Madam Yosie stepped into the apartment with the air of someone accustomed to entering rooms as though they already belonged to her. Her eyes swept across the place with cold judgment, from the modest sofa to the stacks of documents scattered carelessly across the table."This place is awfully small for someone who claims to be shaping a grand future," she muttered, sitting down on the sofa without waiting for an invitation. Her gold-engraved cane rested neatly beside her.Rachel no longer went back to her parents' house, even though her mother had been living alone ever since Mr. Had died three years ago.Rachel closed the door slowly, still struggling to process the shock. "How did you find this address?""I always know where you go, Rachel," Yosie replied flatly. "I also know about your visits to that academy. And those sweet little messages you've been sending to my granddaughter."Rachel sat down in the chair opposite her, trying to regain control of the conversation."If you alre

Those words struck Shenina like a wave of icy cold that froze her entire body. She stood there motionless, her hand still bleeding from the bite she had inflicted on Yosie, yet the physical pain felt insignificant compared to what she had just heard.“You’re lying,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “My father is Thom Haye. He’s the one who raised me!”“He raised you,” Yosie corrected sharply, still clutching her bleeding hand, though the calculating sharpness in her eyes had not faded in the slightest. “But he isn’t your biological father, darling. Rachel is your mother, and pregnant with other man when she was Thom's wife." Shenina shook her head rapidly, stumbling several steps backward, her entire body trembling violently. “No!!”“Thom had a DNA test done,” Yosie continued, watching the confusion on Shenina’s face and ruthlessly exploiting it. “And the results showed that you aren’t his daughter, darling. But he chose to raise you anyway.”“No,” Shenina repeated, tears now stre

However, something changed the following morning.Shenina came down to the dining room earlier than usual, still wearing a simple pair of pajamas. Her eyes still showed signs of exhaustion, but they were no longer as empty as they had been over the past few days.“Good morning,” she greeted softly, taking her usual seat and surprising Thom and Jasmine, who were already seated and quietly having breakfast in the silence that had become their routine lately.“Darling.” Jasmine looked at her, her voice filled with cautious hope. “Did you sleep well?”Shenina nodded slowly and took a piece of bread from the basket in the middle of the table. “Well enough, Mom.”Yitzhak, sitting across from her, looked at his sister hesitantly, unsure whether he should talk to her normally or remain as cautious as he had been over the past few days.“She... are you okay?”Shenina looked at her younger brother for a long moment. A faint, genuine smile appeared on her face for the first time since that night

Rachel sat alone in her apartment, her phone lying on the table with Yosie’s last message still glowing on the screen: Use your daughter as our personal bank immediately.For the first time since this plan had begun years ago, Rachel didn’t immediately reply.Shenina’s words kept replaying in her mind, sharp and brutally honest in a way she had never expected from the teenage girl she had always considered easy to control.A bad mother. A mother who tried to sell her own daughter for money. A mother who was now trying to use that same daughter again for the exact same reason.She stood and walked toward the small drawer in the corner of the room where she kept old documents, contracts she had received from her mysterious contacts over the years without ever reading them carefully. She had simply followed instructions, accepted the money, carried out the assignments, and never questioned who was really pulling the strings behind them.That night, with her hands trembling slightly, she

She sent the message, then sat perfectly still, her heart pounding as she waited for a response that might never come...or worse, one that could lead to her arrest.Five minutes passed without a reply.Ten minutes.Rachel began considering shutting off the phone and disappearing, finding another way to escape the mess she had created herself.But just as she was about to stand and leave the café, her phone vibrated.Unknown Number: How do I know this isn’t a trap?Rachel let out a relieved breath, her fingers quickly moving across the screen.Rachel: You won’t know until you verify it yourself. But I can give you three names: Meridian Global Energy, Elena Reyes, and a much deeper network connected to the remnants of the Obsidian Circle. I have documents proving the flow of funds connecting them all, including the money I’ve been receiving.The reply came much faster this time.Iris: Why are you giving us this information now?Rachel stared at the screen for a long moment, considering