Chapter 5

“Ethan, save me! Please save me…”

This scene felt so familiar.

It made me feel as if I had returned to five years ago, and I had to admit that Claire in college was like a wild crabapple blooming in barren soil, stubborn and proud.

That was why Ethan had fallen for her.

She gritted her teeth and used all her strength to grab Ethan’s sleeve, but after seeing me, her entire body stiffened before she hurriedly lowered her head, let go, and stepped back.

“Ms. Bennett, I didn’t mean to, and I’ll leave New York right away and never again…”

A tear fell from the corner of her eye, and she clenched her fists and closed her eyes.

“I’ll never appear in front of Ethan again.”

Then she turned and limped toward the door.

Looking at her back, as if she were the only person left alone in the world, I was stunned.

Mainly, I never expected that Claire would one day become scheming enough to stage a scene like this and frame me.

Her acting was so convincing that it was as if I had really sent people to teach her a lesson and warn her to stay away from my husband.

On the surface, she was asking Ethan for help, but in reality, she was shaping me into a sinister, vicious woman.

But she was now Sebastian Ford’s fiancée, and the Bennett family could not afford to offend the Ford family at all.

I forced out a mocking smile and turned to observe Ethan’s reaction.

His face was expressionless, making it impossible for me to see what he was thinking.

“I heard Carter Group blacklisted her, and her company is about to go bankrupt, so she’s been begging people everywhere lately.”

Ethan took my hand and smiled coldly.

“What does that have to do with me?”

After we got in the car, I tested him again.

“Then Ethan, about what just happened… do you also think I did it?”

But he held me in his arms.

“I believe it wasn’t you.”

I nodded.

After all, the Ford family was someone neither Carter Group nor Bennett Group could afford to offend, and I was not that stupid.

And Ethan had witnessed me barely making it step by step from the edge of bankruptcy to where I was today, so he should understand better than I did how much I cherished the present.

However, the next day, four hundred million dollars was suddenly transferred out of my account!

Bennett Group was about to go public, and that four hundred million almost determined whether Bennett Group lived or died!

I called Ethan, but no one answered, so in my panic, I drove straight to his company to find him.

When I pushed open the office door, I saw Claire sitting there with tears streaming down her face, and the wounds on her face had just been bandaged.

Ethan sat beside her and lifted his head to meet my gaze.

“Four hundred million dollars was suddenly transferred out of my account, and was it you…”

Although I already had a guess in my heart, I wanted to hear Ethan admit it himself.

“I took it.”

“Why?”

Coldness seeped through Ethan’s eyes.

“Claire’s company owed four hundred million, so I helped her pay it back.”

Even Claire raised her head in shock, pulled out her phone, and immediately checked her company’s repayment records.

The assistants beside them exchanged looks.

I looked at Ethan in confusion.

But I saw him tighten his grip on Claire’s hand beside him and protect her behind him like a guardian.

“Lily Bennett, this is what you owe her!”

After saying that, he threw a stack of documents hard onto the coffee table, and photos scattered across the floor with a rustle.

The first photo showed Claire at the club, being pinned to the floor with someone’s foot on her face, her white dress covered in filthy cigarette ash, her clothes disheveled, and her eyes unfocused.

The second photo showed her being yanked by her long hair, her chin forced open, as if she was being fed some kind of drug.

The third photo showed extreme terror all over her face, and her neckline had been roughly torn open, exposing her collarbone and the edge of her underwear.

Among the opened documents were two fingerprinted confessions, where two thugs admitted in black and white that they had been instructed by me to “teach Claire Summers a little lesson…”

He actually believed such a cheap frame-up.