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'What if… what Chloe said a few weeks ago was true? Dorothea has changed and wants to help us. What should I do if Chloe actually wins the bet?'

That question lingered in Vernon's mind more than he'd like it.

He was unsure whether he would call it a blessing or not, but he certainly disliked the fact that there was a chance of him losing the bet against Chloe.

He was 100% sure he'd win it because, in his mind, Dorothea was a monster no less than Vincent. She was an abuser, and her target was the innocent Little Vernon, who knew nothing about this world and his fault for deserving such beating from his mother at such an early age.

So he was certain that a monster like Dorothea would not change her view in such a short time, and Vernon refused to believe that Dorothea could be good.

She hurt him so badly that he never felt any motherly love from that monster. He found comfort from his Big sis Chloe instead, and now this old woman wanted to crawl back into his life with Chloe?

Oh, that would not happen!

'Fuck, this is bothering me now,' Vernon complained. 'Did Chloe somehow tell Dorothea about our bet? That would explain how Dorothea hasn't told Vincent about my relationship with Chloe.'

'But why? I don't think Chloe is that dumb. She may be kind, but she's not stupid enough to get manipulated by that old witch for the second time,' Vernon wondered. 'Besides, she has had no contact with anyone for the past three weeks. She's only going out accompanied by that military-trained bodyguard as a driver, so her action throughout the day is very predictable. She also has no phone. So there's no way she could contact Dorothea.'

…

'Are you telling me that Dorothea is actually trying to help us? Trying to help me?' Vernon's chest felt heavy as he thought about the idea of meeting his estranged mother. 'No fucking way. There's no way that bitch has no malicious intention.'

'I just have to prove Chloe wrong, so I don't need to sit face-to-face with that old bitch!'

Thus, determined to kick that dying witch away from his new life with his beloved, Vernon asked his Big bro, "If that old woman actually disappears, then there must be a reason before she left, right? Did something happen to Big bro when you talk to her?"

"I don't think so," Vincent replied. "The last time I talked with her was in this office, with you. Do you remember how she tried to frame you and pit us against each other? Yeah, that time when I showed video of me beating Chloe as lesson."

….

"Then, did something happen after she disappeared?"

"Yes," Vincent's eyes darkened as he answered. Vincent rarely took things seriously at work and usually weed out problems without thinking twice.

But he looked so serious now, so there must be a big problem after Dorothea was out of his radar.

"Dorothea, that old bitch, dares to withhold three months of scholarship money from the Gray foundation. She directly instructed the manager of Gray foundation to allocate the three months' money somewhere else, and now I can't reverse it due to complicated bureaucracy," Vincent said. He really hated to be put in a tight position like this.

He was always in control, but when something irreversible like this happened, he got easily frustrated and distracted with everything else.

"I don't know why that old bitch doing this. Shouldn't she be happy that I allowed her to live for so long? I could've killed her easily if I wanted to, but letting her live is the biggest blessing she could get, really."

"Can you just use your own money first, Big bro?" Vernon asked.

"No, again, the bureaucracy is complicated. I can do that, but it'd take another month to do, it's best to just wait it out."

Vincent darted his eyes back at his phone, "And now, those ungrateful shits that got their scholarship money restrained for three months start protesting in social media, mostly twitter."

…

"I thought you don't care about what people said, Big bro," Vernon commented.

He actually wondered about this one as well. Vincent always said that he didn't give a shit to what people said outside, but Vernon knew very well that Vincent had a professional PR team that worked nonstop to keep his image perfect in public.

So it was obvious that Vincent actually cared a lot about what people thought of him.

"Tsk, I don't care about those twitter bastards. But Maria told me that their comments push the topic to be a top one trending, and many investors and business partners are speculating about what happened to me and the Gray foundation," Vincent said. "They start calling me over and over, asking the same thing, mostly about the stock and if everything is fine. Because the Gray foundation is proof that we are rich enough to send so many people to good schools, we even sent plenty to Harvard and Yale before."

Vernon was quite surprised that his Big bro knew very well about the domino effect that might happen because of this event set by Dorothea. It would definitely affect the public image of the Gray family. Some might assume that the company started having problems— big enough to stop them from sending scholarship money, at least, and that would also affect the stock.

Vernon wouldn't deny Vincent's mind. He was smart, brilliant, in fact. And Vernon would never be able to defeat him academically when he was young.

But his Big brother also had a weakness, which was his mental instability that often clouded his judgment, especially when it involved his ego. Whether it was his insatiable desire to look perfect in front of the public, or his crazy fetish to abuse women, especially his own wife.

The more Vernon talked with his big brother as an adult, the more he realized how flawed Vincent was.

'And that means I have a lot of room to exploit his instability.'