Chapter 16
Chapter 16
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Zachary called, his voice frantic. “You need to come back. Jessica’s gone. She disappeared right after taking a call from Eleanor. I’m sure she’s stirring up trouble again!”
Liam hesitated. “You’re saying Jessica got a call from Eleanor?”
He had been with me the whole time–he was certain I hadn’t even touched my phone.
Zachary sounded exasperated. “Who else could it be? Jessica said it herself! Just get back here–I’m worried something might’ve happened to her.”
Liam went quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Call the police.”
It was the first time he didn’t drop everything to go looking for Jessica. He couldn’t help but start replaying everything in his mind- every moment, every memory.
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And then, like lightning striking, a terrifying realization dawned on him.
After calling the police, Liam rushed home and pulled up the archived surveillance footage my father had once asked him to keep.
That was when the truth finally hit him- everything had been a lie.
Jessica had been the one scheming, manipulating, and playing the victim from the very start. I had been the true victim all along.
Liam slapped himself, hard, over and over. He was furious at how foolish he’d been, how completely blind.
For years, Jessica had dropped hints and half–truths about the injustices she claimed to endure. Her tragic backstory had once stirred their sympathy, drawing out the protectiveness of all three men.
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So whenever there was a conflict between us, they instinctively took her side. Eventually, the scales in their hearts tipped so far they lost all sense of balance.
It wasn’t until now that Liam finally saw the truth–Jessica had fooled them all.
She had hidden the necklace herself. She had cut the strings on the violin. She had broken her mother’s keepsake with her own hands. Even the clothes I gifted her—she’d deliberately stained them.
One thing after another–all of it, Jessica.
Liam rubbed his face in despair, utterly ashamed, no longer able to find the courage to even face me.
The next time we saw each other was when Leonard accompanied me to pick out gifts for my bridesmaids.
I was laughing, arms linked with Leonard,
idower
and froz
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when I glanced sideways–and froze.
There they were, the familiar trio: Liam, Zachary, and Ryan. They no longer carried the same arrogance as before, but they still held themselves together.
Jessica, however, was nothing like the past. She knelt before the three men, bowing over and over until her forehead was bloodied.
The three men stood motionless, unmoved. Zachary kicked her to the ground in disgust. Even the usually mild–tempered Ryan yelled at her with a face twisted in rage.
Tears streamed down Jessica’s face as she clung to them, pleading. But this time, not a shred of pity remained.
I hadn’t noticed them at first, not until Liam stared directly at me.
Our eyes met for the briefest of moments, and then I looked away, unfazed. I turned to Leopard walked off without so much as
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After Leonard and I got engaged, my father cut off all business ties with their families.
He had been their biggest business partner. His withdrawal forced the once–thriving companies into survival mode, struggling in a market that now had no place for them.
I heard the three men bore the brunt of their family’s fury but still never came to me, not once, to ask for reconciliation.
That suited me just fine–I had no intention of wasting my time on people who no longer mattered.
Later, Leonard and I got married.
¿
On our wedding day, someone sent an anonymous gift.
I barely glanced at it before telling the staff to throw it out.
In front of all our family and friends, I walked
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down the aisle on my father’s arm, toward the man who loved me with his whole heart.
After the ceremony, Leonard handed me a legal document.
I looked at him in surprise, and he grinned. “From now on, everything I have is yours.”
The crowd buzzed in awe. Overcome
with emotion, tears welled up in my eyes. Leonard’s love had always been blazing and undeniable.
He rested his forehead gently against mine, his gaze piercing and tender. “Wife, from now on you’re the head of the household. Just remember to treat me kindly, okay?”
I couldn’t help laughing through my tears and leaned in to kiss him amidst everyone’s cheers.
After we got married, Leonard practically made it his life’s mission to drag me to bed Nevery chance he got
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A year later, we welcomed a beautiful set of twins–a boy and a girl.
Not wanting me to suffer through another pregnancy, Leonard secretly got a vasectomy behind my back.
Later, my father told me that the Yorks, Howards, and Lees couldn’t hold on any longer. They each declared bankruptcy and slunk back to their hometowns, trying to
regroup.
As for Jessica–she dropped out of school and married a nouveau riche man old enough to be her father. Rumor has it he beats her often, leaving her bruised and bloodied.
I just smiled.
None of it had anything to do with me
anymore.
The End
Chapter 16
Book 3:
+ 5 Points
I wasted a decade of my youth holding down the Lancaster family empire for Damon.
Then, eight months pregnant, I walked in on him screwing Brooke Clarence–heiress to his biggest rival–in *our* bed.
When Brooke “accidentally” ran me over, leaving me bleeding out in the street-
Damon watched, cold as ice, and said: “Do us all a favor and die already.”
I lost the baby.
My womb was scraped out.
As I fought for my life, his assistant tossed me a red lace thong: “The CEO says Miss Clarence is his ‘light. Wedding’s in seven days.”
The irony?
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The mony:
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This was the same man who once begged at my hospital bed, “The baby’s innocent!“– now forcing abortion pills down my throat for his precious Laura’s lies.
But the real joke?
While Laura whispered in my ear, “Your brat’s screams were delicious before I paid to smother them” Damon was in the next room, moaning my name into Brooke’s mouth.
Ten years of shame. A debt paid in blood and bone.
