Chapter 995

As Garland scrambled to come up with an excuse, one of Marion’s subordinates entered the room at a brisk pace. Upon seeing Debra, he hesitated for a moment and awkwardly moved closer to Marion.

“Sir…”

“There are no outsiders here. Speak.”

He snapped to attention and reported, “The Nichols Mansion caught fire. The entire place is burned to the ground.”

The room fell into stunned silence at the news. Marion shot a cold, calculating glance at the man, who immediately felt a chill crawl down his spine.

With the tension thick in the air, Garland was the first to break the silence. He exclaimed and gestured dramatically, “The Nichols Mansion on fire? This is big. Juan was Mrs. Houston’s ex-husband, right? I need to look into it and help clean up the remains if needed.”

The room went quiet again. Liza glared at him. “Seriously? Of all the things you could say, you chose that?”

It wasn’t a secret that the Nichols family and the Frazier family were on bad terms. The scandal of Juan’s affair with Shelia was still fresh in the public’s mind. It was not something Debra wanted to talk about in polite company.

Debra muttered, “The Nichols family still has Melody in charge. And as Mr. Garland said, I’m the ex-wife. So, things like cleaning up remains are not my responsibility.”

Garland chimed in, “That’s right. It must have been a gas leak at their place. Oh, speaking of which, I just remembered I left my gas stove on at home. Liza, let’s say goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Houston and head home.”

He grabbed Liza’s arm and pulled her away before she could make sense of the situation. He waved at Marion and Debra as he rushed off, “See you around, guys.”

“Stop pulling me! Why are you in such a rush?” Liza huffed, unwilling to leave.

Just then, the messenger spoke up again. “The fire has been put out. They found a female body, badly burned. Looks like it was Juan’s wife.”

Marion kicked him hard in the behind. “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

The messenger winced, rubbing his backside. “The atmosphere was off, sir.”

Debra remained unflustered. Someone like Juan wouldn’t just get caught in trouble so easily. But the fire was strange. It was too sudden and coincidental to kill Shelia.

As Debra was mulling this over, she suddenly recalled something. “Oh, by the way, there’s a hidden back door in this place. It’s filled with gambling machines, the same type I saw in Orkgate.”

She pointed to the door she had noticed earlier. The workers had been subdued and had no chance of escaping.

Marion could have stormed in and taken everything down in one go. But without knowing the full details of this arcade’s operations, making a rash move could alert those behind the scenes. But now that they had confirmed this place was involved in shady activities, he moved quickly to shut it all down. A clean sweep would make sure no one had a chance to run.

“Sir, we’ve rounded up everyone inside.”

Chapter 996