—
"Futile?" Vincent didn't expect that word to come out of Secretary Maria's mouth. She usually devised the most ingenious idea that helped him in dire times. So when Maria said that word, Vincent felt a sense of hopelessness for the first time in his life, and he didn't like it.
"Is that all you can say? It's futile? FUTILE?!" he yelled.
Secretary Maria sighed, "Pardon me, Sir. This issue is too big for us to cover, I recommend you to just ignore it, and tell the PR team to stop taking down the video, because it will only rouse even more suspicion on the internet."
"You're telling me to ignore it? Don't you see how many people are making fun of me?!" Vincent remembered some of those comments that hurt his pride. He was so used to people praising him daily that he simply couldn't ignore those comments from faceless people on the internet.
"It is difficult, Sir. The internet is a tricky place. We cannot control the people's mind. All we can do is to shift the topic so they will have a different topic to talk about, but Chelsea's face is just far too interesting so they just can't stop talking about it," Secretary Maria patiently explained this whole thing to her boss, knowing that her boss wasn't used to see himself getting slandered in public.
Vincent scoffed, "You're no different than those useless fucks I hire in the PR team."
"… pardon my inability, Sir."
"Tsk, then what should I do other than ignoring this?"
"…" Maria paused for a while before giving out a sinister suggestion, "Find that woman, and do something to her. I can do it for you, Sir."
"Chelsea?"
"Yes, she is the center of this whole thing. If you don't shut her up as soon as possible, she might start getting interviewed left and right, so you need to do something before that happens," Maria said. "Because you know she will say something stupid that will only put the spotlight on you for a long time."
"This spotlight is bad for you and the company, Sir. I can clean her life for you, including everyone in her family except Chloe, of course," Maria suggested herself, knowing how efficient the old secretary was at her job. "I will do anything to keep the company running."
"Chelsea…" Vincent murmured that bitch name. Secretary Maria was right. Chelsea was the one who started everything. If she hadn't said a thing about him, then everything would never start guessing about his relationship with both of them.
"You're right, Maria. If I allow Chelsea to keep living, she will eventually get enough exposure to get interviewed, or start making shit up on social media. We have to take her down as soon as possible."
"I can do that, Sir. I can clean her family easily," Maria said.
"No, I don't want to kill her," Vincent refused. "I have a better way to do this, actually."
"Are you sure, Sir? I see that she seems to be unhinged, so the only way to shut her up is to kill her," Maria reasoned. "We have to do this swiftly, Sir."
"Yes, I know, and I don't need to kill her just to prove a point that she's crazy," Vincent had a bad smile as he started forming a malicious plan in his head. He never spared pity for anyone except his wife, so Chloe should be thankful that he hadn't done anything too dangerous—except just a simple beating and humiliation to her for the past ten years.
"What are you going to do, Sir?"
"I will tell you later. You don't need to worry about Chelsea," Vincent said. "But I don't want to hear you say that everything is futile, and I should just ignore the bad comments. I fucking hire those PR team to handle these!"
"… pardon my words, Sir. But do you have another way for us to tackle this problem? The PR team has been doing their best, and I'm not familiar with the internet enough to give a proper solution."
"I'll think about it first," Vincent said. He also had to admit that he got no solution for this whole thing, but he would never allow those faceless people on the internet to talk shit about him. "Since you said taking down the video is futile, then let them be. Try to stir up something big enough in the celebrity circle so people's attention can be shifted."
"We will try our best, Sir."
"Good, I will have to meet with that ugly female joker tonight. I don't want to wait," Vincent said.
Secretary Maria was relieved that her boss quickly decided to eliminate that ugly female joker Chelsea. She worried he would go soft just because Chelsea was Chloe's sister.
After all, it wasn't difficult to see him getting all mushy. Just look at how inefficient he was in tackling this Chloe problem.
He wouldn't even allow Maria to just drag Chloe by her hair and throw her back into the mansion, something that Maria could easily do when Mackenzie was still in that school.
'Now that Chloe has successfully transferred her daughter away, it becomes awfully difficult for us to track them down,' Maria complained in her heart.
"Please handle that ugly woman as soon as possible, Sir. The company's future lay in your hand," Secretary Maria reminded, ensuring that Vincent didn't forget his role as the CEO of Gray's century-old businesses.
"Yeah, yeah, I understand."
Beep.
—
Vincent finally let out a relieved sigh after he called Secretary Maria.
Though he was yet to get a proper solution to his problem, at least he knew what to do next: eliminate Chelsea Davis.
Vincent's smirk grew deeper as he had a glimpse of what would happen next, "I wonder if I should kill that old woman too. Or maybe I should just keep her hostage. I don't think Chloe has enough sympathy for her sister anymore, but she still has one for her poor mother, right?"
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺