As soon as Dustin and Dahlia reached one of the wards of Ansdale South Hospital, they were greeted by the ghastly sight of Florence moaning in pain, her body wrapped in bloodstained bandages. “How do you feel, Mom?” Dahlia asked worriedly as she walked into the room.
“You’re finally here, Dahlia!” Florence immediately burst into tears and wailed. “I’m so sorry. I made a mistake, and I don’t deserve to live anymore.” She slammed her head into the wall several times, tearing up from the pain.
“What are you doing, Mom?” Dahlia quickly pulled her mother in for a hug to stop her from hurting herself. “Can’t we talk this out? Why are you trying to commit suicide?”
“I-I’m too embarrassed to tell you!” Florence thumped her chest sadly.
“James, what in the world happened?” Dahlia looked at her brother, who was standing next to their mother.
“Mom got scammed. Our savings are all gone now!” He cried.
“Scammed? Elaborate further.” Dahlia frowned.
“Do you remember Julie’s boyfriend, Terrence Stone? He’s that manager at the Brooks Corporation.”
“Of course, I do. Why?” Dahlia nodded.
“He lied to us!” James accused. “We were having dinner with Aunt Victoria last night when he suddenly came up to us and told us that the Brooks Corporation had a new real estate project and asked if we would be interested in investing.
“He claimed that the prices would be low since we’d get a special price because he knew an insider. We thought he was being kind, so we agreed. He promised that our investment would double in return after half a year, and the more we invested, the greater our return. We were blinded by greed and signed the contract stupidly, putting all our money in.
“Then, guess what? When we visited the development site this morning, we realized that the so-called new real-estate project was nothing but a cluster of abandoned buildings! It’s been left alone for years, and now we’re in charge of taking care of this mess! Now, besides wasting all our savings, we’ve also collected huge debts!”
James seethed, regretting their decision last night. They shouldn’t have gotten greedy and fallen into Terrence’s trap.
“Where’s Terrence now?” Dahlia interrogated.
“I don’t know.” James shook his head. “He hasn’t been picking up his phone since morning.
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When we went to ask his company, they said he had been fired and was nowhere to be found!” “When didn’t you tell me about this right away?” Dahlia was displeased with this issue.
One shouldn’t aim too high when they don’t possess the necessary skills. Those individuals were the easiest to scam and swindle money out of.
“We didn’t know he was a scammer, so we got careless and…” James sighed. They had complete faith in Terrence because he was a manager at Brooks Corporation; they never expected that he had been fired a long time ago.
“How did Mom get all beaten up?” Dahlia asked.
“She couldn’t find Terrence, so she went to find the developer instead, demanding they refund us, but they refused, saying that we had already signed the contract, so Mom kicked up a fuss and got into a brawl with someone,” James explained.
“What?” Dahlia frowned. “How much did you lose in total this time?”
