Chapter 2

Sharon Fox had gone viral, all the way.

By the next morning, her name topped the trending lists on every major platform.

#HighSocietyDaughterInLawFightsForNamingRight

#SharonFoxRejectsReproductiveBlackmail

#TheMomentAnIndependentWomanWakesUp

She'd taken that footage from outside the hospital room, edited it, and posted it.

In the clip, she looked polished and bright, every word sharp as a blade.

And me, I was just the backdrop, one blurred profile at the edge of the frame.

Down in the comments, her fans tore into me.

【Look at that other daughter-in-law, standing there like a doormat. A disgrace to women everywhere.】

【She had a girl, so of course she can't hold her head up in a family like that. Nothing but a free nanny.】

【Sharon's amazing! This is the kind of star we should be stanning!】

I stared at the screen, and a nameless heat rose up in me.

I nursed my sick mother-in-law, and in their mouths that made me a spineless slave.

She'd sent that mother-in-law into intensive care, and it made her a hero smashing the chains of feudal tradition.

Robert Gilbert plucked the phone out of my hand.

"Stop reading. It's just a mob getting swept along by the noise."

I nodded and gave a small smile. At least my husband still had his head on straight.

"I'm not angry that they're insulting me."

"I'm angry that Sharon Fox is buying trending spots with Gilbert money, then turning around to smash the Gilbert pot."

Robert sighed and pulled a thick stack of documents out of his briefcase.

"You asked me yesterday to look into the accounts the eldest branch has been handling. The results are in."

That snapped me alert. I took the file and started turning pages at once.

Clement Gilbert's so-called "art investments" over the past half year were a bottomless pit.

Bit by bit, he'd pulled nearly three hundred million out of the auction house's reserve fund pool.

And what he'd bought was all work by nobody so-called "avant-garde artists."

Every one of those artists' agencies traced back to Sharon Fox's family.

"She's laundering money. Hollowing the Gilberts out."

I gritted my teeth and slapped the file down on the table.

She swore up and down she didn't want the Gilberts' dirty money, and behind the scenes she was sucking us dry like a leech.

"Does Clement know about this?"

"You still don't know Clement? Whatever Sharon Fox says goes. He probably really thinks he's making tasteful art investments."

Robert's tone carried that anger you feel when someone just won't rise to the occasion.

This was the sad truth about wealthy families.

Stupidity wasn't the frightening part. The frightening part was a stupid man holding the resources.

I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath.

"Robert, help me get in touch with a few of the auction house's core appraisers."

"And call Lawyer Chavez from the legal department to my office."

Robert looked at me and nodded.

"All right. I'll go do it now."

At ten in the morning, I walked into the Gilbert Auction House building for the first time as its head.

Half an hour later, the executives filed into the conference room one by one.

I wasted no words. I dropped the copies of the eldest branch's three-hundred-million bill right on the table.

"You're all old hands at Gilbert."

"Three hundred million. Where did it go? Can anyone explain that to me?"

The room went dead silent.

The finance director stammered.

"This... this was approved by the eldest young master himself. He said it was an investment..."

"An investment?" I cut him off.

"The rule at this house is simple. Any transfer over fifty million requires the company seal and the joint signature of the appraisal committee."

"Which of you signed off?"

The chief appraisers shook their heads, one after another, washing their hands of it.

"Second Madam, we honestly knew nothing about this. Those paintings the eldest young master brought in never once passed under our eyes."

I nodded and set the seal down on the table.

"From today on, without this seal, anyone who dares move so much as a cent out of here, I'll send him down to the station to sip tea with the police."

They all looked at that piece of tianhuang stone, and every face changed.

They knew. The Gilbert house had turned.