Israel snorted and issued an ultimatum.


    "Fine, I''ll wait! But if you don''t give me a satisfactory answer, I''ll just go to court. I have nothing left to lose anyway. Whether Ste''s shares are frozen or protected makes no difference to me. But there''s no way I''m just going to swallow this loss!"


    Jonathan finally spoke. "Israel, rest assured, no matter the oue, we will provide you with fairpensation."


    Perhaps Joshua''s n had another objective: to sow discord among the Williams family. If they abandoned Israel now, his personality guaranteed he wouldn''t let it go, and he would likelye to hate them for it. To appease him, they would have topensate him, which meant they would all indirectly suffer a loss. Joshua''s counter-move had been utterly ruthless.


    At The Burton Group, when Sherman entered the office, he heard the sharp sound of a fist mming onto the desk.


    He had never seen Sellers lose it like this. Just a short while ago, he had learned from Coleman that Ste and Joshua had managed to swindle Israel out of hismon stock.


    Sellers clenched his fists, his face a dark mask of fury.


    Sherman watched him, then said quietly, "If we had known Joshua was so cunning, we should have listened to Aurora and let Israel kill him back then. Joshua may be the head of the Gardner family, but his identity isn''t public. So what if he died? With the Burton and Williams families united, I doubt the Gardners could do anything to us. They might even thank us for getting rid of Joshua and allowing someone else from their family to take over."


    Sellers had sailed through life with ease, and the few major setbacks he had ever experienced were all because of Ste.


    He had been captured by Foreman Richards and tortured for a whole month.


    To get his revenge, he had ruthlessly thrown billions of dors into the fight. He wouldn''t have done something like that if his hatred for her wasn''t bone-deep.


    Sellers'' eyes glinted with malice. "Kill Joshua? With Israel''s pathetic skills? Leonard fought his way to the top of his family, yet he couldn''tst three move against Joshua. Israel. Sellers sneered. "He''s not even in the same league as Leonard. What


    makes you


    think he could kill


    Joshua? If Joshua hadn''t


    deliberately let himself be captured, do you really think Israel could haveid a hand on him?"


    At that moment, Sellers btedly realized it had all been Joshua''s scheme.


    His eyes were filled with a sinister light as he spat out the words, "Joshua yed us for fools!"


    Sherman was silent for a moment before saying, "It was also Israel''s greed. He resorted to such a thuggish tactic to force Ste to hand over her shares."


    In the end, he was paid back in his own coin. They thought their n was foolproof, but Joshua had turned out to be even more of a rogue than Israel, acting in way one would never expect from the head of a major family. It just showed how few principfes or limits the man had.


    Even Sellers, who never took a loss, was out billions. In this whole affair, everyone was a loser except for Ste. The winner took all, and Ste had made out like a bandit.


    Seeing Sellers'' dark look and the way he was grinding his teeth, Sherman knew it was over. Sellers was out of moves. Were they really just supposed to take this loss?


    He asked, voice tight with desperation, "Uncle, what do we do now?" Sellers'' eyes narrowed. He''d already zeroed in on the heart of the problem.


    "While Joshua may have set the trap, the key to all of this was Ste. If she had doubted Joshua for even a second, his entire n would have fallen apart."


    ene


    Ste had withstood the external rumors, the internal mole, and the pressure from the shareholders, all while perfectly coordinating with Joshua. You could say she didn''t do much, but in reality, she was the most critical piece of the puzzle.