Even if Jacob remained silent, his presence alone was enough to aggravate fear. Kim had a look of
tremendous horror as he stood there trembling.
"Start talking!" Jacob roared. The voice was loud and terrifying that it scared everyone present. Even
Kim couldn't help but flinch in surprise.
Still, he was at a loss for words. It was like someone had cut off his tongue and he couldn't bring
himself to speak. His knees buckled, ready to collapse at any moment.
Jacob's expression was unreadable and this made Cindy more nervous. She cast a brief glance at her
boss before turning back to Kim.
"Kim, if you're in trouble, just tell us. How will we know if you won't talk to us? We won't be able to help
you if you remain silent."
Cindy took Kim's trembling hand and held it gently. The man gave it a light squeeze and met her eyes
for a split second before lowering his head again. If only he was able to turn back time, then he would
definitely not make the same mistake. But that was impossible. This was reality, and there was no
turning back.
"There's no way to fix this now, Cindy. If I talk, you will definitely suffer the consequences." Kim could
only cower in fear. Feeling hopeless, he covered his head with his hands and squatted on the ground.
His words, however, got the two men's immediate attention. As Jacob raised his eyebrows, James
immediately sat on the chair next to him.
"Did someone threaten you with Cindy's safety to steal the documents?" James cautiously glanced at
Jacob, who gave the same look in return.
As both of them exchanged knowing looks, James knew that his nephew was thinking of the same
thing as him.
"Well... I'm not allowed to tell you. If I break the agreement, they would take revenge on me. There's no
reason for me to be afraid if I was alone. However, I have Cindy." Kim sobbed.
His voice sounded hoarse and painful from choking as he immediately placed a hand over his mouth
and stopped talking.
"They? Who are they?" James narrowed his eyes and cast a sharp glance at the man. That instant slip
on Kim's words had somehow given him a lot more information than expected.
Kim blinked in shock and silently stayed in place. He wanted to slap himself for not being able to keep
his mouth shut.
"We didn't force you to say that. Who are these people? If you don't tell us here, you'll have to tell it to
the police instead." Already running out of ideas, Jacob had to try both hard and soft tactics.
"Well, I don't think that this matter is important anymore. What matters is that Cindy doesn't get
involved in this." Kim looked up, his bloodshot eyes covered with tears.
Jacob stared at him helplessly, there was nothing else left to say.
Cindy rushed towards Kim and grabbed his hand. "Who are they? Tell us, Kim. We agreed that we will
face and solve any problem together. If you don't tell us, I can't help you."
With pain in his eyes, the man looked at her. "I'm sorry, Cindy. I always make you worry. You had
nothing to do with this but it almost took your life. It's all my fault."
Kim burst into another round of tears. "Mr. Jacob, I can't tell you. If I do, the consequences will be very
serious."
A huge sigh escaped Jacob's lips as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He had done all that he could
to persuade Kim and he didn't expect that the outcome would be like this.
"Come on, just tell us who they are." It was obvious that he was already exhausted from all the
interrogating. All he wanted was to just get over with the issue.
"If I tell you, can you promise me that I won't get killed?" As Kim asked this, he refused to meet Cindy's
eyes.
"Okay. I will do my best to help you, then." After thinking for a while, Jacob knew that he had no choice.
Kim briefly glanced at Cindy, and the fear in his heart seemed to be only increasing.
"I am buried in a huge debt. Allan Shi, one of the directors of the company, had agreed to help me. In
exchange for that, he made this request."
Uncontrollable sobs continued to escape the man's lips that he had to cover his mouth to stop himself
from crying.
"What? Who did you owe a lot of money to? What happened to you?" With jaws clenched, Cindy
trembled in anger. She was aware that Kim didn't have a lot of money. However, she didn't expect for
him to owe someone a huge amount of debt.
"I chose to keep it to myself. If I told you about this, you would have broken up with me a long time
ago," Kim mumbled. His face was filled with embarrassment as he lowered his head once again.
He took one quick glance at Cindy before fixing his eyes on the ground in shame.
"Allan Shi? You mentioned 'they'. Who are the others?" Jacob didn't have time to care about the love
quarrel between Kim and his assistant, so he grabbed Kim and dragged him towards the company. It
took quite a while for him to extract some useful information out of the man, so he couldn't wait any
longer to reveal who the others were.
"What are you doing, Mr. Jacob?" His eyes were wild with fear as he looked at Jacob then back to
Cindy.
When they were almost at the door, even Cindy already seemed to be afraid.
Now she knew why Kim had so much money to buy a lot of things for her. She had always thought that
it was because he was a director of the company that he had more money. No one had expected that
he had only been borrowing funds from other people.
Little by little, Cindy had finally realized the reason behind his odd behavior. However, it was already
too late. There was no way for her to change the current situation that Jacob was dragging Kim into.
James silently followed them from behind. There were a lot of people who were short of money. Some
of them made money by using dirty means.
"Why are you short of money?" Jacob dragged Kim all the way to the elevator.
"I spend too much than I can afford, and I tend to buy a lot of lotteries. I bought a lot each time, but I
had never won even once," Kim said in a low voice. He had never mentioned this to Cindy because he
feared that she would break up with him.
Until now, he didn't know how he had gotten to this situation. His life had always been like this. There
wasn't any change at all.
Even though he was willing to change, he found it difficult to do so. Left with nothing else to resort to,
he could only place hope on those lotteries. He had bought countless lotteries and didn't win each time.
He wanted to give up, but somehow he still ended up buying even more.
Quitting from that horrible habit had crossed his mind several times. However, he had already reached
the point where he didn't know how to stop.
What was worse was that the path he took went downhill.
Kim refused to look at Cindy. He didn't want to see the disappointment on her face.
Cindy's comments were important to him. Every time she told him that he was useless, he felt like his
heart would break into pieces.
However, he knew that he deserved it. He brought this upon himself after all. Those kinds of thoughts
were what motivated Kim to start changing.
If he didn't make an effort now, he didn't know where he would end up. He was the type of person who
lacked making decisions independently. Since he met Cindy, the situation had even worsened.
As a result, he was easily bribed with getting loans on purpose. When the time came that he knew that
he couldn't pay back all the money he had borrowed, he knew that he was drowning little by little from
the increasing amount of debt.
Now, no one could save him. He was too blinded from the thought of having a better life that he got lost
along the way. Kim knew that Cindy was disappointed and that was the last thing he ever wanted to
happen.
The moment he finished talking, the woman didn't say anything. He lowered his head and closed his
eyes, trying to take a breath from all the overwhelming events that were happening.
"How did they threaten you?" Jacob sighed.
"If I won't be able to pay back the money, they will start hurting me and the people around me. They
had never mentioned this at first. I honestly thought that we were good friends."
With his head still lowered, Kim couldn't help but feel like an idiot.
There was no such thing as a free lunch in this world.
He didn't understand that the world needed stupid people to make others look clever.
62fb1bb41dcb31934bd49bda