Nia Mitchell stood rooted to the spot, swallowing hard in disbelief. What kind of expression was that on Maxwell Peary’s face? With him looking like that, how could Phoebe Walker, standing to one side, possibly bear it? "Is Mr. Peary joking?" Nia Mitchell felt awkward and tried to smooth things over, but he had already backed her into a corner. Maxwell Peary lowered the hand that had been propping up his chin. Just as he was about to speak, his phone rang. His expression shifted as he answered the phone. After speaking, he stood up and walked over to the French windows. His low, hoarse voice seemed to carry an ominous, dark aura as the words escaped his lips. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵✶𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮✶𝓷𝓮𝓽 Listening to the voice on the other end, Maxwell Peary furrowed his brows, his expression grave. A few seconds later, Maxwell Peary hung up and turned to face Nia Mitchell and Phoebe Walker. "Here, take this. You can go first," Maxwell Peary said, picking up a box from the table and handing it to Nia Mitchell, then clearly dismissing her. Nia Mitchell pouted. Does he want to be alone with Phoebe Walker? She felt a surge of petulance and wanted to refuse to leave, but Maxwell Peary’s expression grew increasingly grim. Though the weather outside was mild, the temperature in the Office Room seemed to plummet by several degrees. A chill seeped into her bones, making her shudder involuntarily. "Okay," she mumbled sullenly, took the box, and turned to leave the Office Room. 「Inside the Office Room—」 Maxwell Peary crossed his legs. A faint smirk played on his lips, his expression one of keen interest. "Miss Walker, are you perhaps not planning to continue working at MC?" His abrupt, seemingly random question left Phoebe Walker utterly bewildered, completely unsure what he meant. "Mr. Peary, what are you implying?" Her hands, previously hanging loosely at her sides, clenched into tight fists as her face instantly drained of color. "Your esteemed father has been up to some things in secret. Don’t pretend you don’t know. Consider the banquet last Saturday: if someone hadn’t deliberately engineered the situation, the media wouldn’t have dared to make such a huge fuss about that incident. And if that wasn’t enough, he even dared to harbor *those* kinds of intentions." Phoebe Walker instinctively took a small step back, her face deathly pale, her fists still clenched. "I... I don’t know what Mr. Peary is talking about." She couldn’t just confess without being forced; she couldn’t let herself be scared into revealing everything. What if Maxwell Peary actually knew nothing and was just bluffing to unnerve her? If she confessed then, wouldn’t she have been terribly wronged? Maxwell Peary sneered and glanced down at his watch. He looked up again, his eyes now filled with a savage, ruthless glint. The moment his words fell, Phoebe Walker’s phone rang. The sound was exceptionally jarring in the silent Office Room. Phoebe Walker trembled, frozen rigidly to the spot, uncertain whether she should answer. The ringtone reverberated through the air, seemingly endless. She didn’t dare to pick up; every second dragged on like an eternity. Just as she thought it had finally stopped, offering a fleeting moment to catch her breath, it began to ring once more. The ringtone, usually pleasant to her ears, now sounded like a death summons, tolling the final moments of her life. "Answer it," Maxwell Peary commanded, frowning. The persistent ringing in the quiet Office Room was sheer noise, irritating him immensely. Phoebe Walker shuddered violently, her teeth sinking into her lip so hard that the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. "H-hello?" she stammered, hastily pulling out her phone and answering without even glancing at the caller ID, her entire body trembling. "Young Miss, it’s terrible! We just received word—the car the Master was in, it crashed! The driver, Uncle Li, died at the scene! The Master... he’s still in the Emergency Room; he hasn’t come out yet!"