The Strange Groom's Cursed Bride-Chapter 67: Simple coincidences?

Pricillia’s nostrils flared, her anger simmering just beneath the surface. "You’re delusional if you think I’ll—"

"What would happen," the voice murmured, lowering its tone just barely, making it even more chilling, "if the Wildfires discovered you substituted one daughter for another?"

The words landed like poison, direct and devastating. Pricillia’s meticulously constructed world fractured around her.

There was no dramatic music. No gasps from Reno. Just silence, thick and suffocating.

Pricillia didn’t breathe. Couldn’t. Her world tilted on its axis, scrambling for purchase.

How did anyone know that? Her eyes darted to Reno, then to an invisible point where she envisioned the butler who had helped groom Alice. It couldn’t be her. No. She trusted her. Then back to Reno. It couldn’t be him either. He’s been with her for years.

Alice... A horrifying thought sparked in her mind. Was it her? Had she revealed herself?

No. That little wench was desperate for the money. She wouldn’t be that careless.

The voice seemed to smile through the static, a sinister hum. "Ah. I see I have your attention now."

"Who... are you?" she asked, her voice low and dangerous, barely a rasp, clawing for control.

"You have twenty-four hours to clean this up. Bail the people out. Get the files buried. The system is yours, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ll make it disappear." The voice was utterly confident, entirely devoid of doubt, speaking as if to a compliant subordinate.

She clutched the edge of her desk, her knuckles white against the dark wood. "This case is on every major network. It isn’t simple—"

"You’ve done harder," the voice cut in smoothly, a hint of something that sounded like admiration in its tone, yet utterly chilling in its implication. "Don’t insult us both."

Pricillia swallowed, her throat suddenly dry, her mind racing, calculating frantically.

Done harder? What exactly was the person referring to? She had done a lot of things in her career, buried many inconvenient truths for powerful clients. But what specifically was this person hinting at? Or... did they also know about how she... she had covered up the hit and run case for the Wildfires? The very incident that tied her to that family?

She stood up from her seat at once, a sudden, desperate energy seizing her.

"You don’t understand who you’re—" she began, desperation creeping into her voice, the last vestiges of her icy composure cracking.

"I understand you, madam lawyer," the voice said, sharp now, the distorted tone suddenly carrying an immense weight of authority. "On the other hand... you do not know what I am capable of doing when... things do not go my way." The threat was palpable, a cold, sharp blade.

Her hands clenched, her heart beating fast, a frantic drum against her ribs. She fought desperately not to let it show, to keep her face a blank slate, but the internal battle was raging.

"Twenty-four hours." The voice said. And then...

Click.

The line went dead.

She stared at the phone, her hand still gripping it tight, her pulse thudding so loud she could hear it in her ears. The room was silent. Frigid. But a single droplet of sweat slid down the back of her neck, a betrayal of her absolute, lifelong control.

Reno lingered nervously, his eyes wide with a fear he rarely showed. He had never seen Pricillia Malay like this.

Pricillia Malay—one of the most unshakable women in the country—slowly lowered the phone.

And for the first time in 7 years since he’d known her...

She cracked. Her rigid posture sagged, a tremor running through her shoulders. A faint, almost imperceptible sound, like a broken breath, escaped her lips.

"C-Call Alice— no," she shook her head vehemently, as though deciding against it, then a more urgent thought took precedence. "Get the car ready. We are heading there."

Reno thought against it, his concern overriding his fear. "Di-rector... it’s already 8 PM. It would take us a while before we get to the estate and... we... we should not annoy the Wildfire elders." He was right. Showing up unannounced at this hour would be a grave breach of etiquette, especially with the Matriarch.

Pricillia looked livid, her face a mask of thwarted fury. But then, a flash of cold logic returned to her eyes. He was correct.

"First thing in the morning," she said with finality, her voice still strained but regaining a steely edge. "We are heading there."

****

Back in Block C.

Rowan leaned back in his seat with his arms crossed, while Gavin sat at attention, eyes narrowed at the display. Milo stood beside the glowing screen, his usual boyish grin gone, replaced by something grim. Hades sat at the head of the table, silent, fingers steepled under his chin.

"—in an incredible turn of events, Dawin Wildfire, the oldest of the Wildfire sons, is being hailed as a national hero tonight," came the polished voice of the news anchor, echoing through the room.

"Sources just confirmed that he provided key intelligence to the authorities that led to the largest drug den bust in the Eastern quarter. Speculations are swirling about how this will affect the Wildfire family’s influence in politics and business—"

Milo muted the screen, cutting off the anchor mid-sentence.

"Every channel is saying the same thing," he said, glancing at the others, his voice flat. "He’s trending everywhere. Hashtags. Fan edits. Think pieces about his bravery. There’s even an online petition to get him a statue outside Parliament."

The table remained quiet, the weight of the news settling over them.

Milo switched the screen again.

Charts.

Red and blue lines soared across the board, a visual representation of Dawin’s meteoric rise. "This is from a twenty-four-hour poll analysis," Milo continued, pointing at a rising crimson line. "Public support for Dawin skyrocketed the moment the story broke. Right now, seventy-two percent of likely voters would back him for Congress next year."

He swiped again.

Another graph.

"And as for internal Wildfire metrics?" Milo paused, letting the implication hang heavy in the air. "He’s still the most favored to lead the corporation."

The line beneath Hades’s jaw ticked. Just once. But it was enough for Rowan, who glanced at him briefly before returning his gaze to the screen.

Milo, sensing the tension, kept going.

"But that’s not the real problem," he added, his voice dropping slightly.

He tapped his remote. The screen shifted, zooming in on a paused image from the drug raid. Men were being lined up in cuffs, their faces blurred by news censorship. But one particular man’s face was zoomed in, then, in a split screen, his real face, clear and sharp, appeared beside it. "Thanks to Rowan’s imaging analysis, we were able to recognize one of them."

He zoomed in further on the man’s face: bald, with a round face full of a scraggly beard, probably in his late 30s or early 40s.

Rowan reached forward and unpaused the next slide.

A photo. Different setting. Cleaner. Calmer. A private car park.

But the same bearded man stood just beside an older man with graying hair and gold-rimmed glasses, his profile distinguished. They weren’t interacting, just existing in the same space, caught together in an unposed moment.

Rowan tapped the screen again, highlighting the older man with grey hair.

The system pulled up a name: Darius Engel.

"Board member," Rowan said simply, his voice grave. "Ten years with Wildfire. Not much of an active participant, but he has the numbers. And figures." The implication of Engel’s quiet but deep-seated influence was clear.

Hades’s fingers tapped twice on the table, slow, deliberate, the only sound in the room.

"If this photo leaks," Rowan continued, his voice grim, "it’ll tank Wildfire Corporation’s reputation. Everyone would naturally assume Wildfire has something to do with this drug den."

"But since Dawin leaked it, well... we can’t exactly say how the public opinion would shift," Milo added, a note of uncertainty in his voice.

"Yes. Also, I doubt the Matriarch is aware about Dawin’s involvement in this," Rowan mused, his gaze drifting to Hades, who remained unreadable.

The room was suddenly quiet as they all pondered the convoluted web of coincidences.

"Simple coincidences?" Hades asked quietly, more to himself than to them, but his tone also answered the question. The suspicion was right there, heavy in the air.

Someone was pulling the strings.

Hades’s stare remained fixed on the screen. He hadn’t moved. But his silence was no longer passivity. It was pressure, a growing weight that permeated the room.

The others looked at him, awaiting his command.

Gavin leaned forward, his voice low. "So what’s the play? We leak this photo? It’ll tank the company’s shares. Whether Dawin is the golden boy now or not."

Milo nodded. "If we act fast, we get ahead of the narrative."

Rowan glanced at Hades. "You want me to make the call?"

But Hades didn’t answer immediately. Another headline flashed on the screen, a new banner scrolling across the bottom: WILDFIRE STOCKS RISE AMID POSITIVE PUBLICITY SURROUNDING DAWIN WILDFIRE’S INVOLVEMENT IN NATIONAL DRUG BUST.

He tapped his fingers again. This time slower. One. Two. Three. He looked thoughtful—his expression unreadable in that terrifying way only Hades could master, his mind clearly working through unseen layers of strategy.

"No," he said finally, softly.

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