Chapter 689: Why are you joining in the fun?

“I… I didn’t expect that he would hold a grudge over such a trivial matter for so long!” Edward Lopez said with a bitter face. “He’s been silent all this time, and suddenly he decided to strike our family today.”

Edward Lopez also felt wronged.

“It’s not sudden. He must have prepared to strike against our family, don’t you think dealing with a company is just a matter of words? Edward, you’re so old now, don’t you even know such basic common sense?”

Richard Lopez was very worried. With Edward’s simple-mindedness, how could he rest assured to hand over the company to him in the future?

Richard Lopez thought with frustration, well, don’t even need to wait for the future, let’s just handle the current crisis first.

“Adrian Zhekova probably started preparing the night he went back, and by today, he was ready to strike against our family’s company. If you had come back that night and told me right away, we could have at least been prepared and apologized sincerely to them. There would have been room for a turnaround.” Richard Lopez said.

“But you kept it a secret, and our family had no reaction. They must have thought that we didn’t feel you did anything wrong and didn’t take the matter seriously. Our family is really screwed by you this time!” Richard Lopez pointed at Edward Lopez’s nose, his hand trembling with anger.

Mrs. Lopez couldn’t help but feel sorry for her son Edward. He was her only child, and she had doted on him since childhood, which had spoiled him into becoming arrogant and overbearing, cowardly and afraid of responsibility.

She quickly stepped in to stop Richard Lopez from pointing at Edward and said, “Alright, alright, even if you scold him or beat him to death now, it’s too late. We’ve already offended Adrian Zhekova, so we must figure out how to make him forgive us.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Just then, the assistant knocked on the office door urgently, not waiting for Richard Lopez’s response before rushing in. Upon seeing the unusual atmosphere between Richard Lopez and his family, the assistant hesitated briefly. However, as there was more important news, he didn’t dare to delay.

He hurriedly said: “Mr. Lopez, our largest factory is preparing to stop supplying us.”

“What’s going on?” Richard Lopez’s face changed, “Do they dare to breach the contract within the contract period?”

“It’s not during the contract period. Our contracts with them have always been renewed annually. In two months, the contract will expire. We’ve been discussing the renewal with them, and if everything goes smoothly, we should renew the contract next month. We’ve always had good cooperation with them, and the renewal has been a matter of mutual understanding. Their prices have also been very good.”

The factory they were dealing with had high production capacity, good product quality, and because of their many years of cooperation, both sides have been working together happily. The factory has been offering them good prices, fair and highly cost-effective due to capacity and quality.

Without this factory, they could find others, which was not an issue.

However, the alternatives wouldn’t necessarily offer such good cost-effectiveness.

Moreover, after years of cooperation, they have built trust and quality assurance in their products, which they had faith in.

Even if they were to find a new factory, they would have to conduct investigations, comparisons, and bidding, which would take a long time.

In addition to this largest factory, they also cooperated with several smaller factories.

However, their production capacity was smaller and their product categories were different.

The largest factory produced some products that the other smaller factories didn’t.

Due to their lower capacity, the smaller factories only specialized in one or two products, and they were not as versatile as the larger factory.

In short, the sudden change of mind by the largest factory had caused significant losses to them.

“I see, you go out first. Let our people maintain a polite attitude with the factory and not let the relationship get worse. Keep the same attitude as before.” Richard Lopez said.

They were going to apologize to Adrian Zhekova.

If Adrian forgave them and stopped, their cooperation with the factory would be restored.

So, the relationship couldn’t break down.

“Yes.” The assistant replied.

Soon after the assistant left, he returned again.

Richard Lopez felt that his nerves were stretched tight, and as soon as he saw the assistant’s grave expression, he sensed something was wrong, almost like he was becoming a nervous wreck.

“What’s wrong now?” Richard Lopez raised his voice.

The assistant felt awkward as he had just left a few minutes ago, only to come back with more bad news.

“Mr. Lopez, our bid for the Wells Group contract has not been successful.” The assistant said.

Richard Lopez was not surprised by this news, as he had expected it.

After all, the Wells and Zhekova families were close, and if Adrian Zhekova decided to take action against them, Clifford Wells would definitely not cooperate with them.

So even if they didn’t work with them, it wouldn’t be a loss for the Wells Group. Many businesses wanted to cooperate with the Wells Group, and the real loser here would be their own company.

But because he had been prepared for this, Richard Lopez was not surprised when he heard the news.

“Also, we lost the competition for the Jaynard Inc. bid. I’ve checked the final result, and our competitor Pearson Group had a much higher bid than us. Yet Jaynard Inc. chose them instead of us.” The assistant added.

Edward Lopez dared to speak up now: “Is there something wrong with Jaynard Inc.? They pass on the cheaper option and went for the more expensive one.”

“Jaynard Inc.?” Richard Lopez was also puzzled, not remembering why they would do this. “Why would they do that?”

Richard Lopez pondered and couldn’t remember doing anything to offend Jaynard Inc.

“Adrian Zhekova… The Zhekova Family has nothing to do with Jaynard Inc., right?” Richard Lopez asked.

The assistant replied, “Jaynard Inc.’s Sullivan Family is related to the Hamilton Family by marriage.”

Richard Lopez was speechless, his face turning purple with anger: “It’s bad enough that the Zhekova Family has a good relationship with the Hamilton Family, but the Sullivan Family is just related to the Hamilton Family by marriage. Why are they getting involved?!”

The assistant lowered his head in embarrassment and did not have an answer.

Of course, it was because of the close connections between the Big Eight families. Even if not all the relatives were involved, they were still willing to help out in any situation.

As more and more people from the Big Eight families got married, the number of relatives increased.

The power of the Big Eight families grew larger and wider.

Initially, it was just the Big Eight families banding together, but now, with other relatives, the group’s scope had become much broader.

And those relatives knew how to weigh the pros and cons, simply doing small favors that would make their in-laws as well as the people in the Big Eight families remember their kindness.