A Vengeful Ex-Wife novel Chapter 203

When the door opened, the first thing James noticed was how wet her eyes were. Half of Maria's face was swollen, and she looked to be in much pain. His heart tightened without his bidding. He walked into the foyer and took her in his arms, lowering his face and planting soft kisses on her hair.

Maria smiled against his neck. "It looks like my fighting skills have truly become worse. How could I have let myself be kidnapped by Ronald?"

"That's only because he cheated and pulled out a weapon on you." Ronald had the audacity to abduct someone in broad daylight. James wondered whether he was too bold or stupid.

Maria clung tightly to his neck, then pulled back to look him in the eye. "James, if I seek retaliation against him, whose side will you take?"

He glanced once again at the red handprint on her face, his eyes taking on a sharp glint. James decided then that Ronald had to be taught a lesson. Still, he made his answer vague. "On the side of justice."

He knew better than anyone that Maria had been pretending since he had stepped foot into the room. She wasn't as weak as she made herself to be.

James needed to make sure he didn't get tangled up in her schemes; he had to hold himself back every now and then.

Maria stifled the urge to curse him and buried her face in his chest instead. "I see."

He lifted her up and carried her over to the bed, smoothing her hair after carefully depositing her on the mattress. "Don't go anywhere in the next couple of days. I'll have Summer deal with things at the coffee shop."

"James." She lay on her side and propped her head on one hand, staring at him.

"Yes?"

"Do you know what Judy Lan and her nephew have done to me?"

"What are you talking about, exactly?"

Maria knew that there was no need to keep up with the act. "Back when we were still married, she always wanted to kick me out of the Xi family. You should know at least that much, even if I never told you, right? This time, before Sandra called Summer up, I asked my employee, Mike, to run to your company and ask for your help. He was refused by none other than Lorenzo."

This had come as no surprise to her; of course Lorenzo would never help her when she was in danger. That made Maria want him to disappear from HL Group all the more.

James' eyes darkened, but he remained silent.

"Well, you don't have to do anything if you don't really care me. I won't mind. I'm quite used to it, actually."

"I will deal with Lorenzo, but not now." The people employed under him were all valued highly within the industry. Of course, Lorenzo was no exception. More importantly, he had taken a lot of assignments throughout his career; James could not afford to fire him so suddenly.

"Of course. Okay then." As long as he had given his word, Maria didn't feel the need to push him too much.

But he had more to say on the matter. "You should know that I won't easily give up the services of talented people for a woman. I never let personal affairs derail my business."

It meant that he wouldn't be dealing with Lorenzo just because she asked him to.

Maria chuckled. "Ah, James. HL Group is truly blessed to have you as the CEO." He was calm and reasonable.

"No," he refuted, surprising her. "I've already made too many exceptions for your sake, so you need to think long and hard about how to please me."

She narrowed her eyes, wondering if there was something more to that last part of what he had just said. Maria eyed him pensively before asking, "Does this mean that you will never pull strings for me in the future?"

"Exactly, especially when my company gets dragged into the situation." In truth, he didn't care much if it were just him, but he refused to get anyone from HL Group in trouble.

Maria's heart broke at his words.

Not that it worried her; the final winner of this battle was yet to be decided. A word or two from James could not intimidate her at all. She would definitely think of a way to make him pull strings for her someday.

He left shortly after that, but not before giving her a few more reminders.

"No way! You can go and talk to James yourselves." James might get annoyed with her if she bothered him too much. She had already used his lawyer when she had sued Maria before.

Miranda looked at her daughter in disbelief. "Alina, Ron committed that crime for your sake! How can you just abandon him like that?"

Alina jumped to her feet. "Yes, yes, I know he did it for me! If you want to make James hate me so badly, then fine, I'll go!"

"Why are you saying this?"

"I already borrowed his lawyer for Maria's case, and while it has never been pursued, I caused James a lot of inconvenience for it. How can I have the nerve to do that all over again?" More to the point, James didn't like her one bit, and she knew it. She had been trying so hard to change her image in his eyes, she needed to stay away from this issue. It would be far better if her parents approached James by themselves.

"What are we supposed to do then?" Miranda shrieked. "Am I supposed to beg Maria Song for mercy? Huh! She can dream all she want, but that will never happen!"

"I'm going upstairs!" Alina announced. She didn't want to get involved any further, and her mother's voice was grating at her nerves.

Clayton watched his daughter go and turned to his wife. "Alina is right. Stop panicking. We can go find James if nothing works in the end." After all, he was to be that man's father-in-law. He was sure that James would do them this favor as a show of respect.

Little did they know that Maria had already consulted

her lawyer about the case. Ronald's crimes consisted of unlawful use of weapons and kidnapping.

For the first crime, he could face up to three years in prison.

For the second crime, he might be sentenced to more than five years to ten years.

Either way, Ronald was sure to spend a considerable amount of time in prison.