Regretting the Wife He Threw Away

The land in the northern suburbs had been seized, and the project was not only at a standstill, but both the Wentworth Group and the Lockwood Group now faced intense scrutiny from government regulators.

In just three days, Northborough had been turned upside down.

The air in the Wentworth family was thick with tension and finger-pointing. One by one, Fred's uncles and relatives descended on him, demanding answers and insisting that he fix the mess he'd created.

It was only now that Fred realized all of this was Stewart's revenge.

No wonder Stewart had walked away so cleanly back then.

He'd laid the trap long ago—just waiting for Fred to stumble right in.

Fury roiled inside Fred, but in the current situation, he was utterly powerless.

What caught Fred completely off guard was that Ferdinand, acting on his own, called a press conference.

At the conference, Ferdinand publicly confirmed that the leaked reports were all true.

"My mother, Malvina, made many mistakes in her life," Ferdinand said, his voice steady but cold, "but the worst was falling in love with my father, Fred."

He went on to reveal, before the entire room of reporters, how Fred had manipulated Malvina's mind for twenty-five years, gradually turning her into nothing more than a human experiment.

The truth was that Malvina had not, as Fred claimed, fallen in love with him willingly and wholeheartedly. Back in college, they had indeed been in love, but after Fred cheated on her with Fiona, Malvina broke things off and left the country to pursue her studies.

A few months after moving abroad, Malvina discovered she was pregnant. Determined to raise her child on her own, she settled overseas. Fate, however, had other plans. Fred happened to be on a business trip abroad when he ran into Malvina again. Learning that she had a son, Fred began to pursue her relentlessly.

Malvina wanted nothing to do with him—she just wanted to live quietly with Ferdinand. But Fred wouldn't let her go.

One day, Fred showed up unannounced, claiming he'd cut ties with the Wentworth family and that, from now on, he wanted nothing but to be with Malvina and their son.

Malvina refused. So Fred did the unthinkable: he took Ferdinand away, using the boy as leverage to force Malvina into submission.

For Ferdinand's sake, Malvina gave in, while Ferdinand himself was sent back to a small town in the countryside. There, by sheer chance, he met Dr. Calloway-a wise and eccentric old physician-who, recognizing the boy's natural talent, took him in as his last apprentice.

From then on, Fred would bring Malvina home once a year around the holidays, so she and Ferdinand could be together. He told Ferdinand that he and Malvina were working abroad, and as a child, Ferdinand never questioned it.

But five years ago, Ferdinand noticed that his mother looked pale and unwell. When he checked her pulse, he was shocked to discover that her organs were failing and her body was suffering from long-term, chronic poisoning.

Pressed by her son, Malvina finally broke down and told him the truth.

That was when Ferdinand learned that, all these years, Fred had treated Malvina like a lab rat. For years, the experimental drugs kept her looking young and healthy, and no obvious side effects emerged. But when the funding ran out and the treatments stopped, Malvina's body began to deteriorate rapidly.

Furious, Ferdinand confronted Fred, who insisted he was "working on a solution.”

Fred's idea of a solution, it turned out, was to shake Stewart down for money.

Fred believed that if Stewart gave him the funds, he could keep the research going. With the drugs restored, Malvina would supposedly return to her beautiful, healthy self.

Ferdinand thought Fred had lost his mind. He insisted on keeping his mother with him, doing everything he could with traditional medicine to help her heal. This led

to a fierce argument between father and son, and Fred stormed out.

He went straight to Stewart, demanding three billion dollars.

Stewart, of course, refused.

While Fred was busy hounding Stewart in Northborough, Malvina was left to suffer the excruciating side effects of withdrawal.

Ferdinand did everything in his power to heal his mother, but after so many years on the drugs, no remedy came quickly enough.

Finally, one night, unable to bear the pain any longer, Malvina slipped away to the rooftop and ended her own suffering.

That's why Ferdinand hated Fred.

Fred was the true villain in all of this.

Yet that villain had the gall to pin everything on Stewart.

"I know this is all because of Fred," Ferdinand said at the press conference, his eyes never wavering. "I don't condone anything he's done. The only reason I agreed to help him fight for control of the Wentworth Group was for this day. I was powerless to save my mother or stop Fred from what he was doing. All I could do was reveal the truth in this cowardly way."

The reporters murmured among themselves.

One of them stood up and asked, "So, by your account, are you saying Stewart

set Fred up long before stepping down?"

Ferdinand replied calmly, "It's not that Stewart set a trap. The truth is, if it weren't for Stewart, the

Wentworth Group would've gonen etnoveldrama

under tong ago. All Stewart did was return the gutted company Fred left him years before."