Fairfax left the meeting with Herbert in a heavy silence. The moment he slid into the back of his chauffeured car, his phone rang again. It was Annika, his grandmother.
She didn't start the conversation by telling him to hand over the company. Instead, she immediately unleashed a torrent of vicious curses.
"How could our family produce such a useless descendant?! How did we end up with a failure like you?!" Annika shrieked through the receiver. "It's my own fault! I was blind and weak for letting a woman like your mother into this family! And now the entire Yelchin legacy is being destroyed by you worthless fools!"
In the past, Annika had worshipped the ground Fairfax walked on. Now, her disappointment was absolute.
Faced with her blistering accusations, Fairfax merely stared out the window, offering no defense. There was nothing to say.
She screamed until her voice turned hoarse. Finally, exhausted, she gave the order: "Give the company to her!"
She took a ragged breath. "Give her whatever she wants! Just resolve this nightmare immediately!"
Harley couldn't take sleeping on the streets anymore. And Annika couldn't endure another night stranded at the airport.
It was deeply humiliating. The rage and unwillingness burned fiercely in their chests, but what other choice did they have? Starla wanted the company. If giving it to her was the only way to stop the bleeding, they had to do it. They just wanted this horrific chapter of their lives to end.
When Fairfax didn't respond immediately, Annika's temper flared again. "Are you deaf? Did you hear what I said?!"
"I heard you," Fairfax replied flatly.
"You and your mother are the sinners who brought this ruin upon us!" she spat.
Ever since Starla had initiated her siege, Annika had been comfortably tucked away in a luxury sanitarium, leaving Fairfax to handle the fallout. She hadn't realized the sheer scale of the devastation in Marina City until she tried to fly back, only to discover she couldn't. Starla's reach was terrifyingly vast.
Annika had never imagined the entire extended family would be dragged into the crossfire. Her phone hadn't stopped ringing all day with frantic calls from distant relatives whose lives were being dismantled.
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