Swapping a Broken Heart for a New Start novel Chapter 824

She had assumed Dennis had already resolved the issue with the shares. She never imagined there was this kind of complication still lingering.

Dennis’s fingers toyed absently with the nape of her neck as he continued. “Targeting my mother’s shares was their plan from the beginning. Their goal was to force me back to Cabinda.”

“Hmm?” Camila was confused again. “Why?”

She tried to lift her head to look at him, but he held her close, preventing her from moving, so she settled back against him.

Out of her sight, a rare, fleeting smirk of derision touched Dennis’s otherwise cool features. “Because NextGen Technologies’ success has made them greedy. The company was on the verge of collapse, but with my involvement, it was revitalized and now towers over all the legacy corporations. So, they see my business acumen and want to use me to elevate the Collins family to a new echelon of power. My mother’s shares are the leverage they thought they could use to control me.”

“They just didn’t expect me to defy them. When they realized they couldn’t control me, they resorted to threats. They even convinced themselves that I reject them simply because I’ve grown distant from the family over the years. They think a child will tie me down, give me something to worry about. So they hatched this brilliant plan: once I have a child, I’ll be bound to serve the Collins family for the rest of my life.”

Her heart clenched. Before this, she’d only known the Collins family as Cabinda’s foremost dynasty, an untouchable power. She knew Dennis’s relationship with them was terrible, almost to the point of complete severance, but she never knew the foundation of the family was so rotten. No wonder he despised them so much.

Suddenly, she remembered Jonathan Allen, the man who had openly harassed her at the gala when she first arrived in Cabinda. With the Collins family’s power, their arrogance would surely surpass that of the Allens. And from the chilling tone in Dennis’s voice, she knew he was talking about what had happened to his own mother.

It made perfect sense now why he had left the family so decisively, why he had taken his mother’s surname and sworn never to return. If it weren’t for the things that belonged to his mother, he would never want anything to do with the Collins family for the rest of his life.