?Chapter 1400:


    William didn’te back that night, which was a small relief.


    After taking a long shower, she crawled into bed and reached for her phone again. She wanted to message Sharon, but when she went looking for WhatsApp, it was gone. Probably deleted.


    She searched through her contacts and tried to send a message—but nothing would go through.


    Panic bubbling beneath the surface, she checked Twitter. Then her browser. Also gone. Every single way of reaching out had been disabled.


    William hadn’t just returned her phone. He’d gutted it. She couldn’t reach out to anyone.


    She stared at the screen and let out a cold, bitterugh. So that was the trick. Give her back the phone, make her think she had freedom—but strip it of anything that could actually connect her to the outside world.


    Still, she wasn’t ready to give up. On a whim, she tried dialing Sharon’s number directly. No surprise—it didn’t go through.


    So that was that. The phone could only receive calls. No outgoing texts, no inte, no apps. Just a dead shell of a device, designed to keep her isted.


    Her chest tightened. The timing of that call earlier felt even more suspicious now. Had William set it all up? Was Haley just another one of his puppets, sent in to nt doubt in her mind about Marc?


    She wouldn’t put it past him. He’d stooped to worse.


    She set the phone down on her pillow and stared at it. If Marc called, she had to be ready to pick up.


    She even checked the blocked list—William hadn’t blocked Marc’s number. That gave her a sliver of hope.


    She waited over an hour. But the phone stayed silent.


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    Her chest felt heavy, but she consoled herself with the thought that Marc probably didn’t know she had the phone back yet. That had to be it. He just didn’t know. He’d call eventually.


    So she waited.


    However, Marc’s call never came, and she fell asleep waiting for the phone to ring.


    In her dreams, Ste saw the vague figure again—along with the glint of a ring shining under the night sky.


    Meanwhile, William had left the office. But instead of heading back to the vi, he made his way to Club Cloud Nine—the priciest, most exclusive lounge in the city—to meet up with Jewell and Steven.


    Inside the highest-tier private suite, William sat quietly on the sofa, one arm resting on the back cushion. The coffee table in front of him was already crowded with bottles of expensive liquor, all barely touched.


    Jewell shot Steven a look, a silent nudge to say something.


    But Steven only swallowed hard and kept sneaking nces at William, too nervous to ask what was going on.


    Besides the three of them, the room was empty.


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