Cindy’s final, sisterly plea, which was broadcast live, shattered the hearts of the nation.

The livestream’s chat erupted in a collective wave of heartbreak and fury.

[What nonsense! This is brutal! The little sister is begging for her life, and the big sister is sitting in a cell doing absolutely nothing!]

[Victoria is a monster. An absolute monster! That’s your sister!]

[I’m disgusted. How did someone like her ever become Chief Engineer? Investigate her immediately!]

[Go save them! Don’t wait till it’s too late!]

Insults and accusations surged over me like a tidal wave.

Linda seized the moment perfectly.

With a dramatic thud, she fell to her knees once more. Though this time, her performance was not for me. It was for the media cameras that had swarmed the detention center’s perimeter.

She wept as if her heart were being torn apart. Her sobs were loud enough to echo through the space.

“Please, Victoria. If you go and save Cindy, I-I’ll have her sign over all of the Locke family’s inheritance to you! We’ll give up everything!”

As she spoke, she really pulled a pre-prepared Asset Renunciation Agreement from her bag.

Cindy’s signature was already on it.

It only needed my consent to be complete.

What a performance.

She had perfectly cast herself as the heroic mother who would sacrifice everything for her child.

I looked at her and smiled.

Then, under the stunned gazes of everyone present, I uttered one word.

“Okay.”

Linda was stunned. She clearly did not expect that I would agree.

I curled a finger at her. “Bring it here. Let me take a look.”

She hesitated for a moment, then slid the document through the gap in the bars.

I took it, gave it a perfunctory glance, and nodded slowly.

“That’s quite an offer.”

Linda’s eyes brightened with desperate hope. She blurted out, “Does that mean you… You’re going now?”

I tossed the agreement onto the table beside me and settled back against the wall. “I said I’d consider it. I never said when I’d go.”

Her expression hardened into a mask of pure fury.

“Y-You’re messing with me!”

I closed my eyes and ignored her.

Another thirty minutes slipped by.

Every second was torture for those trapped in the deep sea.

For my father, it was no different.

Finally, he played his last card.

He stepped up to the bars and fixed his gaze on me intently as he forced each word out through clenched teeth.

“Victoria, if you leave now to save your sister, I’ll give you sixty percent of Locke Corp.’s shares.”

Locke Corp., the business empire my mother built from scratch, was worth over 100,000,000,000 dollars.

Sixty percent meant absolute control.

Locke Corp.’s most elite legal team arrived at the detention center with dizzying speed. They were holding a thick stack of equity transfer documents.

I gazed at the document in front of me and took note of the astronomical figures laid out in stark black and white. I then picked up a pen.

Just as the tip of the pen was about to touch the paper…

A sudden burst of cheering erupted from the livestream.

“We’ve got a connection! The remote signal went through!”

“Commander Noah did it! He actually did it!”

“There’s been a major breakthrough in the rescue!”

I smiled.

The fish had finally taken the bait.

This time, they had walked straight into the trap I had laid for them.