Chapter 182
Honor Among Them.
“There are soldiers everywhere,” Melvin muttered.
“There’s no way around this? How can we corner Sterling?” Jean said. “Maybe we need to flee to another country p>
“As far as I know, they haven’t found Victor,” Melvin said. “It’s possible they don’t know p>
“Then where is Victor? Why hasn’t he contacted you?” Jean asked.
Melvin and his wife were in the car, driving their way to Sterling’s home. Sterling had invited them for lunch. It was meant to clear the air over Serena’s kidnapping.
“Well.” Melvin made a face, looking at the soldiers around the neighborhood. “We agreed that was the last favor I’d do for him p>
“Last favor?” Jean rolled her eyes. “You mean he has been milking us — blackmailing us again and again. Just because we asked him to kidnap Serena when she was a baby, it didn’t mean we had to owe him everything. He benefited from kidnapping Serena, didn’t he p>
“Victor won the business expo years ago!” Jean said. “And didn’t he say he would use Serena as a shield p>
Yes, Melvin remembered. Back then, he and his wife were still dating when the plan began to take shape.
Melvin hated Sterling.
Their father might have acknowledged Melvin as a son, but it was Sterling who inherited almost everything.
Sterling received the majority of the Vander fortune.
Sterling was handed a significant portion of the company’s shares as if it were his birthright.
Melvin, on the other hand, was given crumbs. A polite fraction. A token gesture disguised as fairness.
And he had never forgotten the humiliation of smiling through it.
Melvin met Victor by chance during a trip to Velmon City. He immediately noticed Victor’s cruelty. He was openly rude, dismissive of others, and surrounded by ugly rumors — whispers that he had stolen other people’s inventions and claimed them as his own.
Most men would have kept their distance.
Melvin did the opposite.
He saw an opportunity.
A man with that kind of reputation was capable of things decent people would never dare attempt. And Melvin needed someone like Victor Kline.
Moreover, Melvin discovered that Victor and Sterling were both scheduled to attend the same business summit.
Thus, they helped each other.
They agreed that Victor would kidnap one of the twins, and Melvin would provide the opportunity — the information, the location, and the names of the employees working at Sterling’s mansion.
Melvin paid him a huge sum of money, and Victor did the rest — the surveillance, the planning, paying off the nanny, and the careful selection of the perfect moment.
Victor only wanted to take Serena. He said he had plans for her.
Melvin thought it was acceptable. It didn’t matter who suffered – as long as Sterling broke. And he did.
met
After Serena was taken, Sterling abandoned the business summit without hesitation. The company questioned him, but the board of directors eventually showed sympathy. Sterling was, afterall, a grieving father.
Melvin watched it all unfold without a shred of guilt.
In the years that followed, Sterling failed more than once. Desperation consumed both him and Celine. è
There was even a time when Melvin
stepped in as a stand in CEQ while Sterling and Celine flew from city to city, searching for Serena.
Melvin had fabricated some of the tips they received – false leads designed to keep Sterling chasing shadows, further distracting him from the company.
Yet every time Melvin tried to present himself as the better leader, Sterling returned and reclaimed his position effortlessly. Clients and business partners trusted Sterling’s name far more than his.
Whenever Melvin introduced innovative ideas, Sterling’s were always superior. Sterling’s inventions became the company’s best-selling technologies, while Melvin’s contributions barely made a mark.
The humiliation gnawed at him.
Melvin convinced himself that Sterling had been sabotaging him. It was easier to believe in a conspiracy than to admit inferiority.
And so, his hatred deepened, not because Sterling wronged him, but because Sterling continued to outshine him.
As time went on, Melvin waited patiently — waited for his turn.
Sterling was bound to grow old, and Melvin had always assumed that, eventually,
the throne would fall to him. It was only a matter of time.
That had been his comfort. His quiet certainty.
But then Silas grew up.
Young, sharp, and infuriatingly capable.
Silas graduated at the top of his class and possessed an instinct for marketing that impressed even seasoned executives. As a management trainee he climbed swiftly through the ranks, reaching director level with alarming ease.
To everyone else, it was talent.
To Melvin, it was betrayal.
It was all Sterling’s doing. Of course it was. Sterling was using his authority, pulling invisible strings, positioning his son to inherit everything Melvin had been waiting for his entire life.
The throne that was supposed to age into his hands was instead passed down by blood and not his.
Truthfully, there was a time when Melvin had given up on the idea of taking over the company.