Regret Came Too Late

When everyone heard Alice's voice coming through, they froze in shock. Carmen, who had been wallowing in misery, jerked her head up. She stared at the two people on the screen in disbelief.

Quentin's fist clenched as they continued listening to the conversation. Brent asked, "Ms. Lambert, should I call your family and threaten them to come rescue you?"

Alice nodded, her face showing absolute confidence. The Lamberts were already familiar with Brent by now. Normally, they would definitely panic whenever they heard his voice.

A smug smile spread across her face, and every bit of it was captured perfectly by the camera. Carmen's phone started ringing. She stared at it numbly, unable to answer for a long while.

Brent asked Alice, "What if nobody picks up?"

Alice thought that Brent would soon be a dead man, so she didn't bother hiding anything. "Just keep calling. Everyone in my family cares about me. They won't leave me hanging.

"When they come, demand 50 million dollars from them. I'll give you some extra cash on the side."

"Funny how you always pull this trick, Ms. Lambert. The Lamberts must be idiots for falling for it year after year. All that money ends up in your pocket, and it's strange how nobody ever checks your accounts."

heard him rambling, a dangerous look flashed in her eyes. "Shut up. Why are you talking about this now? Just do what

rang again. The experience of watching this live feed still

Lambert, it's me. It's been a while, hasn't it? I blew through that 30 million dollars

million dollars to bail her out, I can't promise

Carmen would have scrambled to pay immediately. But this

what was playing on the screen. This was happening live; there was

was being broadcast, had to pretend he was in the dark. "Why so quiet, Mrs. Lambert? Do you want to

toward Alice, signaling her to say something.

We shouldn't have given in last time. Just call the police-I don't want our family blackmailed over and over. Have we run

word matched what was playing on the wall, so Carmen couldn't possibly

phone but didn't understand what