Too Late to Hold Me Back novel Chapter 745

"What kind of monsters would do that to their own child?" Eleanor Quinn sobbed, wiping her eyes with a tissue. She had made a point to watch the broadcast, sitting alongside Rachel, who quietly filled in the harrowing details of that night.

Elsewhere, the Mercer brothers and Lacey were also glued to their screens.

The memories were a source of crushing shame. When Mira had been thrown out, her brothers hadn't been physically present, but they had spent years acting as Mara Mercer's vicious enforcers. Looking back, they couldn't fathom how aggressively stupid they had been, completely blinded by Mara's manipulative lies. It was no wonder Mira wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. They deserved every ounce of her contempt.

Meanwhile, Mira's classmates, friends, and legions of fans watched with bated breath, desperate to uncover the grueling reality behind her meteoric rise.

"Could you share what exactly triggered the fallout?" Clara asked gently.

"It's in the past, and I'd rather leave it there," Mira replied. The truth involved Mara Mercer, which inevitably led to The Vane Syndicate, a subject completely unsuitable for national television. Opening that Pandora's box would only invite endless, dangerous scrutiny. Furthermore, the issues with Lacey and Adrian Mercer were firmly resolved; they had paid the price for their actions, and dredging it up served no purpose.

"So, pushed into a corner by survival, you had to find a way to make money," Jasper deduced.

"It was much more desperate than that. I attended an elite prep school, and the annual tuition was hundreds of thousands of dollars. The bill was due right after the summer break. As an underage high schooler, there wasn't a single normal job on the planet that would let me earn that kind of cash in two months."

"Which led you to launch a business," Clara said, awestruck.

"Exactly. I've always had a strong affinity for the arts. If I signed with an existing agency, as a complete unknown, they would have paid me pennies. On top of that, I had to outmaneuver the Mercer family, who would have aggressively blacklisted me everywhere. Starting my own company was my only viable play."

"But you were entirely broke. How did you get the capital?"

"Because I needed absolute power. I needed to become an untouchable monolith, and that required relentless expansion. Given my circumstances at the time, if I stopped pushing, my enemies would have crushed me into the dirt."

"You had already escaped the Mercer family. Why were you still in danger?"

"Because weakness invites destruction. That's simply how the world works," Mira stated smoothly. "The specifics are old news, so I won't rehash them, but anyone willing to dig can easily uncover the truth. It caused a massive scandal in Melvion City back then. But beyond basic survival, there was a deeper motivation. We only get one life. We have a duty to push our limits and build something meaningful. Whether it's for yourself, the public, or the nation, you have to leave a legacy, otherwise, what's the point of breathing?"

"Incredible," Jasper murmured. "For someone so young to possess such terrifying clarity... it's genuinely inspiring. We all have a part to play. Those with immense power shoulder the heavy burdens, and those with less contribute what they can."

"But we still have to ask," Clara leaned forward, eyes gleaming. "How on earth did you balance straight A's, building a corporate empire, and elite martial arts training without collapsing?"