Family on Their Knees Heart Turned to Ice novel Chapter 1469

She had to rely entirely on others for even her most basic needs.

Of course, Bella still harbored suspicions that Debbie might have conspired with a third party. Could someone else have drained the accounts and vanished without Debbie even realizing she'd been played?

Both Lucas and Bella arrived at this conclusion simultaneously, their sharp gazes locking onto the woman in the hospital bed.

"With stakes this high, I didn't dare trust an outsider. I only used Lucas because he owed me a hand. If he broke the rules, I could easily testify and throw him straight in prison."

A cold sweat broke out across Lucas's back. This vicious shrew was terrifyingly ruthless.

She had actually fully prepared to send him to prison?

That crossed a massive line.

But none of that mattered anymore. The only question that mattered was: where was the money?

The money was completely gone!

Where did it go?

Their elaborate schemes, their guaranteed wealth—now that the moment to divide the spoils had finally arrived, where was the payout?

A suffocating silence blanketed the three of them.

They wanted the cash, but right now, it was glaringly obvious that not a single one of them was walking away with a dime.

Bella collapsed heavily into her chair. "Who else besides you could possibly authorize a transfer out of your account?"

Debbie didn't answer. A crushing, suffocating wave of despair welled up inside her chest.

Bella let out a hollow, bitter laugh. "No need to ask. Who else but Sebastian Blake? Hahaha... Who would have thought? You were perfectly willing to carve up the cash taken straight from his own pocket to share with us, just to spite him. But in the end, the money bypassed us entirely and went right back to Sebastian. Turns out, your blood ties and that twisted mother-son bond actually paid off at the crucial moment."

Debbie's face drained of all color, turning a ghastly, deathly pale. Alongside the crushing despair came a horrifying truth she desperately wanted to deny.

Lucas stared blankly. "So, I did all of this... I let myself be ordered around by you two... and in the end, I get absolutely nothing? Forty million. Where is my forty million?"

That ruthless bastard. The old patriarch of the Blake family had never been this cold-blooded. Clearly, Sebastian took after her entirely.

Bella cast an icy glance at the broken woman on the bed. She had finally regained a fraction of her composure. Despite being entirely consumed by a tidal wave of bitter resentment, her razor-sharp mind accepted the reality: this money was never coming back to her.

Since the cash was a lost cause, she couldn't risk wasting another second in this room. What if... what if the worst happened?

If the bodyguards caught her trespassing, she would never be able to talk her way out of it.

She violently snapped her laptop shut and marched straight toward the door.

After two brisk steps, she suddenly froze. "Pretend this entire night never happened. From this second forward, we all go back to our own miserable lives. We never contact each other again."

Without the massive payout, Bella wanted absolutely zero part in this toxic fallout.

She demanded they pretend it never happened because, unless someone possessed hard evidence, she would deny her involvement until her dying breath.

With that, Bella reached for the door handle and yanked it open. Out of the corner of her eye, staring directly at the floor outside the room, she saw a pair of immaculate, black men's dress shoes...