Leonardo came over silently with his usual grave face.
Summer smirked and threw the subpoena document on the table.
“That means all I have to do is to stay in this birdcage and wait for the trial. Then I can stand in the dock so all of you, the Emerson family can slander me, isn’t it?”
Leonardo stood in front of her intimidatingly and said matter-of-factly, “That won’t…”
Summer was startled for a moment.
He stared at her and repeated what he said. “That won’t happen.”
“Whatever.”
She scowled. She no longer trusted what he said. At that moment, she refused to blindly trust Leonardo. She had been wondering since last night why Leonardo suddenly came home. It turned out that it was because the court would serve her a subpoena today.
…
After breakfast, Leonardo headed out again. He could be going to work or the hospital. He always had unfinished business.
Summer stood by the vast glass window on the first floor, watching as Leonardo got into the car. She then took out her mobile phone and called Jessica.
“Jessica, I need a favor from you.”
“Just tell me.”
Jessica had never said no to her, and Summer would never ask for anything excessive.
“I need journalists or even paparazzi at Leonardo’s mansion.”
“I have a plan.” Summer paused, then continued, “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”
Hearing that, Jessica did not ask further. The call ended, and Summer sat quietly for a while. She suddenly started to smash things up in the room. Whatever she could get her hands on, she would throw on the floor, and the noise attracted the maids’ attention.
The room turned into a war zone. She grabbed a table lamp and was about to smash it to the floor. Her grim face and the determination in her eyes made the maids think of Leonardo. She then threw the table lamp on the floor with force, and it shattered. She looked up, her eyes devoid of emotion.
“Don’t come in,” she ordered grimly.
The maids were too scared to go in. They stayed put and nervously watched Summer as they were afraid that she would do something that could hurt herself. If something happened to her, they would be in trouble, so they tried to calm Summer down.
“Mrs. Emerson, stay cool. We won’t come in.”
Just then, Ava heard the commotion and came over. Seeing the mess in the room, Ava was shocked.
“Mrs. Emerson, what happened? If there’s a problem, please calm down first. Should I call the young master so the two of you can talk?”
“Don’t call him!” Summer took two steps forward, carefully avoiding the sharp debris on the floor. “Leave me alone and don’t call him. I’m very upset now. I don’t want to see all of you here. Get out!”
Ava was in a predicament. “Mrs. Emerson…”
“You can go away as well!” She frowned as she looked at Ava.
Ava had never seen Summer so aggressive before. This was the first time Summer had gone ape since the day she worked in the mansion. Thinking of the recent events, she could understand what was on Summer’s mind.
“Get out,” Ava instructed the maids and brought them out of the mansion and into the garden.
The weather was cold, and Summer stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the maids who were shivering outside in the garden. She noticed that a bodyguard was on the phone; he was probably calling Leonardo. Her time was running out, so she went into the closet and found extra thick winter sportswear and a BB cape. She then stuffed her laptop, household register, passport, and everything else into a backpack. Following that, she carried the bag on her back and went downstairs.
She first went to the kitchen, behind which was a store with a back door. The maids usually used the back door for loading food stock, but even this back door was guarded.
Summer put the bag in the store and found a tin of gasoline. She locked the door, then went to the living room and locked the front door as well. She did not know why Leonardo kept a tin of gasoline in the house, but right then, it just came in handy.
She carried the gasoline and went upstairs. Starting from the corridor, she started to pour the gasoline on the floor all the way down to the living room. She then lit a lighter and peered over at the door. Outside, the bodyguards had sensed that something was terribly wrong, and they were knocking on the door forcefully.
“Mrs. Emerson! Mrs. Emerson! Are you all right?”
Summer hesitated no more. She tossed the lighter onto the sofa, and it ignited the gasoline on the sofa, starting a fire. The fire followed the trail of gasoline and spread to the first floor in no time.
She quickly returned to the storeroom behind the kitchen, found her backpack, and hid behind the door. As the fire started from the sofa in the living room, which was the center of the mansion, the place turned into an inferno in about seven or eight minutes.
The bodyguards started to smash the front door to perform forced entry, and some bodyguards hacked the back door too. There were fewer bodyguards guarding the back door. Soon, they successfully forced open the door and went in.
The Grandpa Emerson incident had gone viral online, and every maid, as well as bodyguard in the mansion, knew about it. Summer was only a twenty-something-year-old girl. With such great pressure, her coming apart at the seams and trying to kill herself was entirely natural. So, the bodyguards thought Summer was trying to kill herself by setting the mansion on fire.
Once they rushed into the mansion, Summer seized the opportunity and sneaked out while they were not looking.
Leonardo’s mansion was situated on the hillside. Summer suspected that when he built the mansion, he had also bought the surrounding land because there were no other buildings in the area. This had also made it easy for her to escape.
She hid in the forest, watching from afar as the bodyguards and maids ran into the mansion. But due to the furious fire, they had to run back out. By now, the fire had risen to the top of the mansion, licking the building on all sides.
Just then, two cars stopped in front of the mansion, and groups of journalists came out. They frantically took photographs and interviewed the bodyguards and maids.
It was a scene of utter chaos.
Summer smirked. She then turned around and went down the hill following a jungle trail.
She had achieved what she wanted.
Her patience had run out after twenty years in the Jarrett family. She grinned and bore it at the time because she still valued Karen as her mother. When the unfortunate happened to Grandpa Emerson, she still put up with everything because she trusted Leonardo, but they had all let her down.
Perhaps Leonardo was not lying; he would not let her stand in the dock and allow the Emersons to slander her. However, she did not want to become a beggar of mercy, leaving her fate in the hands of a man.