Chapter 798

 798:
The child’s ice cream had smashed right against his chest, smearing cold, sticky streaks across his finely tailored suit.
The assistant’s heart dropped. He stepped forward sharply, his voice rising with frustration. “What’s wrong with you, kid?”
Startled by the scolding, Zenia recoiled. She had intended to fake a few sniffles, but now her eyes brimmed with genuine tears. The grievance was all too real!
“M-my ice cream!” she wailed. “You… you’re bad guys! You’re bullying me!”
Her loud, shrill cries instantly attracted a crowd.
“What’s going on here?”
“Oh no, that poor little girl. She looks terrified!”
“Those two guys look so respectable, but they’re bullying a little girl?”
“All that over some ice cream on his suit? How heartless.”
Oblivious to the murmurs, Zenia kept crying, loud and broken, repeating through sobs, “You’re bullying a kid!”
She was doing exactly as instructed. Before she ran into Collin, Zander had given her clear instructions—collide with the man, then cry as if her heart were breaking, and shout that she was being bullied. They had been told that Collin had once deeply hurt Linsey, and this was their way of making him pay—publicly.
From behind a nearby wall, Zander observed everything, eyes sharp with anticipation. The more people gathered, the better. Let the world see Collin for what he was.
The assistant shifted nervously as Zenia’s sobs grew louder and more dramatic.
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He had worked alongside Collin long enough to know one thing: the man had no patience for children—especially not ones throwing public tantrums.
“Mr. Riley,” he said hesitantly, “should I call someone to calm her down? Or maybe take her to the nearest precinct so her family can be contacted?”
Collin pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and brushed the mess from his suit with a casual flick of the wrist.
Then, his eyes landed on the girl, and he froze for a moment.
There was something unmistakable in her tear-streaked face. And then it struck him. This was the same girl he had seen at the airport a few days ago—the one who looked hauntingly like Linsey.
His expression shifted, darkening with a complexity that unsettled even the assistant.
So it was her. The child was likely Linsey Gorman’s daughter.
He had once imagined that he would feel nothing but aversion toward this child. He had, after all, heard her call Gorman “Daddy” with his own ears.
But as he looked at her now—crying with raw emotion, her little fists balled at her sides—he felt a strange ache tightening in his chest. In her eyes, in her vulnerable little face, he saw Linsey—just like last night—eyes wet, voice trembling, looking at him like she was trying not to shatter.
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