Meanwhile, Helen was instructing her assistant to monitor online discussions. If anyone posted pictures from earlier, she wanted them handled immediately. No one could find out about her connection to Lillian.
But before she could proceed, the car came to an abrupt stop, sending her almost crashing into the front seat.
“What’s going on?” Peter asked, alarmed.
The driver replied, “Three cars just blocked us in.”
Helen looked out and saw the vehicles surrounding them, cutting off all exits.
“What’s happening?” Peter asked in confusion, eyes wide.
The next moment, the car door was violently pulled open. Helen was dragged out and thrown before Conrad.
Helen looked up in fury, only to meet the cold gaze of the aloof man staring down at her. Lillian sat beside him in the car.
Helen froze.
Conrad spoke in a low voice. “Where is Alvin’s urn? What did you do with it?”
Helen glanced at Lillian and replied, “I don’t know…”
“Do you think you’re some big deal because of your age, experience, and popularity?” Conrad sneered. “While I’m still in a good mood and willing to give you a second chance, you better talk. Otherwise, you won’t need to say another word for the rest of your life.”
Conrad’s tone was calm, almost as if he were casually deciding whether or not to have fruit later.
But everyone present knew better-there was no doubt he would follow through with whatever he said.
Peter hurriedly opened the car door and caught up, immediately speaking up.
“Mr. Conrad, please don’t make things difficult for my wife. Earlier, we went to the cemetery to pay our respects to Mr. Alvin. The conditions there weren’t great, so we thought of relocating him to a better resting place. It was purely out of good intentions. We’ve already chosen a new site, and that’s why we temporarily moved him. We just didn’t get a chance to inform Lillian about it…”
Before Peter could finish, Conrad raised a hand slightly, his eyelids lifting just enough to cut him off.
“I only asked one question-where is Alvin’s urn?”
Peter understood immediately. No matter their intentions or reasoning, Conrad only cared about the outcome.
“It’s at John’s place. We’ve already coordinated with the cemetery staff, and the new location will be ready tomorrow. If Lillian hadn’t gotten so emotional earlier, we were planning to show her.”
“To John’s place,” Conrad ordered without a second thought, rolling down the car window as he directed the driver to start driving.
The group left Helen and Peter standing there, clearly more focused on retrieving Alvin’s urn than wasting time arguing.
Helen broke out in a cold sweat. Once everyone had left, she collapsed into Peter’s arms.
“Did you see that? Did you see how she didn’t defend me at all? She even wanted to use Conrad to get rid of me! Someone like her dares to call herself my daughter? No! We can’t let them go to John’s place. My mother is still in Lillian’s hands!”
Helen scrambled toward the car as she spoke. Left with no other choice, Peter could only follow her.
Lillian had already suspected that Helen wouldn’t suddenly decide to relocate her father’s grave without a reason. It was probably John and his family stirring things up.
What made it laughable was that when her father had been buried, his assets were frozen, and John hadn’t been willing to spend a dime on the funeral. It was Lillian’s grandmother and Frank who had scraped together the money for it.
Back then, she hadn’t been able to give her father a grand funeral, and now Helen was trying to play the hero.
Returning to the small villa of John’s family, Lillian felt an icy chill seep into her bones.
Conrad had never been to this place before, but with his license plate, no one in City N would dare stop him.
John’s family was blissfully unaware of what was about to happen. The thought of Helen taking Alvin’s urn and imagining how that little brat Lillian would panic over it was downright amusing to them. They were sitting around, complimenting Sophia’s new clothes while trash-talking Lillian.
“She says she’s with Conrad, but I bet she’s lying to us!”
“Exactly! She was trending for so long, and no one came to help her. Even if she has some connection, it’s probably just a one-night thing with Conrad she’s using to flaunt.” Grace, still seething over the humiliation their family had endured before, chimed in. “Now that your dad has seen the light, you don’t have to worry about Mark pestering you again!”
The mention of this made Fanny furious. It had clearly been Lillian who went to see Mark, yet now their father had shifted his attention to her. She was his real daughter, after all!
When Conrad’s convoy drove straight into the small villa, their housekeeper jumped in shock.
“Ma’am, there are guests at the door-”
Before she could finish, the bodyguards barged in, pushing her aside.
Grace, who had been applying a face mask, nearly leaped out of her chair, thinking it was one of John’s debt collectors.
“Who are you people?!”
Fanny stood up to speak, but then she saw Conrad step out of the car-followed by Lillian.
“Mom!” Fanny screamed, her voice shrill.
Grace’s face mask almost slipped off in shock. She yanked it off entirely in a panic. “Conrad? Mr. Conrad?! Stop standing around and go get your father!”
Fanny nodded and hurried upstairs.
As Lillian stepped out of the car, her gaze fell on the place that felt like a waking nightmare to her. She strode quickly into the house and got straight to the point.
“Where’s my dad?”
Grace responded with irritation, “Your dad’s been dead for ages. What are you asking me for?”
“Don’t play dumb, Grace! Helen already spilled the beans. Where did you all put my dad?”
Lillian had no patience left to play games with these people.
Grace was about to argue, but Conrad cut her off with a cold command, “Find it.”
The bodyguards immediately began rummaging through the house, flipping things over as if it were a crime scene. Grace was powerless to stop them.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Don’t touch that-it’s expensive luxury stuff!”
“John! John, get down here and see what’s happening!”
John came rushing downstairs, nearly losing a slipper in the process.
“Mr. Conrad, if you were coming, you could’ve given us a heads-up,” he said, forcing a smile as he watched the bodyguards tear through the house.
Conrad didn’t even glance at him.
Andrew asked directly, “Where’s Alvin’s urn?”
John hesitated, still trying to come up with an excuse, but Lillian had already headed to the storage room opposite the first-floor bathroom. That had been her room once. She figured this was the most likely place.
When she opened the door, her breath caught.
Her father’s urn was indeed there.
But the room was a wreck. The bedding she’d left behind had been shredded into strips. The family portrait on the wall was full of holes and defaced with bright red X marks.
The urn had been carelessly tossed onto the floor, with strange charms of indeterminate color plastered all over it.
Lillian felt a surge of blood rush to her head, her vision going red with fury.
She darted forward, scooped up the urn, and ripped off the mess of charms stuck to it.
When Conrad arrived, what he saw was Lillian kneeling on the ground, furiously wiping at the urn with her hands.
Even though Conrad had no personal attachment to Alvin, something about the sight of her like this made his chest tighten uncomfortably.
John followed, trying to explain, “It’s, uh, when we brought my brother-in-law’s ashes back earlier, and a master said there might be bad luck, so we had the charms put on it. Tomorrow’s supposed to be a good day to move it, and, uh, we didn’t want anyone to know about-”
Lillian turned sharply, cutting him off mid-sentence. Her glare froze the words in his throat.
John had never seen Lillian look at him like that-with an expression of pure hatred, as though he were already dead to her.