliberately had left Maria and Annabelle alone in the Interrogation Room. There was a
surveillance system in the room, which had filmed exactly how Maria managed to kill Annabelle. She
had no chance to overturn the case at all. Plus her former case, she was certainly doomed.
Matthew looked quite expressionless as if this woman had nothing to do with him at all.
How she had ended up with was all because of herself. She couldn’t blame anyone else for it.
In the past, he was quite tolerant of her because she had saved his life, so he didn’t mind her scheming
thoughts. Due to those matters, he had missed Dolores and it had been so many years.
Didn’t he know that Maria was a scheming woman?
Yes, he did. However, for the sake that she had saved his life, he didn’t do anything. It was she who
had fully spent all his patience and gratitude to her.
“Let’s go.”
He strode over to get in the caravan.
Boyce followed him. “Armand is also following us now. I guess he can catch up with us shortly.”
Matthew looked back at him.
Boyce threw his hands up. “He has always been on the way when telling me that he will come here.
Besides, I can’t convince him at all. He’s an adult with healthy legs. I can’t chop them off, can I?”
Right then, Matthew’s cell phone started ringing in his pocket. Matthew pulled it out and saw it was a
call from Abbott.
He didn’t insist on blaming Boyce for Armand’s action again. Instead, he swiped to answer the phone.
Abbott was about to report the matter of Maria, Matthew stood in front of the car window and said
indifferently, “I’ve known what happened.”
Abbott reported what was going on in the company. Matthew turned on the laptop and read through
some documents sent from Abbott. After reading all of them, he signed and sent them back. Then he
gave Abbott some orders before ending the call.
It was getting dark outside. They arrived in White City.
Boyce suggested, “Let’s stay at a hotel tonight. We didn’t have enough rest in the car. The kids could
be relaxed as well.”
Matthew seemed not to hear what he said. He kept browsing the web pages. Boyce frowned and
approached him. “What are you reading?”
Before he finished his question, he had seen the words on the screen. Matthew was reading White
City’s information.
The very first one was its history.
This city wasn’t called White City before but called Podon, and it was a county.
An entrepreneur named Nathan White started his business here. He resolved the local unemployment
issues. In memory of him, the county name was changed to White City according to his surname.
The population in White City wasn’t large, but it was a prosperous city right now. All most all locals
were working for the White Group.
Matthew kept browsing and reading. The information about the White Group wasn’t much. Only his ups
and downs during the development of his startup company were mentioned. There was nothing about
his private life or family information.
“Daddy,” Simona called Matthew in the compartment.
“Shall we stay in the hotel? If so, I’ll get us a few rooms now,” Boyce confirmed again.
Matthew paused when standing up. He looked back at Boyce and said, “Sure.”
Although there was everything in the caravan, the space was quite limited. They couldn’t sleep soundly
in the van at all.
“My button dropped” Simona was sitting on the bed with her legs crossed. Samuel was lying on his
side, and he was sleeping now.
“Let me see.”
Simona gave the button to Matthew and pointed at her collar. “Here. It dropped.”
“I’ll get you another one.” Jessica packed clothes for her, and all of them were in the closet of the van.
He opened the closet and found one blouse for her. “How about this one?”
Simona shook her head. “It’s my pajamas.”
Matthew kept on searching. “This one?”
“Let me find it myself.” Simona had become quite disappointed in Matthew. She slipped down from the
bed and searched all things in the closet. Then she grabbed a blue dress. “I want to wear this one.
Mommy bought it for me on my last birthday.”
Hearing her mention their birthday, Matthew realized that he had no idea when they were born.
Matthew helped her take off the blouse with the dropped button and put on her favorite blue dress. She
also wore a small knitted sweater outside, looking quite cute. Dolores was quite good at dressing up
with her daughter. She knew what fit Simona.
Looking at his daughter, Matthew thought for a moment and asked, “Simona, when is your birthday?”
“In May.” She pouted. “Our birthday has passed already for so long. I have to wait for my next birthday.”
Matthew reached out to rub her head.
Right then, the van was stopped. Boyce came in. “I’ve booked the room in the hotel, the best one in
White City.”
Then he threw up his hands and added, “It’s run by the White Group.”
He couldn’t do anything like most businesses in White City were run by the White Group.
62fb1bb41dcb31934bd49bda