Irene pressed her lips together in a tight line, determined not to utter a single word.
Jason’s mouth curved into a smile that held no warmth whatsoever. “So you’re still planning to keep quiet, Mom?”
When she continued to maintain her stubborn silence, he deliberately tilted his phone’s camera downward once again, showing her the deadly chasm that stretched endlessly below his feet.
“I understand that everything you’ve done has been part of your grand plan to make me the family head, a position I made it clear countless times that I never wanted. But if I were to throw myself off this cliff right now, would all those precious dreams of yours be destroyed along with my broken body?”
“No! Don’t you dare jump down!” Irene’s voice tore from her throat in a scream of pure panic.
Jason immediately swung the camera back to focus on his own face. His eyes had turned into frozen shards of ice, and his voice carried the cutting edge of a finely sharpened blade.
“If you don’t want to lose me, you’re going to answer every question I ask you.”
Irene’s voice came out in broken, trembling fragments. “Jason, please… I gave birth to you! How can you possibly harbor such terrible suspicions about your own mother?”
“The security systems I created for our family are absolutely impenetrable,” Jason interrupted her, his words delivered with cold, mathematical certainty. “Not a single outsider could have gotten close enough to Taylor to pull off something like this. You, as my mother, were the only person who had the chance to strike. Suspecting you is the last thing I wanted to do, but I can’t argue with the evidence.”
Cornered with no possible escape route, Irene finally found herself unable to maintain her web of lies any longer. She forced the admission through clenched teeth like she was spitting out poison. “All right… Yes, I was responsible for putting that chip inside Taylor’s brain.”
The fear that Jason might actually carry out his threat made her words tumble out in a desperate rush as she explained the entire process of how she had managed to inject the chip into Taylor’s head.
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She concluded her confession with a desperate plea. “Jason, you have to believe me when I tell you that I was being manipulated by someone else! I did something unforgivable to Taylor, but I swear I never wanted him to die! I never gave him any command to jump off that cliff — that part wasn’t my doing at all!”
“That still makes you an accomplice!” Jason’s voice exploded across the phone line.
The raw power of Jason’s rage hit Irene like a physical blow, leaving her speechless and staring at his image in complete shock. Throughout his entire life, Jason had been the model son — respectful, dutiful, and gentle with her in every interaction. Never once had he spoken to her with such burning contempt. Follow current nov?ls on find?novel.net
A nauseating mixture of fear and wounded pride churned in her stomach, but she understood that trying to play the mother card now would only make things worse.
Hot tears began gathering in her eyes, though she was far too frightened to let them spill over.
In the past, a few well-timed tears from Irene had always been enough to soften Jason’s heart and make him bend to her will. But not this time. This time, his gaze remained as cold and unforgiving as winter steel, filled with nothing but crushing disappointment.
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