Her demeanor remained composed, her flawless features untouched by the tension around her.
Confronting the city’s most feared figure, Khloe didn’t bow or cower. She simply offered a calm, unhurried greeting. “Mr. Russell, you’ve arrived.”
Joshua, caught off guard, rushed to chastise her. “Khloe! How dare you speak so casually? Show some respect. This is Mr. Russell you’re addressing.”
“Silence! You have no right to scold Miss Evans!” Karl barked, cutting Joshua off.
To Khloe, he displayed none of his usual menace. Instead, his harsh features softened, and a warm smile spread across his face. “Miss Evans, I’m sorry for my tardiness. I regret that you nearly had to endure such indignities. I trust you’ll forgive me.”
After that, his expression hardened. His eyes narrowed, and an intense, commanding presence filled the room as he addressed Joshua. “Your wife has guts, pointing a gun at Miss Evans. She and your daughter better get on their knees and apologize! If not, I’ll see to it that the Evans family is destroyed today!”
Karl’s voice thundered through the venue, reverberating like a storm, silencing everyone in its wake.
Lorraine’s jaw hung slack, her wide-eyed stare fixed on Khloe as if seeing a ghost.
Joshua looked utterly bewildered. His eyes darted between Karl and Khloe, brimming with confusion and mounting dread.
Sloane was seething with rage, her face paling as she clenched her teeth tightly, too angry to speak but not bold enough to utter a word.
After a long, tense silence, Joshua finally found his voice. “Mr. Russell, did I hear you correctly? You want my wife and daughter to apologize to Khloe, not to you?”
At this, Karl’s patience wore thin. “What? You deaf or something? Make them kneel before Miss Evans right this instant! Otherwise, I’ll kill them-right here, right now!” His men raised their guns, training them on Lorraine and Sloane.
Overwhelmed with disbelief, the onlookers started questioning their own sanity. Was Karl serious?
Was he genuinely willing to annihilate the Evans family just to defend Khloe?
Even though the Evans family wasn’t as powerful as Karl, wiping them out would be no easy feat.
Was this truly the famed “Viper” everyone had come to fear?
Karl’s loyalty towards Khloe was unheard of.
It was unbelievable!
In that moment, they looked at Khloe with newfound admiration.
Once an outcast with nothing to her name, she now commanded the fierce loyalty of an underworld kingpin. It was baffling-almost surreal.
Unbeknownst to them, this privilege Khloe now enjoyed stemmed from Henrik’s terrifying power.
Karl was willing to move mountains to earn Henrik’s favor. As Karl’s ultimatum loomed over them, Lorraine and Sloane were paralyzed in place, faces drained of color.
Lorraine’s body trembled, her face twisted with rage and humiliation. Her eyes burned into Khloe, as though she was imagining a million different ways to slaughter the bitch. How dare that wretched woman humiliate them like this?
Clenching her fists, Lorraine shot a tearful, imploring look at Joshua. “Joshua, it was Khloe who caused me to miscarry, and now she’s ruined Sloane’s engagement. If we bow to someone like her, how can we ever hold our heads high?”
Joshua’s face tightened, beads of sweat forming on his brow. He didn’t want to apologize either, but Karl’s wrath was something he dared not challenge.
Sensing her father’s hesitation, Sloane was driven to madness.
She threw herself in front of Eric, her voice cracking with desperation. “Eric, you have to help me and Mom!” She clung to his arm, eyes wild with fury as she glared at Khloe.
“We welcomed Khloe back from prison and even sent someone to fetch her, but she vanished without a trace-only to show up here, with Mr. Russell. She’s thrown away any scrap of dignity she had left, and now she’s teaming up with outsiders to vent her anger on us. Eric, you can’t just stand by and watch this happen!”
Sloane’s words stoked the fire of jealousy in Eric’s heart. His eyes flared with intense envy and possessiveness as they locked onto Khloe.
To him, the sight of her here with Karl was unforgivable-a shameless betrayal.
She’d stooped so low as to become this old man’s mistress, all to get back at him? It was absurd! Ridiculous!
When Khloe first showed up, breathtaking in her elegance, he’d felt a flicker of hope-a strange sense of joy he hadn’t expected.
Now, that joy felt like a slap in the face, leaving a bitter sting in its place.
His jaw clenched as he struck his chest, vowing, “Sloane, I swear-no one will lay a hand on you as long as I’m here.” Squaring his shoulders, Eric turned his full attention to Karl. “Karl, I’m Eric Watson, heir to the Watson family. Back off. I’m warning you-if you choose to go against me, I promise the Russell family will be wiped off the face of the earth.”
Eric was confident that Karl would back down, given the Watson family’s immense power.
As the heir, he believed he could easily make Karl retreat. Sloane, influenced by Eric’s fierce confidence, adopted a smug look as she glared at Khloe, already thinking of ways to make her pay later.
However, Karl merely chuckled coldly, unfazed by Eric’s threat. After all, he had Henrik backing him.
Compared to Henrik, Eric was nothing.
“You’re nothing but a small fry,” he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. “You can’t stop me.”
With a quick motion, Karl raised his hand, and his men responded promptly. They squeezed the triggers and fired a round of warning shots, sending bullets whizzing near Sloane and Lorraine.
The two screamed in fear, their faces drained of color. Yet, they were still too proud and hateful to kneel down before Khloe.
“I refuse to bow to that bitch!” Lorraine spat, her lips trembling.
“Khloe, you’ll regret this!” Sloane echoed, her voice raw with anger.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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