CHAPTER 218

Leigh shook her head. "But you said you and Sebastian don't have actual feelings for each other and that you're only a married couple on paper. I don't want you to owe him any favors because of me."

"It's fine," Madeline reassured. "Even friends would help each other out in times of need, right? Besides, we're not asking him to take revenge on our behalf but just come up with ideas on how to go about it. If we put our heads together, we might just think of something workable, or rather, he might."

After a moment of hesitation, Leigh nodded and said, "Okay, you can ask him, and he can help if he wants to. I don't want to needle him into it."

"I know. I'll be really tactful when I ask him," Madeline promised. She patted Leigh on the shoulder and added, "Alright, we've agreed that patience is key to this revenge, so just leave it to me and I'll make sure your family gets the justice they deserved. Come on, let's go and see your dorm now. When was the last time you got a proper rest? I bet they worked you to the bone while you were in Oaksbury." Belongs to © n0velDrama.Org.

With that, she led Leigh to the dorm room she had set up for her and gave her a brief tour, then asked, "So, what do you think? Is there anything else you'd like me to get for you?"

"It's nice," Leigh said, then shrugged nonchalantly. "You know I don't need much, just a roof over my head and basic amenities."

Madeline could tell from the distracted look in her eyes that the whole revenge thing was still weighing on her mind. Resigned, she patted the girl's shoulder once more and said, "I think that's enough plotting for the day. Take a nice, hot shower and settle in. Do let me know if you need anything else. I'll call you when it's time for dinner. We can eat out if that's what you'd prefer."

Leigh nodded and saw Madeline out the door, but the latter pushed her back into the room. "Please stop thanking me and get into the shower, then go straight to bed. Go on, be good."

A smile curled on Leigh's lips as she threw her arms around Madeline and gave her a light squeeze. "Thank you, Madeline. You're wonderful!"

"Does that mean you'll listen to me and hold off on this revenge thing until I've talked to Sebastian? I'll help you for sure, so just wash up and get some rest." Madeline patted Leigh's back, then went out of the room and closed the door behind her.

Madeline thereafter made her way downstairs after leaving Leigh's room. When she saw Emory, she said, "Hey, Emory, could you do me a favor?"

"Of course, Mrs. Hart. What is it?" Emory replied hurriedly. Leigh shook her head. "But you said you and Sebastian don't have actual feelings for each other and that you're only a married couple on paper. I don't want you to owe him any favors because of me."

Madeline smiled and said politely, "A friend of mine—Leigh, the one whom I brought upstairs earlier— isn't really stable right now and I'm worried she might do something impulsive. Could you have someone keep an eye on her? Do not let her leave the premises on her own, and if she wants to go somewhere, inform me immediately."

"That's no problem at all," Emory said agreeably. "I'll get to it right now, Mrs. Hart."

She flashed him a smile and went back into her office before giving Sebastian a call.

Surprised to see her number on his screen, Sebastian put her through and asked, "Everything alright?"

"Well, not exactly," Madeline said slowly. "I need your help with something, but you can say no if you want to, alright?"

"You're the mother of my children," he pointed out. "Of course, I'd help you. What do you need?"

"Thanks." She told him the story of how Leigh had been orphaned, then said, "I understand that she wants to avenge her family, but she seems a little unhinged and prone to making rash decisions at the moment. One minute she wants to kill the murderers, and the next she wants to poison them. She doesn't really have a clear plan right now, and it'd be hard to find new evidence on a decade-old case. I guess I'm calling you to see if you have any feasible solutions for her."

"Of course I do," Sebastian said with a small laugh. "Gosh, you sound so serious you had me worried for a second there. Anyway, I looked into the Bakers when I was investigating Katie, and apparently, the whole family has lost all their former glory. They're nothing more than third-rate now, and if revenge is what Leigh wants, you could always bankrupt them and take every ounce of their dignity away."

"No, that's too easy," Madeline countered. "Leigh doesn't want them to go bankrupt; she wants them dead. She wants Holly and the man who was the real culprit behind her family's death to pay for their crimes in blood."

"In that case..." He chuckled darkly. "You should probably tell her that killing them would only be doing them a favor. Revenge isn't about swift ends, it's about making the enemy suffer so much that they'd beg for death."

Madeline parted her lips to say something, but she considered what he said and found herself agreeing with him. "I'll talk to Leigh about this." She was sure that if she could be persuaded by his rhetoric, then Leigh would be too. "But there's just one tiny problem—Holly is married to Uncle George. The Taylors will still help her even if we bankrupt the Bakers, so I don't see how this plan would leave her so anguished that she'd beg for death."

"Then you'll just have to make your uncle file for a divorce and kick her out of the Taylors," he said easily. "When I was looking into your incident back at the Taylors', I ran a background check on everyone on your mother's side, Holly included. She loves your uncle very much, and she'd be devastated if he were to file for a divorce from her and throw her out of the family. She'd lose her identity as Mrs. Taylor, and I doubt she could ever bounce back from that."

"That's well and all, but why would Uncle George ever want to divorce her?" Madeline elaborated, "They're happily married, and besides, they have two sons together. I see no reason for him to want to separate from her."

"Sure, he has no reason to divorce her now, but what if he finds out she was an accomplice to a murderer?" Sebastian drawled, sounding amused. "I'll have someone look into the accident and find new evidence on it. Even if nothing turns up, I'll still find a way to make Holly talk. George will know what kind of person his wife is the moment she confesses to the crime, and he'll leave her then."

"And how do you propose to make her confess?" she pressed. "Also, if she does confess, then she'd be guilty, wouldn't she?"

"No, she wouldn't," he countered. "The man who actually committed the crime would be though. She only pushed Leigh's mother, but the man was the one who ran the victims over intentionally. If Holly engages a really good legal team for her case, there's a high chance she would end up getting

acquitted."

Madeline paused, then grumbled, "Well, that's not fair..."

"Yeah, well, the law tends to favor the wicked sometimes," Sebastian said. "Anyway, I'm guessing that the man Leigh mentioned, the one who supposedly looks like Holly, is her brother, Scott Baker. I'll look into him as well before coming up with a more specific plan, but I'm going to need to speak to Leigh first."

Thinking that he wanted to get more details from Leigh, Madeline agreed, "I'll make the arrangements. We can grab dinner together this evening, and after that, you can talk to Leigh privately in the study."

They talked for a while longer before Sebastian hung up and called his intelligence team, then had them look into any accident from sixteen years ago that might have involved Scott and Holly.