America 1982-Chapter 151 - 54: You Can Always Trust the Methods of a Scoundrel

Sophia stood by, passing a sympathetic look and a tissue to Holly.

Holly took the tissue, her voice choked with emotion as she thanked Sophia. Then, with a pained expression, she sat in front of Tommy and continued, "Tommy, I can’t take it anymore. I’m about to go insane."

"So if you had become my girlfriend back then, you would have gone mad even faster. That’s why I chose Renee," Tommy stood in front of Holly, gently pressed her head against his abdomen, and tenderly stroked her long hair:

"Look at Renee. In three days, she’s cooperated four times easily, completely unaffected, and they’ve shown no interest in digging deeper into her. Everyone’s clear now — my beautiful, cute, and simple girlfriend knows nothing about what she’s done for Actor Corporation, firmly believing that Actor Corporation is just helping others. How perfect."

"I can deal with being followed by unknown people, getting late-night calls, having my trash searched, but now... they’ve dug up my high school experiences. Every high school student has their own life, but those memories should be personal. I don’t want others to know about them and turn them into public memories," Holly said with pain and conflict in her voice:

"Do you know what I mean?"

"I do," Tommy said calmly, looking ahead, his hand moving through Holly’s silky hair: "I know that kind of pain."

Holly closed her eyes, murmuring softly, "You understand me, right?"

"Are you saying you understand that you’ve already contacted them and planned to meet them without a lawyer to ask them how to protect your personal privacy?" Tommy said with a hint of amusement in his voice: "I would advise you not to do that, Holly. Their only condition for keeping your secrets is for you to spill everything you know about Actor, to provide the testimony they want. Other than that, you won’t stand a chance to persuade them."

Holly had her eyes closed, enjoying the moment of tenderness when she suddenly opened them and slowly moved her head away from Tommy’s body, looking up in shock at Tommy, who was giving her a warm smile:

"How did you know?"

Tommy took two steps back, sat on the office desk with his body leaning forward, hands crossed in front of him, and smiled at the blonde across from him, shock written all over her face: "What made you think that meeting them would make me forgive and indulge you? You’ve contributed a lot to this company, and I appreciate that, Holly. But I hope you understand, there are some things you just shouldn’t try."

"How did you know? I’m asking you how you knew about my plans to meet them behind the lawyer’s back!" Holly raised her voice, staring intently into Tommy’s eyes, and demanded loudly: "How do you manage to know everything! Answer me! Are you listening in on me? Are you?!"

Tommy pulled out a cigarette and offered one to Holly: "No, don’t worry, I’m not wiretapping you. I wouldn’t make such a mistake at this time. Unauthorized surveillance of anyone is illegal, and I cannot afford to break any laws right now, especially since this is a legal dispute between two corporations, not a spy war between the United State America and the Soviet Union."

Hearing Tommy’s firm statement that he was not wiretapping, Holly’s expression relaxed quite a bit, and after hesitating for a moment, she took the cigarette: "You still haven’t said how you did it?"

Tommy didn’t rush to answer but looked toward Sophia, waving his hand at her. Sophia rolled her eyes silently and left the garage, leaving only Holly and Tommy inside.

After Sophia had left, Tommy chuckled self-deprecatingly: "I don’t even know how I did it myself. All I can say is, maybe these are the tactics of Ms. Delia Case. I have no idea if the detectives lurking nearby belong to Lotus Corporation or Actor Corporation. All I know is that unless you’re certain the person is from Lotus, agreeing to any of their questions without knowing their true identity could lead to Delia getting wind of your possible betrayal of Actor Corporation, which would then be conveyed to me, and it would be up to me to address this potential risk."

"Are you saying that those bastards driving people insane outside might be employed by Actor Corporation? You’re using the same tactics on your classmates, teammates, friends as you use on your opponents?!" Holly erupted upon hearing Tommy’s words:

"We’ve worked so hard for Actor Corporation only to be tracked 24/7 and harassed, and in return, you test our loyalty with these bastard moves!"

"No, no, no, I’m not worried about your loyalty, Holly, I’m not worried," Tommy said as he picked up the lighter and flicked it alive, holding it to Holly’s lips. "You wouldn’t betray me, betray Actor, over such small matters. I’ve never doubted that."

Holly lit her cigarette and, upon hearing Tommy’s words, she looked down, laughing ironically at herself. "I have no confidence in myself, otherwise, why would I agree to meet with the other side? Don’t be too optimistic, Tommy, don’t be so full of confidence in me."

"Of course, I’m full of confidence in you, Holly, I can even give you the power to stand up to their dirty tricks," Tommy said, looking affectionately at Holly:

"Do you remember the women’s campus organization you started? Remember how each of the four of you received a sum of money? If anyone gets any testimony from you four that harms Actor Corporation, not only will you destroy Actor, but you’ll also destroy your own future. In court, Delia will tell everyone that you established that organization behind my back, taking advantage of my trust in you, and swindled the company’s donations only to keep the money for yourself..."

"Bastard! You’re the one who told me to do all that!" As Holly listened to what Tommy said, she raised her hand, intending to slap him, but Tommy caught her wrist and delivered a slap across Holly’s face with a sharp crack!

Stunned by the slap, Holly stood there momentarily, perhaps too used to being deceived by Tommy’s frequent speeches about respecting and helping women, which had made her forget that this bastard had never truly had a label of respecting women in his bones—only the four words ’interest above all else.’ This slap was a harsh reminder.

"You’re the damn co-founder of Actor Corporation! Co-founder! Dammit! And you’re worried at this critical juncture about a petty matter like your reputation being tarnished because someone slept with your cousin in high school? You think if they find out it will have some serious consequence? You think it’ll start the damn Third World War? I’ll tell you! Other than making you scared shitless, nothing is going to happen!" Tommy glared at Holly with fierce eyes, snarling softly: 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"I thought you were a smart woman, Holly, I always thought so, but damn your performance really disappoints me. You may indeed be somewhat clever, but you don’t have the guts! Your cousin knows, your family knows, so what if they know? As long as we deal with Lotus, you can take the money home and even pay off your cousin to degrade her pitiful boyfriend with you willingly. But damn, because of you, if Actor loses, guess what will happen? Your petty concerns will make you the town’s recognized slut, that’s inevitable. Then you can damn well say goodbye to Stanford University, and get ready for jail on charges like tax evasion. After that, with your looks, the best you could hope for is to work at an entertainment company as a mid-tier girl, or maybe at a strip club—that’s if I’m forgiving. Is it me being too gentle that made you think there would be no consequences to betraying Actor Corporation? Get real, girl!"

"You had already calculated everything that would happen, registered the women’s organization in my name, and then deceived us four fools into splitting that money..." Holly looked at Tommy, her voice filled with sorrow: "From start to finish, you never trusted anyone..."

Tommy glared at Holly: "All these goddamn tactics are their way of using such disgusting trivial matters to break you down! Until you’re so harried you submit! Do you think a lawsuit is just about the fucking lawyers arguing eloquently in court? No, it’s the pleasure the rich get from their money, how they can force us paupers to learn to betray, submit, and kneel in face of cash! When you think they’re covering up those trivial matters for you because you yielded, the opposite is true! You’ll only find out that you’ve lost even more! Now, think carefully about what the hell you’ll gain by betraying Actor. To keep a youthful indiscretion secret that no one gives a damn about even if it wasn’t?"

"You’re right, but... under their unceasing torment, those worries grow exponentially," Holly’s eyes flickered, slowly regaining her composure: "But their tactics are far inferior to yours, Tommy Hawk. You’ve succeeded in making me see clearly. Even if I weren’t clearheaded, I’d still be worried about betraying Actor and being sent to jail by you. From now on, you don’t have to worry about me leaking any secrets."

"I don’t mistrust you guys! I just know too well how you sweet little things who’ve never seen the real world will react to these shocks, so I use the same tactics beforehand to tie you tightly to me! Once we get through this, you’ll damn well realize why you came so close to giving up on Actor because of those idiotic threats!" Tommy pointed his finger at Holly, his gaze ice-cold:

"The secrets that those people can easily find aren’t really secrets! If it can be found, it means the secret is already known, and there’s no point in holding onto it any longer! Besides, I’m already damn well avenging us, making sure those from Lotus Corporation suffer even more than you are right now. We need to torment and destroy each other until someone on their side can’t take it anymore, until we find their real weak spot, and then turn them into our key witness! That’s the American way of investigation! Otherwise, do you think why there are many cases that are clearly evidence-based, but the plaintiff eventually withdraws? Because they can’t stand the pressure!"

Holly took a drag of her cigarette and looked at Tommy with a self-deprecating smile, asking, "Am I a disappointment to you?"

"If I were disappointed, I wouldn’t slap you," Tommy calmed himself down and opened his arms: "I hope I’ll never be disappointed by you, come here, come to daddy, let me ice your face."

"Will the people from Lotus Corporation ever go through something like this?" Holly looked down, flicked the ash off her cigarette, and finally tossed the whole cigarette away, then vigorously threw herself into Tommy’s arms, hugging his shoulders tightly, almost through gritted teeth she said: "Tommy, I don’t want to betray our Actor, but this torture, this constant wavering between betrayal and commitment, it’s too painful... Promise me, you’ll return this pain tenfold to the people at Lotus Corporation."

Tommy patted Holly’s back. "You can always trust a bastard’s methods."