Mrs. Carraway had not expected her daughter to refute her like that, and it made her profoundly wistful and helpless. When Mrs. Carraway finally spoke after a long silence, she sounded defeated. “Of course. You’ve grown up from being a little girl and are now an adult of your own right. We can no longer tell you what to do, and neither should we. I’ll leave the issue between yourself and Liam up to you. I just want you to know that the last thing your mother wants to see from you is regret.”Viv

The bespectacled man snuck a glance at him and Vivian before stepping into the fray to de-escalate the situation. “Alright, Buzz, cut it out,” he admonished. “Why bother shouting at a call girl? Just tell her to scram if she’s become an eyesore.”Buzz took his suggestion to heart and bellowed at the girl, “Well? F*** off!”The young model wiped her tears away as she left. Meanwhile, Jake and the bespectacled man quickly launched into a performance of humorous back-and-forths. They successfully r

Vivian’s eyes reddened and her lips trembled slightly. “Edward Levin, do you think I’m playing hard to get? You hit me in the face. It’s swollen because of you! Do you think my injury is automatically hunky-dory just because you caressed it a bit afterward?” she fumed. “As for you putting up with me?! Well, excuse me for not thanking you for that immense sacrifice!”Her outburst confounded Edward even more. With furrowed eyebrows, he took the tablet and eyed it. Painkillers.His expression softe

Vivian could not belie her discouragement. “It’s no use. Edward will either physically alter his fingerprints through some unknown means, or he will swap his prints in the authorities’ database to someone else’s so that the results will never match.”A soft chuckle escaped Joan. “Oh, the records in the database have been tampered with. That much is true, but their handiwork is a tad bit sloppy. They left one out somewhere they thought is unimportant, but a very persistent old lady has found it.”

Both of them began their show again, squabbling like two kids vying for their favorite toy. Vivian could see they were playacting again, so she pressed her lips into a thin line and turned around. She raised her arm and hurled the phone even further away into the lake. When the phone dropped into the water with a plop, she felt as if a stone had been lifted off her heart. Jake and Baldie were a little stunned. They stopped their bickering and looked in unison towards the rippling water. The w