Chapter 186 - 185: The Jones Family

Seeing him about to clam up and play dead again, Yvonne Lowell pressed harder, grinding her hand against the whip marks on his face. The wounds, which had already stopped bleeding, oozed fresh blood once more.

"I’m not Cole, so I don’t have to give a damn about his debt to you. Our little game of ’I ask, you answer’ is still on. Silence means you lose, and losing means you get punished. Got it?"

’If I weren’t so damn bored, looking to brush up on my interrogation skills, and curious about where this son of a bitch’s hostility toward me came from, I wouldn’t even be bothering with him.’

’I could’ve just used my superpower to get it all out of him, right? But no, this guy just has to be ungrateful. It’s truly heartbreaking. So disappointing.’

Dawson flinched in pain and raised his head to glare at her. "I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. It was a man who saved me."

"Okay, so it was a man. Let me guess the color of his eyes, then. Black? Brown? Green? Or blue?"

Yvonne enunciated each word, carefully observing the changes in his expression.

"Oh, blue, is it? So he had blue eyes, just like Cole. Don’t tell me you’re pulling a ’he reminds me of you’ routine? Is that why you’d risk your life to save Cole, because he has blue eyes too? Tsk, tsk. What a creative way to repay a debt. You’ve really mastered the whole ’replacement character’ trope, haven’t you?"

Cole couldn’t stop a wave of goosebumps from breaking out over his skin. "Seriously, Yvonne! My dearest Yvonne! Interrogate him, fine, but do you have to be so disgusting? I’m actually going to throw up!"

Yvonne shot him a sidelong glance, and Cole could only shut his mouth again resentfully.

"Let me guess again. Long hair? Short hair? A buzz cut? Or completely bald?"

"Long hair, you say? Oh, going for that broody artist vibe, are we? That’s a far cry from Cole’s flashy, new-money style. I just can’t tell if we’re talking about a woman with masculine features, or a woman disguised as a man," Yvonne said pointedly.

Cole thought, ’Tonight, I am the most heartbroken man in this city. I will not be saying another word until my lawyer is present.’

After she guessed right twice in a row, Dawson hung his head, refusing to let her see any more changes in his expression.

He didn’t say another word, no matter how Yvonne ground her hand into his wounds.

Yvonne wasn’t annoyed. She continued as if talking to herself. "Alright, I’ll make one last guess. That ’man’... is his name Wiener? Or perhaps, is *her* name Vena?"

Dawson’s body went rigid for a split second, but he kept his head down. "Stop wasting your breath. I told you, I only met him once. I don’t know his name."

Cole, standing nearby, had also frozen. He was staring at Yvonne in utter disbelief.

Yvonne flicked a glance at him out of the corner of her eye but paid him no mind.

She just said in a regretful tone, "Oh well, looks like I guessed wrong again. By the way, Felix, how many times have I hit this kid so far?"

"Master, once on each arm and on both collarbones. Four times in total," Felix replied.

Yvonne nodded knowingly. "Since I lost the game, I won’t get involved in this business of you betraying Cole."

A bloodthirsty smile touched her lips as she picked up the retractable baton and swung it, once again, onto both of his kneecaps.

"But I like the number six. It’s a lucky number, you know? Six brings good fortune. So breaking six of your bones... let’s call it compensation for all the years you’ve spent yapping at me like a stray."

"Fal... Falcon, you bitch! You’re going to die a miserable death! You’ll get what’s coming to you!"

"Tsk. Cole tried to get you to read a book, but you insisted on remaining a pig. And look at you now. All you know how to do is recycle the same few insults."

Yvonne just laughed, completely unbothered. "A miserable death and karma? Whatever. As long as I outlive you, I’m good."

With that, she casually tossed the baton to one of her men standing nearby.

Ignoring Dawson’s agonized screams, she turned and walked straight out of the room.

Felix and Finn Knight immediately followed, not forgetting to drag the petrified Cole along with them.

Back in Cole’s office, Yvonne plopped onto the sofa and crossed her legs, giving the obviously dazed Cole an exasperated look.

"Snap out of it. You’re so out of it right now, I could assassinate you on the spot and you wouldn’t even notice."

Cole’s eyes slowly came into focus. He looked up at Yvonne, his voice strained. "What you said to Dawson... was it true? Did *she* really send him?"

"Fifty-fifty. Scorpion is still investigating the incident from all those years ago. But on my way here, he sent me a screenshot from the club’s hallway surveillance camera, taken five days ago."

Yvonne shrugged. "I saw him with his arm around some woman who looked an awful lot like that dear cousin of yours, so I decided to fish for a reaction. You saw what happened. It’s pretty obvious."

"But... why would she do this? I already left the family. Isn’t that enough?!" Pain and disappointment swirled in Cole’s eyes.

Yvonne’s lips twitched into a sneer. "As long as you’re still breathing, you’re still a competitor. Haven’t you noticed? The number of assassination attempts against you has only gone up since Dawson showed up."

’In her opinion, Cole was a complete idiot when it came to handling family drama.’

’Every time she thought about his past—the parts he’d told her and the parts she’d dug up herself—the sheer drama of it all made her want to just smack him a couple of times.’

Cole’s real name was Cole Jones. He was the eldest grandson of the main line of the Jones Family, an old aristocratic family in Country A, and he had been the strongest contender for the position of next head of the family.

But one day, his father and his uncle were riding in the same car when it exploded, killing both of them along with the driver.

The investigation only managed to trace the bomb back to a temp worker; the mastermind was never identified. But since it was his father’s car, everyone assumed it had been one of his father’s enemies.

He was only fifteen or sixteen at the time, young and hot-headed.

Racked with guilt, and with his mother having passed away long before, he left the family and withdrew from the line of succession, ignoring the protests of his own grandfather.

In front of his entire family, he’d even cast his vote for his successor to his uncle’s only daughter, his cousin Vena, who was five years his junior???

He ran off to Continent N on his own, clawed his way up from the bottom, founded North, and now, a full ten years had passed...

’It wasn’t that he shouldn’t feel guilty. But the person who murdered his old man hadn’t even been caught yet, and he just wilted like a delicate flower?’

’His uncle’s life was a life, but his own father’s wasn’t?! Does Country A not have The Underworld? Is that why he’s not worried his old man’s ghost will come back to haunt him at night?!’

Yvonne shook her head, pulling herself out of her thoughts.

’Can’t think about it anymore. Any more and I might actually punch him.’

A dejected aura seemed to hang over Cole. "Falcon," he asked, "if it were you... what would you do?"