Chapter 446/The Lethal Price of Forgiveness
Chapter 446
Julie’s POV
She tilted her head with a cold smile that never reached her eyes, replying in a quiet, mysterious tone:
"I just knew.. The important thing is that I found you."
My pupils dilated with overwhelming emotion, and I stammered, my voice trembling with tears:
"I can’t believe you came looking for me!... But... Father—"
She smoothly interrupted me, placing a gloved hand gently upon my shoulder, and said firmly:
"Don’t worry about him... He has gone far away."
I knitted my brows in sheer confusion, asking her uncomprehendingly:
"What does that mean?"
She fixed her icy gaze deep into my eyes, speaking in a tone that chased away the fear:
"He can never hurt you again."
Good God!... Am I dreaming?! Have I finally awakened in a world where my mother returns to love me, to embrace my confusion and reassure me against my father’s brutality?! Wasn’t she the one who fought tooth and nail with life to cover up his flaws and worship him for years?! What on earth had flipped things around in this sudden, unimaginable way?
I pushed my chaotic thoughts aside, turning with rapid breaths toward the man standing silent as a mountain behind me, and said with a broken, eager smile:
"I forgot to introduce you to Robert..."
I shifted my gaze to Robert, whose towering face had hardened into a solid block of steel, his eyes burning with a dark, venomous hiss unlike anything I had ever witnessed. I finished warmly:
"Robert... this is my mother, Meredith."
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Robert’s POV
I stood frozen, clinging to my fragile composure in the middle of this filthy play, while my mind struggled to absorb the sheer mountain of chaos surrounding us.
And when Julie turned toward me, her soft eyes shining with an innocent, longing eagerness I had never seen before, crying out with hope:
"Robert... this is my mother, Meredith."
My chest seized. She thinks she’s Meredith... she has no idea she is standing before her twin sister, "Violet," she has no earthly clue that the woman sitting before her in that black dress isn’t her aunt, but her real mother the very woman who engineered the destruction of my family!
I shook my head with agonizing difficulty. Confronting my father’s mistress—the woman who caused my mother’s absolute hell—was by no means an easy feat for me. My veins were boiling with a toxic poison screaming for bloodshed.
Julie turned toward her with a pride that utterly shattered my heart, and said:
"Mom... this is Robert, and he proposed to me today."
Violet tilted her head with an eerie, chilling coldness, fixing her glacial eyes upon me before speaking in a voice dripping with suppressed mockery:
"Heartiest congratulations to you both."
Before anyone could utter another word, Julie caught sight of my father standing firmly on his own two feet. Her pupils trembled with absolute shock, and she asked in utter bewilderment:
"You... you can walk?!"
I couldn’t take it anymore... oxygen was draining from the room, and my desperate urge to draw my weapon and plant a bullet right between that woman’s eyes was tearing my joints apart savagely.
I lowered my gaze toward Julie, and spoke in a dry, hoarse whisper:
"I’m stepping outside for a moment."
I spun around and shoved the outer door open with raw force, stepping out into the freezing night air of the garden.
I clamped my hands onto the edge of the stone wall with every ounce of strength I had until my fingers bled.
I was breathing violently; my craving to slaughter them both her and my father was squeezing my veins like a madman’s grip... but the image of Julie embracing her with that broken, desperate longing chained my hands.
For Julie’s sake... purely for her, I swallowed my burning coals and stayed silent.
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Julie’s POV
Robert bolted toward the garden with stormy, frantic strides, leaving behind the walls of the drawing-room suffocating in an eerie silence.
I turned toward Thomas, flashing him a sarcastic look before speaking with heavy mockery:
"What is this, Uncle Thomas? Did a miracle drop straight down from the sky today that suddenly got you standing on your feet?"
Thomas clenched his fist in sheer embarrassment, but before he could open his mouth to reply, my mother’s voice chimed in from beside me, cold and laced with a mocking tone:
"He was only pretending he couldn’t walk."
I froze dead in my tracks, snapping my stunned gaze and eyes toward my mother. How on earth could she speak with such sheer audacity?!
Noticing my blank astonishment, she smiled lightly, waving her hand dismissively:
"I’m only joking."
Thomas gave a forced, theatrical cough, stiffly straightening his back as he tried to reclaim a shred of his vanished dignity:
"I recovered recently... and simply wanted to surprise you all."
I rolled my eyes with dry irritation, snapping back sharply:
"An unfortunate surprise, to say the least."
A low laugh slipped past my mother’s lips... a laugh that mocked the entire situation! It was the very first time in my entire life I had ever seen her laugh in such a manner!
I averted my eyes from her, gesturing toward Harold lingering in the shadows of the corner:
"And this is Harold... Robert’s brother, and his son over there, Adam."
Harold took a brief step forward, speaking in a quiet, visibly uneasy tone:
"Pleased to meet you."
Then he bent down, firmly grasping his young son’s hand, and shifted his glacial pupils toward Thomas with a stern, menacing warning as he added:
"Enough surprises for today... but tomorrow, Father, everything will be brought to light."
Harold turned on his heel, using the heavy silence to abandon the mansion accompanied by his child.
The moment the door clicked shut behind them, my mother turned directly toward me with a sharp inquiry:
"Stef... where is he?"
I blinked in utter disbelief, offering a fractured smile:
"Really?! Are you actually asking me about Stef?"
She replied with a dry tone that carried a sudden, unexpected touch of maternal warmth:
"Yes... he is my son."
I let out a relieved sigh, speaking eagerly:
"He’s at home... he will be overjoyed when he finds out you’re asking about him!"
My mother gestured with her head toward the glass door leading out to the garden, ordering calmly:
"Go check on your fiancé... I shall remain here to chat with Mr. Thomas."
I obediently nodded:
"Very well."
I stepped out into the outer garden. A heavy, chilling quiet draped over the space, and I spotted Robert standing tall, his steel-firm hand resting against the stone wall, a cigarette burning between his trembling fingers with a fierce glow.
I approached him with light steps, placing my soft palm gently over his rigid arm, and asked anxiously:
"What’s wrong?"
He exhaled a thick cloud of smoke forcefully into the open air, glancing at me from the corner of his dark, unmoving face as he rasped flatly:
"Nothing."
I sharpened my tone with lingering suspicion, pressing on:
"I don’t know... but you look furiously angry!"
He whipped his head around to face me instantly, hissing with a sharp, terrifying venom that shook my core:
"I told you it’s nothing! ... Enough!"
I recoiled a step backward in shock, my chest tightening with sudden pain as I retorted in a broken voice:
"Fine... there’s no need to yell at me!"
He ignored my heartbreak, turning his massive frame completely back toward the wall to resume smoking with ruthless intensity.
I stared at his broad back for a few seconds, then spoke impulsively to shatter the iron wall between us:
"I was so shocked that your father can actually walk..."
He answered in a deep, hoarse murmur without looking back:
"It turns out there are a great many hidden things."
I sighed with sorrow, replying:
"Yes... you’re right."
Then I stepped a fraction closer to him, continuing in bewilderment:
"Did you know my mother is acting extremely strange? It’s like she isn’t even my mother!"
He blew out another thick plume of smoke, muttering with dark sarcasm:
"Perhaps she isn’t your mother!"
I knitted my brows in absolute astonishment, asking blankly:
"What do you mean?"
He whipped around and glared at me with murderous, death-ridden eyes, roaring with a terrifying, unhinged impatience that shook the garden grounds:
"Julie... for God’s sake, just shut up! Close your mouth!"
I locked up completely where I stood, swallowing a burning lump in my throat while tears stung my eyes. I shook my head with wounded pride, whispering through a trembling voice:
"I will close my mouth, Robert... and I won’t speak to you ever again!"
I spun around instantly, breaking into a stumbling run back toward the interior, leaving him entirely alone amidst his cigarette smoke and lethal darkness.
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Thomas’s POV
It had never once crossed my mind that Violet’s footsteps would ever grace the floors of my home again.
I stood staring at her with wide eyes, numbness consuming my limbs. How desperately I wanted, at that exact second, to rush toward her, to wrap my arms desperately around her graceful body, and to kiss the face untouched by the passing of years! How frantically this diseased heart still beats for her despite all the decades that have slipped away! I was never able—nor will I ever be able—to love another woman upon this earth save her... she was my sickness and my cure from the very beginning.
She glided past me with fluid, regal steps, settling onto the luxurious leather sofa with all that provocative elegance she had wielded twenty-five years ago. Leaning back, she tilted her head with a mocking gaze before her deep, rich voice pierced the silence:
"Did you miss me, Thomas?"
My legs abandoned their strength, and I sank onto the knee opposite her like the desperate devotion of a lover whose blood had been spilled, whispering with fractured breaths:
"Yes, Violet... by God, yes!"
A smile as cold as ice blossomed across her sculpted lips, as she replied with a voice entirely stripped of warmth:
"Unfortunately... I do not share the exact same sentiment, Thomas."
My ribs seized with a crushing ache, and I squeezed my trembling hand hard over my knee, pleading in a low, broken tone:
"I am so terribly sorry, Violet... I know I drugged you that night, and I know I ruined your relationship with Morgan and destroyed your life... but I did all of that because I love you! Because I couldn’t bear the thought of you belonging to any man other than me!"
She crossed her arms haughtily across her chest, answering dryly:
"Regrets are of no use whatsoever now."
My trembling fingers stretched out to brush the edge of her black dress, as I begged desperately:
"I will do anything to make you forgive me... anything you ask!"
She tilted her emerald eyes toward me, asking with suspicious, biting mockery:
"Anything?"
I nodded frantically:
"Yes!"
She leaned her body back slightly, her piercing gaze locking deep into the pupils of my eyes, releasing a whisper that dripped with pure poison and retribution:
"I highly doubt you are capable of doing what I truly desire, Thomas..."
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I know, my dear readers, that you would like me to publish more than one Chapter a day, but I am currently lacking the passion. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but whenever I try to write, my chest tightens and I feel that writing exhausts me. I hope my passion returns, and don’t forget that I love you all.