Chapter 554

"Oscar." Winnie's voice was a bare whisper, choked with emotion.

"Oscar?" Olivia's eyes widened in shock. "What are you saying, Winnie? What happened to Oscar?"

At that precise moment, an unfamiliar message notification illuminated Winnie's phone screen.

Unknown: [Come alone, I'm giving you a chance.]

She opened the message and read it, only to watch as it self-destructed before her eyes, leaving her with nothing but fleeting traces of its vanished contents.

Her gaze turned icy, her body temperature dropped as she forced calm. "It's nothing, I just need to take a walk downstairs, grab some medicine."

"I'll go with you. I'm worried, especially after you were out of sorts with a fever," Olivia insisted.

"No need, Olivia. Just wait for me in the office."

Winnie headed back, and she grabbed a small knife and a voice recorder from her drawer, tucking them into her purse before heading downstairs alone.

Beside the garbage disposal area at the rear of the company building, a cab was waiting. The driver stepped out, checked Winnie's photo for confirmation, and invited her into the car.

Winnie took a deep breath of the crisp air. It was clear Ishara was taking no chances with this meeting.

Her mind was consumed with thoughts of Oscar. Perhaps, Ishara would finally confess to taking him.

Her eyes stared resolutely ahead.

The driver opened the door to a café.

The entire restaurant was deserted.

Winnie ascended the stairs, following the driver to a windowless private chamber. As she pushed the door ajar, Ishara's silhouette materialized before her.

Seated languidly, Ishara delicately coughed into a handkerchief before lifting her gaze to meet Winnie's pallid countenance, a slow, sardonic smile playing upon her lips. "Winnie, I almost doubted you'd summon the courage to confront me."

"The kidnapper of my son, the accomplice who let your mother shoot your own father. Why wouldn't I come to meet you? After all, it's not going to be me who gets what's coming to them."

Winnie lingered at the threshold, her words cutting through the air with unwavering clarity.

Ishara's expression changed immediately; her smile instantly gone.

Her eyes swept over the bag in Winnie's hands, and she ordered coldly to her bodyguard, "Search her."

The bodyguard locked the door and advanced towards Winnie.

Winnie's expression darkened. She stepped back to a chair, grabbing a coffee pot from the table.

Ishara spoke with a hint of amusement, "Winnie, I suggest you cooperate. Otherwise, I won't reveal a single thing you want to know. You can leave now."

As she spoke, she lazily stood up, a smile playing on her lips.

Winnie clenched her jaw, then set the coffee pot down and tossed her purse into a chair.

The bodyguard came over, searching her from head to toe. After finding nothing, he opened her purse and pulled out the small knife and a voice recorder.

The bodyguard turned his head and handed the item over to Claire. "She did indeed come prepared."

Ishara's eyes darkened as she looked at the voice recorder. "Destroy it."

With a simple nod, the bodyguard holding the recorder shattered it into irreparable pieces, erasing any hope of capturing the exchange.

Ishara's gaze returned to Winnie, whose face was as cold as frost. She stared piercingly at her and, with an arched eyebrow, sat down. "No need to treat me like a fool, Winnie. Alright, let's sit down and have a calm conversation."

Winnie pulled out a chair and sat down, her gaze sharp enough to cut through Ishara's façade. "When will you hand over Oscar?"

Ishara, lounging back with narrowed eyes, said, "You're quite impatient. Let's talk about Lawrence, shall we?"

"No need to talk. I've given him up to you like money lost down a latrine that I've long stopped caring for. Take it if you wish, if you can even get him," Winnie replied with an indifferent tone.

Her words not only demeaned Lawrence but also mocked Ishara.

Ishara could hear the scorn in her voice; even pregnant, she still couldn't win Lawrence's heart.

Her smile twisted. "You think you're giving him away? And by what, right? You've already divorced him!

"Do you think Lawrence still truly loves you?

"If he really loved you, how could he have gotten me pregnant?

"I'm not afraid to tell you, every time he is intimate with me, he might call out your name, but he enjoys himself immensely.

"He can't resist the youth, beauty, and purity of my body.

"I don't see it as a failure because I've succeeded in carrying his child."

Ishara's taunts were like invisible thorns, piercing into Winnie's flesh, bringing acute pain.

He once avoided Darcy, but now he couldn't resist Ishara.

Olivia had repeatedly advised her, suspecting that Ishara's pregnancy was suspicious, maybe not Lawrence's child at all.

But at this moment, the truth spilled from Ishara's lips.

They had been together in bed, so, there was no surprised that Ishara was pregnant.

From the moment she saw the news, Winnie thought she didn't care.

But now, the smirk on Ishara's face still brutally wounded her.

Winnie clenched her fists and mocked Ishara, "Oh, congratulations on your success. I'm happy to be a stand-in, that's a first for me. Well, people who take pride in their shamelessness can show it off wherever they go."

"You!" Ishara's face flushed red, her eyes fixated on Winnie's impenetrable demeanor, and a cold laugh burst forth, "And what about you, Winnie? Do you feel like a failure?

"You kept pinning your hopes on Lawrence, giving him one soft-hearted pass after another. You're holding out for the day he'll turn around and take you and the kids seriously, right?

"But how did it all turn out, huh?

"You told him that I caused his mother's leukemia, so what? Once he knew I was pregnant, he couldn't bear to make me suffer. "

"He let me go. Bob treasures the child in my belly, the heir to the Rodriguez family. Bob doesn't care for your two children."

"If his father doesn't care, do you think he will?

"Your sons, utterly pitiable, abandoned and forsaken..."

Winnie's breathing grew ragged as she grabbed the glass beside her and splashed it in her face.

The icy water streamed down Ishara's particularly delicate features.

Claire approached, glaring at Winnie, on the verge of exploding.

Winnie stood up quickly, lunging over the table to grab Ishara by the collar, enunciating every word, "Aren't you pregnant? You better watch your mouth because if your weak body miscarried right here, what then?"

"Winnie, if I miscarried, you wouldn't be happy either."

Ishara's hand caressed her stomach. Her eyes gleamed with a sly twinkle as she feigned a comforting stroke.

Winnie was unable to decipher the meaning hidden in her eyes.

She tugged coldly at Ishara's collar, losing patience, her gaze sharp as a blade. "Stop your babbling and bragging about your pregnancy. Do you want me to call Lawrence to come over and hear how you're sowing discord?"

Ishara's expression faltered, and she coolly regarded Winnie's dark pupils. "I know my words have deeply wounded you.

"You're just pretending not to care.

"After all, Lawrence now treasures me. Can a baby erase the scores between us?

"Saving your son is your problem now, get it?"

A cold river flowed through Winnie's heart, freezing her blood and her breath.

She asked, "Are you admitting you kidnapped Oscar?"

Ishara's smile broadened, hands clasped on the table, a chilling glint in her doe eyes. "Yes, it was me who kidnapped your son."

Her blatant admission sent a chill through Winnie's brows, her hand wandering to her chest, where a tiny recording pen was hidden.