“You called for us, Master?”
The assistant commander of the bodyguards quickly asked Winston. It was already late at night, and everyone was preparing to go to sleep. They could not comprehend why their master was calling for them and was curious as to what was going on.
“There are dozens of bodies in Fane Woods’ garden. Go over, help clear it out and find somewhere to burn the bodies!”
Winston said, smiling.
“No way. Master, the George family is a first-class aristocratic family too. How can we be used just like that? And for such a degrading task too…”
The assistant commander did not know what else to say.
“What do you know? Fane and his family will be leaving Middle Province soon. I heard that they had killed some people from Gin City in the afternoon. They probably offended some influential family, and so are forced to leave. His villa could not have been easy to sell off, so he’s going to give it to us!
“Go on then! After you finish your work, see me for your bonus tomorrow,” Winston said, chuckling. “I’ll give each of you 10,000 bucks!”
“You have our thanks, Master!”
The bodyguards were suddenly elated. Each of them rushed off to help Fane and the others to get rid of the bodies.
The next day, the Taylor family realized whatever assets they could. At night, Old Man Taylor and the others invited Fane and his family as well as Cecilia and the Gold family over for dinner.
After they ate, Old Man Taylor directly addressed Selena. “Selena, Cecilia is now married into another family, and Ivan is dead. I’m growing old, and I cannot oversee the Taylor family matters for very long now. And you know that Theodore is no good at business. Our cash now is far less than what the assets are worth. I think you’ll be able to make the right decision on what we should do with it from now!”
Yet Old Man Taylor, who had always been ambitious, always finding ways to make the family stronger, felt lukewarm toward his decision.
He gave a wan smile. “Ah, it doesn’t matter if we’re strong or not,” he said. “We’ll be fine as long as we have enough money to spend. I just hope that we can all lead peaceful lives!”
Here, Old Man Taylor divulged his worries once more. “After all, we don’t know how strong the Lambert family is. Even if we aren’t strong enough to face them, it won’t be easy for them to find us if we go into hiding and keep a low profile. That won’t be a problem at all! But if the Taylor family rebuilds its business empire and becomes famous enough, it would be pretty easy for the Lambert family to find us if they wanted to.”
Only then did Selena understand her grandfather’s intentions. It was not that he did not want the Taylor family to grow into a powerful conglomerate—he was afraid that the Lambert family would easily find them if they had a strong presence.
If word got out, the Lambert family would probably send their people to destroy the Taylor family.
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