I received a call from the hotel. The staff informed me that someone was causing a scene in the hotel lobby, emotionally agitated and insisting on seeing me.
This filled me with an inexplicable sense of unease, and I quickly put aside what I was doing.
I drove over in a hurry, and before I could even park my car properly, a figure rushed out of the hotel entrance and ran straight toward me.
It was an elderly woman, dressed simply and with a frail, thin frame. Her steps were unsteady.
Her hair was messy, her face pale, her lips cracked and trembling slightly, and her eyes full of exhaustion.
Though she looked much older, I still recognized her.
It was Judith.
“Laura, we were wrong. I know we owes you a great deal. I don’t ask for your forgiveness, but I really have no one else to turn to. Please, save my son.
As soon as she spoke, her voice choked with sobs, and tears uncontrollably streamed down her face.
Then, with a sudden thud, she knelt before me. The unexpected gesture caught me completely off guard.
“What happened? What’s going on?” I asked, not expecting her to come to me for help. She had always been a proud woman who rarely lowered her head to anyone.
The elderly woman, trembling and on the verge of breaking down, clutched my hands tightly and cried, “Rick is in the hospital. We don’t have the money for his treatment…
She explained that Rick had lost a large sum of money in stock trading. Not only that, but he had also misappropriated company funds.
To make matters worse, Helen had taken all his savings and disappeared.
To fill the massive financial hole, Rick had to resort to borrowing from loan sharks, which only pulled him deeper into a spiral of debt.
Everything in their house had been sold off, but the debts continued to snowball.
Chapter 21
Eventually, the creditors came knocking, and Rick was severely beaten. Now he was lying in a hospital bed, critically injured andin desperate need of money for
treatment
I thought for a moment, then took out the card he had given me during the divorce.” This is the 50 thousand from the divorce settlement. Consider it returned. 1 can’t help with anything more.”
Judith took the bank card with trembling hands.
