Sign the Papers Mr. Langford novel Chapter 387

This woman knew exactly where to twist the knife.

She didn't blatantly say Vivian was wrong.

She claimed Vivian was hateful, sick, and emotionally unstable. She reframed professional objections into marital strife and reduced every calculated risk warning into the bitter complaints of a scorned woman.

By doing that, any further investigation by Wren would look like a daughter being driven by her dead mother's irrational grudge.

It was despicable.

But it was highly effective.

Because the dead couldn't defend themselves.

"Lydia." It was the first time Wren had ever called her by her first name in this house.

Lydia froze.

Wren's voice was completely level. "If my mother really was just emotionally unstable, you wouldn't be terrified of her desk. If it was just marital problems, you wouldn't have emptied Unit 3. If she only wrote out of anger, Langford Medical's archives wouldn't have missing pages, and Brightstone Consulting wouldn't have scrubbed every trace of their visitor logs."

Lydia's lips parted, but she couldn't find her voice.

"Now that you have a lawyer, Stellaris, and outsiders backing you up, this is how you speak to your elders?" Quentin snapped.

Wren shifted her gaze to him.

"When I was sixteen, did I go to Brightstone Consulting?"

Quentin's expression changed in a flash.

The shift was brief, but it didn't escape Mr. Lawson's trained eyes.

Lydia immediately lowered her head, terrified of giving herself away.

Wren kept pushing. "Did I go looking for The Cobalt Folder? And did you drag me out of that building?"

Quentin's jaw tightened.

"You had just lost your mother. Your mental state was fragile."

"I'm asking if it happened."

"You ran to some shady place, crying and begging strangers for things! If I hadn't taken you away, was I supposed to let you keep humiliating yourself?"

Hearing the word "humiliating," the hazy memories in Wren's mind finally clicked into place.

The elevator lobby, the gray walls, the damp smell of the stairwell.

She had clutched a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it, asking a woman with glasses if she had seen a blue folder. She had cried until her throat was raw, yet tried desperately to enunciate every word.

"Wren!"

"What was in The Cobalt Folder?"

Quentin shot to his feet, his chest heaving.

"There is no blue folder! It's all delusional nonsense your mother made up when she was sick! She refused to sign the paperwork, derailing so many partnerships and putting both the Whitakers and the Langfords in an impossible position. She spent her whole life wrapped up in her own self-righteousness, completely ignoring her husband and child!"

Smack.

Wren slammed a photo face-up onto the coffee table.

The photo showed Vivian standing in a conference room, wearing a white blouse, clutching a document, her gaze cool and unshakable.

Wren looked up at Quentin.

"You have no right to talk about her like that."

Her voice wasn't loud.

But it choked off whatever Quentin was going to say next.

Lydia stood up, crying, reaching out to grab Wren's hand.