Josh were on his knees in front of Linda, terrified. They didn't even fully understand what had happened — the fact that Linda had ordered the house guards to haul them home showed how serious this was. Usually Linda kept a lid on things; she might scream, she might scold, but she rarely turned truly violent. Now she had, and that meant something huge had gone wrong.
Zachary shoved Josh hard in the back. "You worthless punk," he snarled. "You deserve to be dead."
He kicked him again, not a slap or a showy blow but a real, brutal strike. Josh screamed and curled inward, clutching his side. He had no idea what he'd done that could drive his father to this level of fury.
Cai scrambled forward, wrapping her arms around Josh and crying, "Mr. Holt, please—don't kill him. He's still your son. If he messed up, yell at him, punish him—don't kill him!"
Zachary's face was furious, raw. "Get out of the way!" he roared. "I should kill him right now. If he's offended someone powerful, he's only going to get himself killed eventually. Maybe if I do it now, I protect our family."
He kicked Josh again; Cai tried to shield him but couldn't stop the strikes. The room smelled of fear.
Linda's voice cut through, icy and controlled. "Beating him won't fix this. You raised the seed of trouble yourself — if you taught him to swagger and take what he wanted, why should we be surprised? Now there's a problem, and beating him won't change that." She turned to Josh, voice like a blade. "Do you even know who you provoked?"
Josh's face went white. "I've been keeping to myself lately, I don't— I don't know who you mean," he stammered.
Linda didn't soften. "Jason Carter. Jason. Remember that name. He liked Emma—your stunt with her, you stole her away, didn't you?"
At the mention of the name, Josh's whole world tilted. Jason Carter? The murmurs in town, the wild talk that the young man who'd flipped the waterfront land had somehow become untouchable — it all crashed into him. He'd heard about the land: $420 million turned into $1.8 billion after rezoning. People called the buyer a powerhouse. Josh realized, with a cold sickening certainty, that that was the man he'd crossed in college.
"I didn't know who he was at the time," Josh babbled, panic in his voice. "I thought he was just some quiet kid. I was with Emma before I knew anything. When I found out, I kept my distance. I'll apologize. I can make it right. Please, I'll do anything."
That only made Linda colder. "So after you found out he wasn't simple, you didn't apologize? You kept playing the same games? Do you have any idea what that makes you?"
She turned to Zachary, voice flat. "Jason hasn't even taken action against us yet. But because everyone now knows you offended him, the entire contractor and developer community is cutting ties with the us. Orders we expected for the new tourism projects? Gone. No calls. No invites. If Jason decides to press this, we won't win a single bid in the city again. Our construction company will dry up."
Zachary's hand trembled with rage. "You've been with the company for years. You know how gray these deals are. One person with pull can blackball you: no contracts, no suppliers, no work. You could wipe out everything we built."
Josh could only gulp and plead. "Dad, Mom, I'm sorry. I'll apologize. I'll— I'll do whatever he wants. Just don't—don't disown me."
Linda's face hardened into something steely. "Listen carefully. From this moment on, you are no longer our heir in any meaningful way. You're not on the books. You're not on paper. You're a stain. If this blows over and we can fix things, maybe—maybe—we'll help you from the side. But if you keep wriggling and making more trouble, I'll make your life worse than dead. Do you understand?"
Josh nodded, pale and shaking, because he understood perfectly: disownment meant no paycheck, no family backing, no suppliers willing to extend credit. It meant he'd be out on the street and the name would carry the stink he'd left on it.
Linda went on, cold and precise. "First: you're cut off publicly. Second: you will go to Jason Carter and apologize. Do it however you must—face-to-face, in writing, on your knees if that's what it takes. Do everything you can to placate him and reduce the damage. If you fail, you'll be the one taking the fall for every lost contract. If we lose business because of you, I will make sure you regret it ten times worse than if I'd simply cut you loose now."
Terror flooded Josh. He pictured bid sheets with there name crossed out, trucks parked with no work to do, office phones silent. The scale of what he'd put his family at risk for — a momentary conquest — crushed him.
"Please," he whispered. "I'll do it. I'll beg him. I'll apologize. Please—don't make me leave."
Zachary's voice was a raw mix of fury and shame. "You better fix this. Crawl if you have to, but fix it. If Jason doesn't forgive us — if he doesn't lift a finger — don't come home crying."
Linda's parting words were as sharp as a judge's gavel. "Start calling every contact you burned. Fly wherever you need to. And understand: Jason's reach is deep. He may not have to lift a finger himself—people remember favors and debts. When those people close ranks, will anyone take a risk on the Holts? Think very carefully."
Josh nodded again, tears streaming down his face. He had no plan, no leverage, only the grim necessity to beg forgiveness from a man who already seemed more powerful than he'd ever imagined.
Outside the quiet suburban house, the city hummed on, unaware. Inside, the Holt family sat wounded and terrified: a company's fate dangling on the edge of a single apology.
"The other side's hands and eyes could know in advance which plot of industrial land would be rezoned for commercial use — buy it for a few million, and in a matter of days it turns into tens of millions. Their background is unfathomable."
"He might be the scion of a dynasty — money, power, influence. Who in their right mind would mess with someone like that? You break his pride and expect an apology when your neck's on the line?"
Before the zoning announcement, a factory lot bought for $1.2 million turned into a commercial parcel worth $18 million overnight. The story had set the whole market ablaze; everyone whispered that it had to be one of the city's third-generation heirs behind it. They called him "Carter" more than they used his given name. Josh remembered the last time he'd seen Jason Carter roll up to a boutique in three luxury cars and walk out with a watch the price of a house — that image had already been burned into his memory. From that moment he'd kept his head down.
Now, sitting cuffed and sweating under the glare of the family study light, he realized the truth was worse than rumor. Jason Carter's reach was far broader, far deeper. For fear of being implicated, the entire real-estate circle had frozen them out. If you enraged someone like Jason, people didn't just get ruined — they disappeared from influence, from contracts, from the city's map.
"Emma," Josh croaked, staring at the woman who'd set this whole thing in motion. "Why did you pick him? Why—"
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