Chapter 463
At the Lawson Group, Carmen applauded. “Ms. Lawson, you have guts. Running such a huge company and still being able to let go of your sister like it’s nothing.”
Elizabeth smiled sweetly. “What’s the point of keeping something that has no value?”
Carmen agreed. She only bothered to please people who were worth her time. “But honestly, Ms. Lawson, isn’t that a little shady?” Carmen asked. “You said you’d be on my side, but now you’re announcing your engagement to my brother, Bryan.” She didn’t know what this was all about.
Elizabeth arched an eyebrow. Her good-for-nothing dad had somehow dragged home an illegitimate son, and that guy was always hanging around, sucking up and playing the fool. Looking at him annoyed her.
Her dad was also a troublemaker. He transferred his shares to his illegitimate son and even bribed many company shareholders to put the illegitimate son into the company.
Hence, working with Carmen could make her a fortune if all went well, but she still feared that things would go south. Elizabeth would walk away with nothing. Worse yet, there was an extra threat: everyone was watching her every move. Failure wasn’t an option, so she needed more than one safety net. Hence, she had a fake engagement with Bryan. It was her insurance policy.
“That’s a whole different story. With you, it’s all about how much of the Wilson Group I can get my hands on. As for the thing with Bryan? That’s just me playing my cards against the Turner Group,” Elizabeth said with a sly smile.
“Then let me ask you, if one day my brother and I end up fighting for control, whose side are you taking?” Carmen pressed.
“Simple. I’ll always back whoever brings more to the table,” Elizabeth replied, tapping her fingers on the table. “You can’t bet everything on just one horse, can you?”
Carmen didn’t say anything, but her smile faded. ‘She’s a player, alright,’ she thought. “Trying to have it both ways? Not afraid of biting off more than she can chew, huh?”
It had been over a month since Grace incited a crazy fan to throw acid. Patrick had mostly healed and was back to work. His skills were top-notch among the programmers at the company, and since he’d done Aubree and Birgitte a great favor, Aubree gave the green light, and Birgitte promoted him to a higher position.
But ever since Patrick returned, Birgitte had been avoiding him, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. She still hadn’t fully processed his confession at the hospital, and after everything that happened with Hugo, she wasn’t in the mood to start anything new.
Better to throw herself into work; at least that was a future she could count on.
Aubree had wrapped up her business in Südlichen Strand and rushed back for her finals. Since the results were out, she was relieved to see she hadn’t failed a single class.
The interesting part was that she heard Alvin would be taking up a finance major next semester. That instantly reminded her of how Alvin had helped Carmen before, and she couldn’t help but wonder, ‘Just what is Alvin planning?’
But before she could think it through, she got caught up in something else.
“Ms. Miller, you’re here.”
When Aubree rushed to Südlichen Strand at night, the Bree Technology building was brightly lit, and everyone in the tech department worked overtime.
“What’s the situation?”
“This time it’s serious. Our servers got slammed and crashed. Tons of people can’t log into the backend right now,” one of the techs reported to Aubree.
Birgitte’s face was grim. Meanwhile, Patrick, who’d just been promoted to tech director, was leading the team, working around the clock to get things back online.
“How bad is it?” Aubree asked.
“This is the worst hacking attack we’ve ever seen. They’ve been probing us for a while and figured out exactly where we’re weak. Even after we tried to shore things up, it didn’t make a difference!” the tech replied. They broke through their firewall almost instantly, and the servers were exposed to attackers.
“There’s already a buzz online. Many users can’t log in. Honestly, we might not be able to fix this anytime soon. The attacks haven’t stopped, and we’re scrambling to keep them from taking over. Moreover, we’re trying to patch things up at the same time. We’re stretched thin here.” The tech was overwhelmed.