Despite Mom saying she’d be back that evening, she still delayed for two whole days.
Kai’s funeral had already been held when she finally showed up with Belle Cole.
Belle was wearing a lustrous pearl necklace around her neck that looked particularly glaring in the dim light of the
living room.
Mom spotted me immediately, and before I could react, a sharp slap landed across my face.
The burning pain spread instantly, making my head ring from the blow.
“You little troublemaker!”
“I just took Belle out to have some fun and you start spreading lies!”
“How dare you joke about something like what happened to Kai!”
The slap left my cheek numb, my head blank. It took me a while to find my voice.
“I didn’t…”
Belle stroked the necklace around her neck, looking at me with innocent eyes that were full of hidden smugness.
“Mom, don’t be mad. Don’t get angry because of me. After all, Nina is your real daughter. Maybe she just missed you too much, so she…”
Her words sounded like she was trying to calm things down, but every single word was like pouring oil on fire.
“I wish I never had a daughter like you!”
Mom said through gritted teeth, as if I were some kind of plague she desperately wanted to avoid.
Dad, who had been silent all this time, stepped forward and stood in front of me.
“If you don’t want this daughter, I do. You can go live your life with Belle.”
Both Mom and I were stunned.
Dad usually doted on Belle just as much as Mom did, but now he was acting completely different.
“Ryan, what’s gotten into you?”
Seeing this, Belle quickly stepped forward, weakly tugging at Dad’s sleeve, her voice even more pitiful.
“Did Belle make Daddy angry? Belle doesn’t want the pearl necklace anymore. Please don’t be mad, Daddy.”
Her eyes darted between me and Dad, with obvious traces of acting.
She wanted to use her pitiful, understanding act to win Dad back.
Dad shook off her hand, expressionless: “Don’t call me Daddy.”
“We don’t share any blood.”
Belle’s face instantly turned pale, her body freezing in place, the tears in her eyes suddenly crystallizing.
Grandma Cole finally couldn’t hold back:
“I don’t know what kind of mother this is. Doesn’t care about her own flesh and blood, but fusses over some outsider!”
I stood behind Dad, covering my burning cheek, watching as Mom got criticized by the whole family.
Only this time, I wasn’t the one getting yelled at.
Mom was completely confused and could only vent her anger on me:
“Nina! What the hell did you tell them?! What lies are you spreading now?!”
She refused to believe that Kai was really dead, refused to believe that her actions had caused all this.
She only believed that I was stirring up trouble again, badmouthing her behind her back, causing discord.
Just as Mom was about to lose it completely, Grandma Hayes delivered a hard slap across Mom’s face.
Before Mom could recover from that slap, Grandma Hayes took a piece of paper she’d been clutching tightly and threw it hard at Mom’s face.
“You’ve got some nerve blaming others! Look at this! Look at it yourself!”
Chapter 5
