At that mont everyone looked at him, he raised a hand and pointed straight at Jas. "You. Find the person you crossed. Whoever you insulted. Whoever you belittled. Whoever you disrespected find them."
Imdiately Jas swallowed hard. "But I don’t even know who I offended!"
Darnell slamd his hand on the table. "Then start rembering! Because if you don’t, we’re all finished."
The weight of their anger, their desperation, fell hard on Jas’s shoulders.
Ashcombe continued, "There’s only one reason the Victor family would move like this swift, silent, and with no second chances. They’re not doing this just to punish us. They’re making an example. And unfortunately, we’re caught in the crossfire."
"So what do we do?" another businessman asked, panic creeping into his voice.
"We apologize," Bartholow Ainsley said plainly. "To whoever it is. We find out exactly who Jas wronged, and we beg them. We go on our knees if we have to. We clear this up before it gets worse."
Jas looked around the table, no one was laughing anymore.
No one was smiling, they were all looking at him like he held the knife that stabbed them in the back.
And maybe... maybe he had, even if he didn’t an to.
He rubbed his temples. His thoughts were spinning. Who could it be? Who had the power to turn the Victors against him like this? Who had he offended that badly?
Who? as the n began to whisper and argue, one voice stood out: "You better rember, Jas. Because if you don’t, we all go down."
And Jas knew...This wasn’t about business anymore.
It was survival.
At that mont, Jas gave way.
He slumped back into his seat as though the floor had been ripped from under him.
His breath caught in his chest. His lips parted, but no sound ca out. He couldn’t believe what he had just rembered. Cora again.
That wasn’t possible, It couldn’t be.
His mind raced through the chaos of the last few days, rewinding every conversation, every expression, every detail he had ignored. It didn’t add up. Cora was just his ex-wife. A woman he had once believed he had the upper hand over, the sa woman he dismissed and betrayed without even blinking. But now... it felt like he had been playing with fire without realizing it, and now everything was burning.
At that mont he rubbed his temples, trying to shake off the growing fear crawling through his veins.
If it was true, what kind of relationship does Cora have with the Victor family? how is she connected to all this? his chest tightened.
And for the first ti, Jas felt sothing he hadn’t felt in years small. Very small.
"I think my ex wife Cora has sothing to do with this."
He said with a low voice.
Then ca the voice that snapped him back to reality. Firm, cold, and dangerously calm.
The man who had called him for the eting Mr. Black leaned forward. His eyes, once filled with business warmth, were now hard as steel.
"You know sothing," Black said sharply. "You’re telling the Victors pulled the strings, and now you’re telling Cora might be involved?"
Jas froze.
Black didn’t wait. "That’s it, isn’t it? You offended her. And she made one call. Just one call."
Jas shook his head slowly. "No... I an... I didn’t know... I didn’t think—"
"Don’t give us that nonsense!" Black snapped, slamming his palm on the table. "You didn’t think? You didn’t think? Jas, look at us! Our nas are on a blacklist! Our assets are about to be frozen. Our partnerships are disintegrating by the second—and you’re here telling us you didn’t think?"
Jas couldn’t respond. His mouth was dry.
Another man leaned in, voice lower, almost begging. "Who is she to the Victors? You must know. You were married to her. What connection does she have? Is she dating one of them? Is she their investor? Did you ss with their sister or sothing?"
At that mont Jas stared at them blankly. He didn’t have the answer. But the terrifying part was that deep down, sothing told him the answer was yes. Cora was no longer the woman he thought he knew.
She wasn’t his poor, handicapped wife who needed him to survive.
She was sothing else, soone else.
And then the question ca—the one Jas feared the most.
Mr. Black stood slowly, pointing a finger at him with deliberate weight.
"The lady you spoke ill about—the person you humiliated, disrespected... whoever it was that made the Victors move against us—you know who it is."
Jas looked up, silent.
"We need her," Black said, his voice now cold and resolute. "We need her. Imdiately."
He stepped closer.
"Tell us how we are going to see this person."
At that mont, Jas then raise his hands slightly, a gesture of both confusion and defense.
He didn’t want to give in so early because sothing this tells him he might be wrong, it’s not Cora.
"I don’t know what you’re all talking about," he said, his voice low but strained, almost cracking under the weight of the mont. "Just like the ceremony... I don’t even understand what happened there. One minute everything was set, and the next, the Victor pulled out. I didn’t do anything. I swear it."
Jas took a breath and continued, trying to steady himself, though his legs were already trembling beneath the table.
"I didn’t even get a hint. Nothing. Not a warning. Not a whisper. So when they changed their mind about the contract, I was as shocked as every other person sitting in this room."
He looked around again, this ti with more intensity, searching for just one face that didn’t doubt him but there was none.
"I don’t know what those other families did to get punished like that. I don’t know what offense they committed. I don’t even know what kind of power or connection would lead to sothing like this happening so fast, so clean, and so brutal..."
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