Meanwhile, Lucas left Club Splendor without turning back at all. Lena, Grace, and Bruce, who had been waiting outside, immediately went up to him and surrounded him.

"Lucas, are you alright!?" Two almost identical voices sounded at the same time, asking the same question in unison.

Lena and Grace looked at each other and felt a little embarrassed.

Lucas smiled. "What could possibly have happened to me? Don't worry!"

"Those henchmen of the Kingstons were very aggressive and menacing just now. They're both just scared that you might have gotten hurt," Bruce said with a chuckle. As someone who had experienced a lot in life, he immediately realized what was going on.

"It's okay. The Kingstons aren't that scary, and Kyle Kingston is just a wimp. You don't have to bother about him. Also, Grace, Liam Wallace will never be able to pester you again in the future. Rest assured!" Lucas said nonchalantly.

Bruce's eyebrows suddenly twitched. Having lived for decades and accumulated plenty of experience, he could naturally tell the brutality in Lucas's words.

He reckoned that Liam should have already died…

On the other hand, Lena and Grace seemed to fail to hear what Lucas meant. They merely thought that Lucas had just used some methods to deter Liam and stop him from creating trouble again.

Lena carefully looked at Grace's beautiful appearance and suddenly asked, "Lucas, so you knew this beautiful girl prior to this auction? No wonder you were willing to spend so much money to bid for her!"

Her tone contained a subtle tinge of sourness that even she herself failed to notice. She even repeatedly comforted herself that she was just standing up for Cheyenne, her best friend.

Lucas didn't notice the hint of jealousy in Lena's tone and simply said seriously, "Yes, she's my friend who got abducted and brought here forcefully by that bastard Liam Wallace. If Cheyenne didn't see it happen and asked me to save Grace, I'm afraid I wouldn't have known about it. Fortunately, I made it in time."

Only then did Grace realize that Lucas didn't show up at the auction house and rescue her by chance. Instead, he had specifically come here to save her! At the same time, Grace also felt even more grateful to Cheyenne.

Lena now knew why Lucas suddenly showed up at the auction out of the blue. And after learning that Grace and Cheyenne also knew each other, her curiosity was piqued even further.

But this was obviously not a good place to talk. Lucas waved into the distance. Zach, who had driven him to the club and had been waiting at the entrance, immediately ran over.

"Mr. Gray! Are you done handling your matters?"

Lucas nodded and said to Zach, "Send Miss Keller back to the hospital. I have some other matters to attend to."

"Yes, Mr. Gray!" Zach immediately acknowledged.

Although Grace wanted to thank Lucas properly, he clearly had an urgent matter at hand. Moreover, she had just experienced a near-death encounter, so she wanted to go back to the hospital and have a good chat with her mother. So she didn't say anything more and instead just nodded at Lucas before heading back to the hospital with Zach.

Lena also wanted to chat with Lucas for a while more. But when she saw that Lucas seemed to be in a hurry to handle some matters, she bade goodbye to him sensibly. "Lucas, I'll take my leave now. I'll ask you and Cheyenne out for some fun another day!"

"Alright, take care!" Lucas smiled and waved. After seeing Lena leave, he turned around to look at Bruce.

Bruce understood that Lucas had something to say to him, so he took the initiative to ask, "Mr. Gray, I've prepared some fine tea at home. Would you like to come with me to have a taste of the tea?"

"Sure, let's go."

Soon, Lucas went to the Hale residence together with Bruce in the latter's car.

In the guest hall of the Hale residence, Bruce led Lucas to the master seat while Bruce himself sat beside Lucas. After instructing the servants to serve some hot tea, he ordered them to leave so that he and Lucas could be alone.

"What exactly was going on in the Kingstons' auction tonight?" Lucas asked, cutting straight to the chase.

Bruce's expression turned solemn. He had long guessed that Lucas would definitely ask him about this matter. After all, openly auctioning off living humans like they were objects was an extremely serious matter, especially since Lucas abhorred such unethical and immoral practices. He would definitely be concerned about the origin of the auction.

Bruce didn't dare to delay and hurriedly told Lucas everything he knew. "The Kingstons are from San Francisco, and they started off as auctioneers decades ago, so auctions have always been very important to them. In recent years, the Kingstons held more than ten medium-sized auctions every year, and the venues are not limited to San Francisco. For example, they chose to hold one in Orange County this time. There are a large plethora of items they put up for auction each time, and almost anything can be sold at their auctions. There were even heavy firearms in past auctions!

"But as far as I know, they should have started putting up living humans for auction only in recent years."

Lucas frowned. "In recent years? Roughly when did they start doing so?"

"They should have started about six or seven years ago. I remember that when the Kingstons first started putting beautiful women up for auction, it caused quite an uproar among the scions of wealthy families, so I remember this matter very clearly."

Lucas tapped his fingertips against the small mahogany coffee table as he fell into deep thought.

He had originally thought that the Kingstons were the ones who supplied beautiful women to the Ocean Bathhouse.

But Preston Taylor mentioned the other time that the Taylors had started running such a business about two decades ago. Yet the Kingstons had only started running the auctions of beautiful women about six to seven years ago. The timeline clearly didn't tally.

It seemed that the Kingstons probably weren't the ones who had provided the Ocean Bathhouse with those women.

But no matter what, both families were guilty of illegal trafficking and abduction of women, so there had to be some relation between the two. It could be that the origin of those beauties was from the same source.

"So, do you know any insider information about the beautiful women used as escorts on the top floor of the Ocean Bathhouse?" Lucas asked again.

After all, Bruce was old and also had a high status. Besides, the Hales were also one of the four major families in the county, making them on equal ground as the Taylors. It was entirely possible for him to have heard some insider information.

"I don't know much about this matter. The Taylors managed to gain a foothold in Orange County by relying on that sordid business they run on the top floor of the Ocean Bathhouse. They eventually developed into one of the top four families of Orange County. I was once curious about the source of their beautiful women too, so I sent some people to investigate it.

"Unfortunately, the mysterious organization supplying those beautiful women was quite careful and powerful enough to kill all the people I sent. We even received a terrifying threat from them, so I decided to give up on investigating the source.

"Furthermore, at the time, other families in Orange County had also sent people to investigate this matter. After all, the Taylors had reaped massive profits from that business, and many were jealous of them. But they faced the same thing as us in the end and were also issued stern warnings. At that time, there were two other families that had developed well. Refusing to believe the threats, they continued to send people to shadow those people. In the end, those two families completely disappeared from Orange County.

"Since then, everyone has treated this matter as an extreme taboo, and no one really mentions it anymore. As far as I know, even the Taylors, who run that business, are unclear of what those people's origins really are."

The information Bruce provided Lucas was much more detailed than what Preston had told him, but it made Lucas frown even more.

The power of that mysterious organization seemed to be even greater than what he had previously thought.

"So, do you think that there are any secret dealings between the Taylors and the Kingstons?" Lucas asked.