Chapter 296 Top Tycoon!
Half an hour ago, over at the Kennedy family's villa, Clara was slumped on the living room couch, scrolling through her phone with a frown plastered on her face.
"Why isn't this going the way I planned?" Clara mumbled under her breath.
She'd tried to stir up trouble by leaking news about Victoria secretly keeping a tiger, hoping to get the public to turn against Victoria and force the authorities to take action.
But it totally backfired. The authorities did show up, but only to clear Victoria's name. It turned out, Victoria had all the right permits and everything to keep the tiger. Most people online were actually jealous of her.
To top it off, Victoria's follower count exploded thanks to that fifteen-second clip.
In just an hour, she racked up 600,000 new followers, shooting past a bunch of celebrities in popularity.
Ever since Victoria was outed as the genius scientist Dor, she'd already built up a fanbase of smart, discerning folks who didn't just jump on the hate bandwagon.
Clara scrolled through Instagram, her face darkening with every comment she read.
Most of them were gushing about how cool and enviable Victoria was.
One comment really stood out: [Here's a question worth thinking about: Who's trying to smear Victoria?]
A bunch of people were chiming in under that comment.
Victoria saw it too.
But what really caught her off guard was that, aside from the person who posted the video, there wasn't a single negative comment. It was almost unreal.
Victoria turned to Lila and said, "Lila, isn't it weird? There's not one bad comment about me."
Lila, who'd been babbling excitedly about wanting to see the big tiger, paused when she heard Victoria.
Lila asked, "Are you so happy lately that you need some haters to bring you down?"
Victoria replied, "Seriously though, don't you think it's strange? I've been scrolling for a while and can't find a single negative comment."
Lila gave her a no-nonsense breakdown. "People online are pretty sharp these days. Most can tell what's real and what's not. Plus, they're scared of getting flamed if they trash you. And with Alexander having your back, who'd dare?"
With Lila's offhand comment, Victoria started to piece it together.
Clara's scheme had flopped again, and she was probably fuming right now.
Lila suddenly remembered something and asked, "Hey, the background of that video looked like some abandoned building in the middle of nowhere. Why were you there?"
She added, "And who shot that video? Do you know?"
Lila had seen a comment suggesting Victoria went there to train the tiger.
Others might not get it, but Lila knew. If Victoria really wanted to train the tiger, she could just do it in the back mountain of their home.
Even though Lila had never been to Serenity Grove Manor, she knew Alexander had the rights to the whole mountain. So why couldn't Victoria just train there?
Victoria didn't keep secrets from Lila and filled her in on what happened yesterday, though she left out the part about Esme's tip-off. That still needed some digging.
After hearing the story, Lila fumed, "How can Clara be so nasty!"
Victoria wasn't too worried about Clara's schemes. To her, they were just minor annoyances. But one thing bugged her: What had Christopher promised Clara? And what had Clara promised Christopher?
Victoria knew Clara too well. If there wasn't something in it for her, she wouldn't team up with anyone.
As for Christopher, she hadn't dealt with him much, but she knew he was a strategic thinker and wouldn't help Clara without some kind of payoff.
Lila noticed Victoria zoning out and asked, "Hey, what are you doing? Did you hear me?"
Victoria snapped back. "Huh? What?"
Lila repeated, "I said I want to visit your place—well, you and Alexander's place."
She sighed, "Let me visitSerenity Grove Manor, a place folks like me can only dream about."
Victoria chuckled and agreed.
"If you're ordinary, then everyone else is a millionaire," Victoria teased.
Lila shot back, "No, I mean compared to Alexander, people like me are ordinary."
"Think about it, who else can buy a whole mountain?" Lila asked, then answered herself, "No one. There's no second person like him."
Then she added, "But that's not the point. The point is Alexander bought it at sixteen, with his own money. Compared to that, aren't we just ordinary? Even among the rich, there are different levels. Alexander's at the top."
Victoria went quiet.
Around noon, she headed to Vertex Holdings Group to bring Alexander lunch.
After they ate, Alexander rushed off to a meeting, and she drove to the film set.
When she got there, she caught Sarah and Harrington in the middle of a scene.
After watching for a bit, Nancy came over.
"Victoria, what brings you here?" Nancy asked.
"Just wanted to check things out," Victoria replied.
Initially, because of what happened to Donna, Victoria had arranged for Nancy to keep an eye on Sarah.
Some time had passed, and nothing had happened. Maybe she was being too paranoid.
But she never did things half-heartedly, especially when it came to Sarah's safety. She couldn't afford to be careless.
Nancy seemed to remember something and said, "Victoria, things have been a bit weird lately. Every day, different people are hanging around the set and the apartment, but they don't do anything. They just seem to be waiting for someone."
"I've been keeping an eye on them," Nancy continued after a brief pause. "Even though it's not the same person every day, they always wait in the same spot."
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
