In fact, Lucas already had an idea about who the mastermind was, but he just needed some evidence to prove it.

Ever since he had returned to Orange County and took over the Stardust Corporation, there had secretly been a lot of unrest.

In particular, after Flynn had appointed Charlotte as the deputy general manager, Oliver Harvey, the director of the sales department at the time, stood out and vehemently opposed it. He even produced a large stack of digitally-doctored photos that implied an illicit affair between Charlotte and Flynn.

After the conspiracy was uncovered, Flynn fired Harvey from the company, and Harvey committed suicide by jumping off the building. A large number of media outlets quickly caught up to cover as much information as possible. They even misled the audience and caused the Stardust Corporation to face a major controversy and become the target of public criticism for a long time. Even until now, it still wasn’t peaceful.

Lucas later found out that the person who secretly instigated or threatened Harvey into taking his own life was Dave Lewis, who worked for the Huttons. Shortly after Lucas found him, he died of a heart attack in his own home.

Although the trail of clues had been broken, Lucas was certain that the mastermind must be someone from the Huttons.

Later on, the Stardust Corporation became independent of the Huttons, and word about it gradually spread. Thus, many families in Orange County thought that the Stardust Corporation had been abandoned by the Huttons and was no longer as powerful as before. This resulted in plenty of trouble.

Coupled with today’s incident of Declan going to the Stardust Corporation to hold Charlotte hostage and threatening to jump to his death, Lucas was sure that someone had instigated him. It was also very likely that the Huttons were the mastermind.

The matter of the paparazzi taking photos without permission could also be part of the plan.

They only had two agendas for doing so. One was to kill Lucas, and the other was to destroy the Stardust Corporation.

Lucas was well aware of this.

He didn’t intend to go back to the Huttons, but some of the Huttons were extremely wary of him, and they tried all sorts of methods to suppress him and even get him killed.

Lucas didn’t care, nor was he afraid of those who were trying to kill him, be it in private or public. But the Stardust Corporation was the only thing that his mother had left behind for him, so no matter what, he wouldn’t tolerate them touching the Stardust Corporation!

With a sharp and cold gaze in his eyes, Lucas raised his head and looked distantly in the direction of the DC. “Hmph, I don’t care who you really are. As long as you dare to reach your hand here, I don’t mind chopping it off!”

When Lucas reached the amusement park entrance, he saw Charlotte waiting here for him worriedly.

“Lucas, what did you lose? Did you find it?” she asked curiously.

Lucas took out a bunch of keys from his pocket and said with a faint smile, “I accidentally lost my keys. Fortunately, I didn’t drop them too far away.”

Charlotte grinned and teased, “I thought that you were invincible. It turns out there are times when you’re careless and end up losing your keys too! Haha!”

Lucas didn’t bother to explain. He merely nodded and said, “Yeah, so you can’t be careless like me. Okay, it’s getting late. Let’s go pick up Amelia and go home!”

Charlotte nodded happily. Soon, the two of them got into Lucas’s Jaguar and sped off toward Amelia’s kindergarten.

…

At this moment, in a luxurious villa of the Huttons far away in DC…

A young man in his twenties was reclining on a soft leather sofa with a sullen expression.

There was a man in his thirties wearing a suit standing in front of him with his head hung low. The man was standing quietly with great respect, not even daring to raise his hand to wipe the cold sweat covering his forehead.

“So, your plans have failed?” the young man asked slowly without any emotion in his voice.

The man in the suit immediately got down on both knees and pleaded, “Mr. Leighton, I failed to get the task done well. I’m incompetent! We initially found a perfect candidate, and we told him to force Lucas to jump to his death. But to our surprise, he merely pretended to jump. He even caught the person we instigated. I didn’t want to risk having that person spout any nonsense about this, so I’ve sent someone to get rid of him. We definitely won’t be implicated!

“However, I’ve indeed failed to complete the task well. Please punish me, Mr. Leighton!” The man in the suit pressed his forehead against the carpet.

Edward Leighton glanced at him uninterestedly. “What’s the point of reprimanding you and punishing you at this point? You’d better think of another solution to get rid of that person.”

Seeing that Edward didn’t hold it against him, the man in the suit breathed a long sigh of relief. He then raised his head from the ground and said, “Actually, it’s not that difficult to get rid of Lucas Gray. I’ll send a few of my elite assassins. I’m sure we’ll be able to kill him without anyone realizing!”

Edward snorted coldly in disdain. “Dimwit! If it was that easy, why would I need you to think of a solution? Sending hitmen to assassinate him is too straightforward and crude. Grandpa will definitely find out. When he does, neither you nor I will be able to get away scot-free!

“Besides, it’d be too easy for him if we just let him die like that! Doesn’t the Stardust Corporation mean the world to him because he thinks it’s something precious his mother left behind for him? In that case, I’m going to destroy it bit by bit so that he can watch it get destroyed while being unable to do anything about it!”

There was a cold gaze of resentment and viciousness in Edward’s eyes.

The man in the suit shuddered and hurriedly said with his head hung low, “Yes, Mr. Leighton, I understand! I will definitely adhere to your orders and think of a way to destroy the Stardust Corporation!”

Edward finally glanced at the man in the suit and said with a faint smile on his face, “That’s what you said yourself. Within a month, I want the Stardust Corporation to be completely destroyed! Otherwise, there’s no need for you to continue living in this world.”

The man in the suit shivered violently. Kneeling on one knee, he answered loudly, “Yes!”

…

Orange County…

Soon after Lucas arrived at the kindergarten with Charlotte and picked Amelia up, he received a call from Jordan.

“Lucas, I’ve checked up on that phone number you gave me. It belongs to an unregistered SIM card that can be bought off the market. The identity bound to it doesn’t serve any purpose. We’ve also tracked the positioning according to the network information, and it shows that the user threw the phone into a garbage bin. For the time being, there’s no other useful information. It was clearly premeditated.”

“Okay.” In fact, the outcome was within Lucas’s expectations. Since the other party was so conscientious that he had concealed his identity and even chose to contact the photography studio via text message, he definitely did so because he didn’t want to leave any clues.

“One more thing. Declan Adams regained consciousness in the hospital, but he suddenly went berserk before the police could interrogate him. He then jumped out of the window of the hospital ward and has already… fallen to his death.

“After that, the police and forensic pathologists recovered a tiny metal monitoring device from his left ear canal. The police are still investigating to find out if he heard any instructions through that device before his death.”