Remarried Wife: Mr. Ex, We Will Never Reconcile!-Chapter 88: Vera Sheridan, Let Me Beg You Once More
The civil affairs bureau arranged a special window for them.
As soon as Vera Sheridan walked in, she saw Ian Kane.
He was sitting on a brown leather sofa, dressed in a black suit and wearing a black mask, occasionally letting out weak coughs.
Vera glanced disdainfully and headed towards the window. Elias Crowe walked out from the side and met her, "Ma’am, President Kane was caught in the rain all night and still has a fever. He probably has pneumonia again."
"Why does he keep asking you to help him play the sympathy card? Aren’t you tired of this act? I’m sick of hearing it." She mocked him with a blank expression.
Elias Crowe, "..."
It was quite an insight into what was called a "cemented heart."
Vera went to the window, but there was no staff member in sight. She raised her wrist to check the time; there were still ten minutes left until the appointment.
She waited quietly.
His trachea itching, Ian Kane covered his mouth and bent over to cough violently, tears welling up in his eyes. He looked at Vera, who was indifferent, engrossed in her phone, and remembered how she used to make soup for him and remind him to take medicine.
The corners of the man’s eyes were reddened, almost bleeding.
His Adam’s apple moved, "Vera, I’m begging you one more time."
Vera raised an eyebrow and met his gaze from a distance.
The man removed his mask, revealing a thin and haggard face, his eyes pleading, his voice deep, "Don’t divorce me."
Vera glanced at him coldly and couldn’t be bothered to say a word.
Ian Kane’s expression darkened, the pressure in the room dropping to an extreme low.
Elias Crowe and two bodyguards stood by the wall. He quietly lifted his eyelids and saw Ian’s gaze locked onto Vera, his fingers constantly rubbing the wedding ring on his ring finger.
His angry emotions were nearly at a breaking point, like a storm about to break.
Vera vaguely sensed something was amiss.
Ian Kane took out a pack of cigarettes, extracted one, placed it in his mouth, and lit it with a flare of his lighter.
Under the dome lights, his pale skin looked even more distinguished.
Through the rising smoke, he looked at her, "Vera, I admit my mistake. I knelt in the pouring rain all night; what more do you want?"
Vera furrowed her brows, a face like an old man on the subway absorbed in his phone, "Ian Kane, where did you learn this? Do you think kneeling will soften my heart and make me forgive you?"
"Even if you were an emperor, it’s not the Qing Dynasty anymore!"
Ian Kane bit the end of his cigarette, tilting his chin slightly, and spoke indifferently, "Then what do you want me to do?"
Vera thought he was being unreasonable, "Come over here and finalize the divorce papers!"
Ian Kane’s eyes darkened, letting out a light sneer as he glanced at Elias Crowe, giving him a signal.
Elias Crowe picked up the phone and dialed a number.
"Hello, I would like to file an official report against Owen Sheridan, the chief architect of the Kane Group’s Cloudcrest Hotel project. He, in pursuit of several innovative designs, has cut corners and engaged in bribery, disregarding safety and quality..."
Hearing this, Vera was stunned in place.
After Elias finished speaking, she turned to look at Ian Kane.
The man sat on the sofa by the wall, legs crossed, cigarette dangling from his mouth, narrowing his eyes at her with an air of superiority.
She scoffed, "Ian Kane, you’re bluffing."
Owen was upright and kind, he would never do such a thing.
Ian Kane took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked the ash, signaling to Elias Crowe.
Elias, having just ended his call, stepped forward, "Ma’am, the prosecution will quickly verify and take Chief Engineer Sheridan to cooperate with the investigation. We have a complete chain of evidence."
"Earlier there was even a worker who attempted to commit suicide over the corner-cutting issue, President Kane suppressed the matter, publicly explaining it as a personal affair..."
Vera remembered the worker protesting by threatening to jump, but she still couldn’t believe it was related to Owen!
She grabbed her phone and dialed Owen, but soon a mechanical female voice came through, devoid of emotion.
Owen’s phone was off.
Soon after, she received a call from Owen’s girlfriend, and a tearful voice came from the other end, "Sister, someone in uniform just came and took Owen, what should we do?"
Elias Crowe had just made a call, and the prosecution had already come to take him away. It was clearly a pre-arranged plan by Ian Kane.
Vera soothed Carla Thorne and hung up, her eyes fixed on Ian Kane.
"Ian Kane, you deliberately reported Owen to buy time, didn’t you? I’ll expose the video of you cheating right now!" Saying this, she prepared to call Maeve Holloway.
At that moment, Elias placed a tablet on the counter and played a video.
In the video, Owen opened a suitcase revealing neatly stacked gold bars, gleaming brightly...
The middle-aged man sitting across from him was someone she had seen on the news.
Owen’s actions looked like bribery.
Vera was momentarily stunned.
Ian Kane propped his elbow on the sofa armrest, tilting his chin slightly, and slowly exhaled two puffs of smoke, "Vera, all these years I’ve treated Owen as my own brother. When he graduated from college, I gave him projects to hone his skills, and spent heavily to buy him international awards to enhance his profile."
"If he’s involved in bribery, I could even cover it up for him."
Vera never knew the awards Owen received were bought through Ian Kane’s connections; Owen himself didn’t know either.
She didn’t even know if Owen was truly guilty of bribery.
Ian Kane stood up and walked toward her, "You forced my hand."
"As long as you behave and go back to being Mrs. Kane, I can continue to cover for him."
Vera glared at him coldly, then turned and walked towards the door.
She needed to get to the bottom of this.
Ian Kane watched her back, a slight smirk on his lips, "Vera, I have the power to send him in and to get him out. Owen’s fate is in your hands."
"With me, he can easily achieve a leap in social class, don’t be ungrateful."
Owen’s girlfriend’s family is the leading clothing enterprise in Southedge, and in Ian Kane’s view, they valued him because of his connection to him as a brother-in-law.
Vera didn’t turn back.
In the courtyard of the civil affairs bureau, Maeve Holloway saw her coming out and rushed over excitedly, but was quickly halted by the look on her face.
"Vera, what happened?"
Vera blinked, "Ian Kane reported Owen for bribery related to an engineering project, and Owen has been taken away... I need to find out the truth."
Maeve was shocked, also unwilling to believe it, "Impossible, Owen is such an idealistic person, how could he do something like that!"
Owen and Vera are fraternal twins, born just ten minutes apart.
The siblings’ personalities are completely opposite.
Vera is sensitive and meticulous, while Owen is cheerful and laid-back, a fiery and just youth who even as an adult loves watching One Piece, with dreams of becoming a police officer since childhood.
Due to their mother’s criminal record, he couldn’t take the civil service exam and studied architecture instead.
Maeve drove Vera to the district prosecutor’s office.
They were stopped by security at the iron gate, and after a round of questioning, Owen was still under investigation and couldn’t be allowed to see family members.
Maeve Holloway looked at her phone, "I need to ask my lawyer friend how I can see Owen."
Just as she finished speaking, the sound of a car engine came from not far away, and a black Rolls-Royce Gus drove towards them.
"It’s Senior Grant’s car." Maeve’s eyes lit up.
This distinguished figure was more professional than any of her lawyer friends and, furthermore, powerful.
Vera Sheridan looked over.
The Gus quickly arrived beside them, and as it stopped, the rear car door was pushed open from the inside.
Noah Grant got out of the car, dressed in a suit and leather shoes, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, walking towards them with long strides.
Seeing him, Vera inexplicably felt a sense of security.
The man stood before her, his tall figure casting a shadow overhead, enclosing her in a fair space.
"I’ve heard about Owen’s situation." Noah Grant said in a deep voice, "I’ve made arrangements, and you can go in to see him now."
Maeve was taken aback; she hadn’t said anything yet, and didn’t expect him to know in advance.
Vera looked up at him, unable to think too much, and blurted out, "Thank you."
Noah Grant nodded slightly, stepping aside, "You can take my car in first."
With that, he led the way to the car door, opening the rear door.
Maeve helped Vera into the car, carefully noting that Noah Grant shielded her from hitting her head on the door frame.
A gentleman, attentive.
After the three got in the car, the electric gate at the prosecutor’s entrance slowly opened, and the Gus drove in.
...
Vera soon saw Owen.
Earlier in the morning, before he and Carla Thorne got out of bed, there was a knock on the door.
Before being taken away, he hastily put on jeans and a white T-shirt. Now his hair was a bit messy, and he had a stubble around his mouth. Looking at Vera, his face was full of confusion.
"Sister, I really don’t know anything about the corner-cutting. The incident where that worker threatened to jump off the building, everyone knows, brother-in-law handled it publicly and said it was for love troubles. Now they are telling me that he discovered the corner-cutting, which is why he threatened to jump. I didn’t know, and I haven’t bribed anyone." Owen stated firmly.
From his demeanor, Vera knew he wasn’t lying, and she felt a bit relieved, "Owen, did you give a box of gold bars to a certain official?"
Owen frowned, "Yes."
"But that wasn’t a bribe."
Noah Grant interjected, "Can you explain the whole story clearly?"
Owen fell into recollection, "It was a month ago. My Cloudcrest Hotel project needed an imported environmentally friendly material, a rare resource that required a special material import cooperation deposit to the regulatory agency."
"It was brother-in-law who asked me to take care of it. To avoid bank transactions leaving traces and tipping off competitors about the project’s core secrets, the payment had to be made in gold bars."
"I was busy with the project at the time, working overtime day and night, reluctant to go personally. Brother-in-law said that my appearance as the chief designer would show sincerity and demonstrate my responsibility and ability."
"Sis, I didn’t know why the person who received the gold bars would claim that I was bribing."
At this, Vera suddenly realized that Owen was set up by Ian Kane.
The gold bars were transferred through his hands but were not meant as a bribe, yet Ian Kane twisted it into "evidence of bribery."
The official who received the gold bars was likely bribed or coerced by Ian Kane to provide false testimony.
Vera looked at her brother, who had always treated Ian Kane as an elder brother, and her nose tingled with emotion, "Owen, you were deceived by Ian Kane. He’s the one who had Elias Crowe call and report you for bribery in real name! They did it right in front of me."
Earlier, Maeve had warned her about her impending divorce from Ian Kane, yet Owen was still tightly bound to Ian.
At the time, she thought that Owen, as an architectural designer and Ian, complemented each other, that Ian couldn’t do without him and wouldn’t harm him in any way.
Owen’s pupils dilated, looking incredulous, "Sis, what are you saying..."
Vera’s eyes reddened with anger towards Ian Kane, "Owen, all those signs of infidelity before, they were all true. You’ve been so busy lately, I never got the chance to tell you. Today, while I was divorcing him, he used your situation to threaten me."
"You delivered the gold bars a month ago, just when I started suspecting his infidelity. He was setting you up back then so he could trap me today."
Owen refused to believe it; that Ian Kane had truly been unfaithful, betraying Vera whom he deeply loved, furthermore using such tactics against them!
The three of them had been relying on each other as family!
For seven years, Owen had been close to Ian Kane like a brother!
Owen, feeling defeated and agitated, rubbed his head, then after a long time, lifted his destitute but handsome face, asking Vera with red eyes, "Will he really make me go to jail? I don’t believe... Sis, I don’t believe he’s so heartless."
Vera gave a bitter smile, "That car accident was all orchestrated by him. To impress me, he even risked his life, so how could he be merciful to us?"
Owen was stunned, his eyes widening.
Noah Grant also froze.
The man’s deep eyes swirled with a mix of emotions.
Inside the room, silence reigned for a moment.
After a while, Noah Grant stood up, handing Owen a cigarette and a lighter.
Owen, "Thanks, man."
With trembling hands, he lit the cigarette, taking a few deep drags.
Vera calmed down as well, "Owen, don’t worry. White won’t be turned into black. I won’t let you be convicted!"
Owen raised his head, his lips trembling, "Sis, don’t compromise with him because of me. He knows how much you despise infidelity, yet—damn bastard!"
"When I get out, I’ll end him!" he vowed vehemently.
As he finished, he punched his own head a few times, "I should never have constantly praised him to you, blowing in your ear!"
Pushing her into the fire pit.
Owen could imagine how shattered and hurt Vera was when she discovered Ian Kane’s true infidelity.
Vera consoled him a few words.
According to the judicial process, they couldn’t keep Owen out of jail for now.
...
In the villa, Ian Kane reclined on a sofa before the floor-to-ceiling window, a cooling patch on his forehead, wearing a deep blue silk robe. Below the V-neck, the scar from the car accident was prominently visible.
His cheeks were flushed, lips pale, and an IV in his left hand.
Elias Crowe stood not far away, reporting to him, "President Kane, the assessment agency has confirmed the same account, saying the signature on The Glimmer Garden transfer contract is yours. It seems Attorney Grant has made arrangements, and The Glimmer Garden is currently undergoing the transfer process, leaving us with no alternatives."
With these words, Ian Kane kicked the coffee table over.
A mess scattered everywhere.
He pulled out the needle, sat upright, his face dark, "What kind of upright person, fairness, and justice—Noah Grant can still use his influence for personal gain!"
Elias Crowe, bracing himself, added fuel, "I heard Attorney Grant bought The Glimmer Garden to tear it down, the demolition company is on its way to the hill."
"It’s expected to be done in two or three days."
Upon hearing this, veins bulged on Ian Kane’s forehead, the imagery of his meticulously cultivated and trimmed white rose wall flooding his mind, his chest heaving with rage.
He picked up his phone, dialing Vera’s number.
As the call connected, the voice that answered from the other end belonged to Noah Grant, "What is it?"
