Chapter 1689:

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Quietly, Maggie answered. “Your mother and I were close friends. The two of us met Philip at the same time. He fell for me right away, but your mother became obsessed with him. One night, after she had too much to drink, she wouldn’t let go of Philip. We both helped her back to her hotel. I can’t say what took place afterward. Yet, she eventually became pregnant. She claimed that she and Philip had sex that night. She claimed Philip was the father, but when we ignored her, she started acting recklessly. She lost the baby in the end, and her mind became more and more unstable. She was convinced that the world was against her.

“Out of nowhere, she showed up at our doorstep one day with a child, insisting he was Philip’s, and demanded recognition. When Philip took her and the boy for a paternity test, the results proved he wasn’t the father, and she wasn’t even the mother. She refused to believe it and accused us of faking everything. Later, the real parents came forward, demanding their son back. She thought we had orchestrated the whole thing to take her child away. In the end, she disappeared with the boy.”

Shock washed over Coulson as disbelief froze him in place. “No… that can’t be true!”

Coulson just couldn’t wrap his head around it. All this time, he’d been chasing revenge—and it had been aimed at the wrong person.

The one he should’ve gone after from the beginning was that his “mother,” hidden away in some asylum?

Austin glanced at Coulson’s face, and something suddenly clicked in his mind.

He asked, “Mom, the couple you mentioned… was it Mr. Lennon Turner and his wife?”

“That’s right. It was the Turner family,” Maggie answered.

Lennon Turner?

Coulson’s face shifted at once. His eyes filled with disbelief, anger, and a feeling so heavy he didn’t even know how to name it.

Then, out of nowhere—Coulson coughed up blood, leaving everyone stunned. Yelena rushed to his side without hesitation. “Hurry! We need to get him to the hospital! It looks like he’s having a stroke!”

Lατєѕτ ϲнαρτєrs ιn g𝒶l𝑛ovєl𝑆.𝗰om

A stroke? At his age?

The problem was, they were far out in the suburbs, and traffic into the city was a complete mess. A huge car crash nearby had caused a pileup—over a dozen vehicles—and now the roads were backed up for miles.

It took some time, but they finally got Coulson to the hospital. After the emergency treatment, the doctors gave the diagnosis—a brainstem hemorrhage. He was saved just in time, but the surgery alone cost over three hundred thousand dollars—and that was just the start.

Luckily for him, the cost wasn’t an issue. Coulson owned Nexogenix, after all.

But now, he was stuck in bed—unable to move, almost completely helpless.

Seeing him like this stirred all kinds of emotions in everyone around him. “He’s caused so much harm to so many people. He should be locked up, paying for all of it. But this…?”

“This might be the worst punishment life could’ve given him,” Austin said quietly. “Right now, he probably wishes he could just end the pain himself.”

Maybe the others didn’t know it, but Austin’s family had always been close to the Turners.

Back then, Nexogenix had backed Lennon Turner into a corner. They forced him to hand over his patent—but that wasn’t enough for them. They kept pushing until he had no choice but to sell his whole company for a tiny fraction of what it was worth.

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