Chapter 319: Cadelaria’s many troubles.
Sienna rose, her expression unreadable. "Six a.m.," she said softly. "You’ve finally finished. If--and I am only saying if because I would like to believe that you have learned your lesson. If you meddle again, I will double the number of sacks. And it will be garlic, like I said last night. If you want to help yourself, practice your speed by making trips to the kitchen to help the cooks peel garlic often. And don’t bother running to Jess or Jesse or Elias. Not even your husband or sons. Everyone is on my side. Cyra is the only one that might be offended by my actions, but she won’t dare to do anything because she is counting on me to bring her and Geo together."
Lady Cadelaria collapsed against the table, her eyes hollow, her spirit broken.
Sienna lifted her pan, twisting her right hand, her movements precise, her smile faint but triumphant. "Mother-in-law, we can all live a good life if you stay in your lane. Instead of fighting me, help me lead the women of the fox tribe to greater heights. I am organizing a mental health and female empowerment day for all the women in the tribe. I am getting ideas and offers for help from everyone except you. Don’t let your petty resentment ruin the things Marius once loved about you. It is not too late for you to reform."
Sienna sighed. Everything she had to say was said, so she turned the door and left.
The estate was waking, servants bustling in the corridors, unaware that the battle they had whispered about had lasted all night.
Sienna stopped in the foyer, when her eyes found Elias. He was waiting for her with a cup of hot coffee and her rabbit shaped boots. Her bag was strapped across his shoulder. It seemed he had sent people to retrieve her property from the spa and office.
She jogged to him, a cheeky smile dotting her face. If he was not holding a cup of hot coffee, she would have thrown herself into his arms.
"Satisfied?" He asked softly. His expression was unreadable, like always.
Sienna nodded. "Very."
A slight smirk appeared on his lips. "Then let’s go home."
***
Lady Cadelaria stumbled into her bedroom, her hands raw from the endless bean counting, her eyes swollen with tears. The image of a single bean seed made her want to throw up and scream. From now on, they would be a reminder of her humiliation. She collapsed on the bed beside her husband, who was still deep in slumber.
Her muffled sobs grew louder until they pierced his dreams. Lord Marius stirred, sat up, and blinked at her in confusion.
"Why are you crying?" she asked, his voice heavy with sleep.
She clenched her fists, her jaw trembling as she recounted the ordeal. "Sienna forced me to count beans all night. Six sacks! She humiliated me, treated me like a servant. And the worst of it, she proudly declared that nobody in our family would side with me even if I complained. She made it seem as if I were the villain of the family." Conveniently, in her tale, she left out Kiko.
Marius listened, his expression neutral. "Was the punishment deserved?" He asked finally.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. She wanted to deny it, to scream she was blameless, but the truth weighed on her chest.
He sighed. "If you hadn’t gone to the Queen mother, whispering that Sienna should be made a second wife, none of this would have happened. You stirred trouble, and now you reap its fruit. If you want peace, act like a proper elder. Stop causing storms in this house."
With that, he lay back down, pulling the blanket over his shoulders, leaving her trembling.
Cadelaria’s tears fell harder. "You never used to treat me this way," she whispered, her voice breaking. "No matter what I did, you would look the other way, cover for me or support me. Why have you become so cruel?"
He turned slightly, his eyes shadowed. "And that was my mistake. I looked the other way, so you siphoned over two hundred fifty million from the family accounts. If you had simply misused it, or wasted it, I would have laughed. But you sent it to your family! I didn’t even know about Elias’s coming of age gifts until Sienna sent me a message about them!
You are not the only one to blame in this mess. I looked the other way for so long and this allowed you to run unchecked for so long. Then again--you used to be sensible. Now, I don’t recognize you."
The words cut deeper than any punishment Sienna could devise. Cadelaria sat there, staring at the man who had once defended her against the world, who had once cherished her wisdom and leaned on her counsel. Once upon a time, if she complained about so much as a cut on her finger, he would summon an entire hospital department to tend to her wounds. Now he went to sleep despite her fingers being bruised and red. He looked at her as though she were a stranger.
Her sobs echoed in the room, mingling with the silence of the night. She thought of the days when her word carried weight, when her children bowed to her authority. When her grandchildren called her sweetly and obeyed her every word.
She had thought it was a masterstroke to get the Queen mother to have a word with Sienna and suggest she be relegated to second wife. Instead of diminishing Sienna’s influence, it had backfired spectacularly. Sienna had come out with her dignity intact, while she herself was left counting beans in the dark.
Marius’s words replayed in her mind: act like a proper elder. But what did that mean now? To sit quietly, to accept Sienna’s dominance, to swallow her pride? To admit that Sienna had won! The thought was unbearable. Yet the alternative--continuing her schemes, seemed to drive her further into isolation. And now, Kiko was a widow. A thing that gave her an impending sense of doom.
She wiped her tears, staring at her husband’s sleeping form. His breathing had already steadied as he drifted back to sleep. Cadelaria wondered if she could ever reclaim her place in the family, in her husband’s heart--or if the door was forever closed.