Grandma Hayes pointed at Mom, screaming in despair.
“Because of you! Victoria! Because of your selfishness! Because of your stupidity! Your son is dead.”
Mom trembled as she picked up that thin piece of paper, staring at it like she wanted to burn a hole through it.
Belle was obviously terrified by the suddenly tense atmosphere.
She quietly backed away, trying to make herself invisible.
2
Dad’s eyes were ice cold: “Victoria, let’s get divorced.”
Mom’s head snapped up.
“I won’t agree to it! I won’t agree to a divorce!”
“Kai’s gone, it’s all my fault, but I really didn’t know it was that serious. I thought Nina was lying again!”
Mom clutched the death certificate, sobbing hysterically, begging desperately.
“Ryan, forgive me this once, just this once, okay?”
“I promise I’ll never do this again!”
“Forgive? Victoria, how the hell am I supposed to forgive you?!”
Dad’s voice suddenly rose, filled with long–suppressed anger and disappointment.
“For some outsider who isn’t even blood related, you didn’t give a damn about your own son’s life!”
“Tell me, what the hell did Kai mean to you?!”
“Was his life just some kind of joke to you?!”
Thinking back to all these years, how he himself had started favoring Belle because Victoria kept praising how pitiful and understanding she was.
Looking back now, it was absolutely ridiculous!
In this moment, Dad finally woke up completely.
Mom’s obsession and stupidity had crossed his bottom line.
I stood behind Dad, silently watching this whole circus.
Mom’s bloodshot eyes stared at me with deadly intensity.
“Nina, this is all your fault! All of it!”
“Why didn’t you explain it properly! Why!”
“If it wasn’t for you, Kai would never have died!”
I looked at her coldly, feeling no ripple of emotion inside.
In my previous life, I’d heard these words countless times already.
Grandma Hayes roared angrily, cutting off Mom’s screaming,
“Victoria, how long are you gonna keep this up?! We were all begging you that day, but you refused to come back!”
“I did nothing wrong! Nothing!”
Mom shook her head frantically, hair disheveled, looking like a ghost as she lunged forward trying to strangle me.
“It’s all you! If it wasn’t for you, you damn brat!”
Dad shoved her away and roared:
“Victoria! You already killed one of my children, you want to kill another one too?!”
His eyes were bloodshot, temples throbbing, clearly on the edge of a breakdown himself.
Mom stumbled from Dad’s push and fell to the floor, crying even harder.
“She’s the real culprit, Ryan! She’s been jealous of Belle since she was little, always going against Belle!”
“It’s her! She’s the one who killed Kai! It’s her!”
I watched my crazed mother, who wanted nothing more than to tear me apart, feeling a sour ache in my chest.
Even though I’d always known that the most important person in her heart would never he me.
But facing such intense murderous hatred from her again, I still couldn’t control the heartache.
Dad took a deep breath. He pointed at Belle and said:
“You think I don’t know why you’re so crazy about this girl? It’s just because she’s your first love’s kid!”
“Victoria, oh Victoria, you’ve been hiding this from me real good!”
These words hit like a thunderbolt, instantly striking everyone present.
Chapter S
Belle’s face turned deathly pale. She instinctively looked at Mom, her eyes full of helplessness and panic.
Mom’s crying stopped abruptly.
“No, Ryan, let me explain. It’s not what you think. It’s because Belle’s parents…”
Her eyes were frantic, lips trembling as she tried to lie her way out.
Dad let out a cold laugh, pulled a photo from his pocket and threw it hard at Mom’s face.
In the photo, a young Mom and Belle’s father were embracing tightly, their faces glowing with happiness.
Mom was struck like lightning, her whole body freezing.
This photo–she had hidden it so carefully in the most secret place. How could it have been found?!
[ sneered inwardly. Of course, I was the one who anonymously sent it to Dad.
Along with the love letters she and Belle’s father had secretly written to each other in the past–I’d found them all.
In my previous life, I’d known long ago that Mom never got over her first love even after marriage, and often took me along when I was little to secretly meet him.
She thought I was too young to remember, but I remembered everything.
Grandma Cole looked at the date on the photo, shaking with rage, her cane pounding the floor.
‘Well, well, a daughter–in–law like you–our family really can’t afford to keep!”
‘No wonder you’re so good to that damn girl! Maybe Belle is your bastard child!”
‘Mom!”
Dad frowned, obviously thinking Grandma’s words were going too far.
Mom fell to her knees, desperately hugging Dad’s leg, shaking her head frantically:
“No, Ryan! Trust me! He and I never did anything inappropriate. I just…”
“Just saw him occasionally! We’re just friends!”
Dad shook Mom off and roared:
“What kind of friends hug each other like that?! What kind of friends write those disgusting love letters?!”
“Victoria, do you think I’m an idiot?!”
Belle stood to the side, carefully watching everyone around her, her eyes full of fear and anxiety.
She was afraid of being abandoned, afraid of losing everything she had now.
She obviously hadn’t expected things to develop in this direction.
She’d always thought Mom just simply felt sorry for her, thought she was pitiful.
She might have vaguely known that Mom knew her father.
But she never would have imagined their relationship was this complicated.
