Chapter 555 - The Taylors" Secret Meeting
When Connor and Joe heard that Lucas was going to the Taylors", their eyes immediately lit up.
In Orange County, the Taylors were merely on par with the Hales, so they would be much easier to deal with than the Kingstons!
"Mr. Gray, it"s merely the Taylor family. It doesn"t warrant your effort. I"ll go to the Taylors" immediately and tell them to hand over your mother-in-law!" Connor said confidently.
Joe also agreed. "That"s right. I"ll go with Mr. Hale. We"ll definitely bring her back!"
But Lucas shook his head. "No, I"m going to the Taylors" by myself. You guys have already helped me today, and I"m afraid it has already caused you to attract a lot of attention. You"d better go home first!"
Then Lucas went straight to his car and drove back to Orange County.
Connor and Joe naturally didn"t oppose Lucas"s arrangement, and they could only watch him leave before proceeding to a.s.semble their subordinates and return to Orange County.
——
At this moment, in the hall of the Taylors" main residence in Orange County…
At this moment, the hall had already turned into a small conference room, where all the direct descendants of the Taylor family had gathered with grave expressions on their faces. The head of the family, Frederick Taylor, was sitting at the main seat.
They had just received the news that the numerous experts they had sent to seize Lucas had failed their mission and let him escape.
Frederick clenched his fists. "I think all of you must be aware of what happened. Lucas Gray crippled almost all of the experts we sent and escaped successfully. I asked all of you to gather here to discuss what to do next!"
After a moment of silence, someone finally said, "Lucas Gray actually had the audacity to kill our men and made Scott die so tragically. We can"t let him off! Since he escaped this time, let"s go find an even more powerful expert to capture him at all costs!"
"Yes! The Taylors" pride and dignity can"t be trampled on by him just like that. We must capture him and use his blood as a sacrifice to our late family member!"
"Yes, we can"t let him escape!"
...
All of the Taylors were full of indignation as they swore to capture Lucas back.
But one of them had remained silent with his brows furrowed tightly throughout, seemingly pondering about something.
"What about you, Preston? What do you think?" Frederick suddenly looked at Preston, who hadn"t spoken for a long time.
Only then did Preston come back to his senses and hurriedly say, "Dad, I"ve just been thinking that Lucas Gray probably didn"t escape at all."
"What do you mean?" Frederick asked with a frown.
"Based on my understanding of him, that guy has always been arrogant and would never compromise, so it"s impossible for him to escape. Moreover, he clearly defeated so many of the experts we sent out, so it"s even less likely that he fled. I think he left Orange County because he had something else to do. We mustn"t let our guard down regarding this person!"
Preston had previously dealt with Lucas before, and he was the one in the family who knew him the best.
Truth be told, he even felt that the reason Lucas suddenly left Orange County was to go to San Francisco to confront the Kingstons.
But Preston didn"t quite believe that Lucas would be so stupid as to shoot himself in the foot by doing something tantamount to suicide.
For some reason, he had an ominous hunch that trouble was about to strike him.
He didn"t know if this feeling was related to Lucas or not, but the truth was clear. The Taylors couldn"t stop Lucas at all, and if Lucas decided to deal with them, they would never be able to stop him.
"I suggest we immediately ask the Peerless Martial a.s.sociation for help with retaliating against Lucas Gray!" Preston said firmly.
The moment he said this, all the Taylors were taken aback.
"Preston, do you know what you"re saying? You actually want us to ask the Peerless Martial a.s.sociation for help to deal with Lucas Gray, who"s nothing but a small fry?" a middle-aged man stood out and rebuked sternly with an austere expression on his face.
This middle-aged man was none other than Preston"s elder brother, Gaston Taylor.
He said with righteous indignation, "Do you know what doing that means? It will only make the people of the Peerless Martial a.s.sociation think that the Taylors are a bunch of incompetent fools who can"t even deal with a mere live-in husband. If they label us as useless, how can we possibly continue to cooperate with them in the future?
"Also, I heard people say that you lost the Ocean Bathhouse a long time ago. Do you know how important the Ocean Bathhouse is to us? Moreover, you haven"t even told us about it until now. Are you planning to continue hiding it?!"
Gaston"s questions immediately made Preston"s face turn sullen.
In particular, his last question exposed all the things that Preston had been trying so hard to conceal.
Frederick, the head of the Taylors, had a drastic change in expression, and he suddenly stood up to question Preston. "What?! The Ocean Bathhouse is gone? What"s going on? Preston Taylor, tell me the truth immediately!"
The rest of the Taylors appeared astonished too.
Every descendant of the Taylor family knew that Ocean Bathhouse was the root of the Taylors" development and their channel to connect to the mysterious, unpredictable, and powerful Peerless Martial a.s.sociation!
When Frederick handed it to Preston to manage back then, countless members of the family had been green with envy. Yet Preston actually lost it.
They wondered, How did he lose it, and whose hands is it in now?
Countless pairs of eyes focused on Preston.
Preston gritted his teeth, well aware that Gaston definitely wouldn"t give him the chance to defend himself since he had deliberately chosen to expose him during this meeting with all the family members gathered.
Although Preston, Scott, and Gaston were blood brothers, they weren"t very close to each other because they were all vying to be the next helmsman of the family.
In particular, now that Scott had died, the two of them were the only ones left competing for the position of the next helmsman. Thus, Gaston wouldn"t let go of this wonderful opportunity to condemn his mistake.
Preston took a deep breath before saying, "Dad, the reason I said we should ask the Peerless Martial a.s.sociation for help is precisely because the person who took the Ocean Bathhouse away from me is Lucas Gray!
"It"s not that I didn"t want to inform you about it. But rather, I didn"t want you to worry about it for nothing. I decided to try and get the Ocean Bathhouse back from Lucas Gray with my own means. But unfortunately, he"s very cunning. Moreover, he has the protection of a top expert like Stanley Ray. I simply couldn"t find an opportunity!
"Now, Lucas Gray has s.n.a.t.c.hed away the Ocean Bathhouse originally belonging to us and the Peerless Martial a.s.sociation and even killed a direct descendant, so the Peerless Martial a.s.sociation definitely won"t ignore our request for help!
"Furthermore, Lucas Gray is definitely not a mere n.o.body that we can deal with easily. I suspect that the annihilation of the Brookes from LA and the subsequent destruction of the Owens are both related to him!"
The revelation of these several pieces of earth-shattering news immediately made all the Taylors dumbfounded!