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Chapter 243: A web of conspiracy
“What is the meaning of what you did earlier?” she hissed, but her hands were already clutching his bare shoulders, her nails digging in. “You called Margaret. You’ve stirred the hornet’s nest.”Frank chuckled, pulling back to look at her. His eyes, the same Robbins blue but infinitely colder, scanned her face. “I am the hornet, darling. And the nest is already full of other stinging things. I hear we have a guest. A very familiar-looking guest.”He released her and walked towards a sideboard where a bottle of expensive bourbon waited. He poured two glasses, the towel riding dangerously low. “Tell me everything. And then,” he said, turning and handing her a glass, his gaze turning flinty, “we’re going to talk about how you and my dear ex-wife are going to help me get the other pieces of the Aetheron treasures. I just found out that the crown is just one piece of the three Aetheron treasures."Rose took the glass, her hand steady despite the chaos inside her. She looked at the man she
Chapter 242: Secret lovers
Leif looked from his aunt’s grim, resolute face to the dark window, where the ghosts of the past seemed to press against the glass. The weight of the gilded chairman’s chair felt like nothing compared to the weight she had just placed on his shoulders. This was no longer about outmaneuvering his cousin or pleasing his mother. This was about survival, and justice.He slowly nodded, the lost boy receding, replaced by something harder, more determined. “What do we do?” Leif asked, his voice steadier now, carrying a resolve Margaret hadn’t heard in him before.“First,” Margaret said, leaning back, “you need to understand the full battlefield. Not the propaganda, not the family myths. The truth. You were a baby when it all fell apart. The stories you heard…”“…Were from Mother,” Leif finished, a hint of bitterness in his tone. “She always said Uncle Frank was a scapegoat. That Grandfather needed someone to blame for Richard’s death, and since Frank had been arguing with him over the comp
Chapter 241: Revisiting The Buried Lies!
Margaret's breath hitched, a dry, painful sound in the quiet room. The guilt over Chloe was now joined by a deeper, more rotten shame. Her entire adult life, her career, her distance, her fractured relationship with her daughter had been built, in part, on a foundation of Frank’s lies. She hadn't just abandoned her child; she had done so while carrying the banner of a monster.She curled forward, elbows on her knees, face in her hands. The cool Margaret Robbins was gone. In her place was a woman gutted by the sheer scale of her own misjudgment.She had run from a monster of her own creation, and in doing so, had handed him the perfect weapon: her own absence.A soft knock at the connecting door to the sitting room made her jerk upright, hastily wiping her eyes. “Yes?”The door opened a crack, revealing Leif, looking weary and uncharacteristically uncertain. “Aunt Margaret? I saw your light. I… I heard a noise.”He was lying. He’d probably been listening in the hall, drawn by the tens
Chapter 240: Margaret's guilt
Margaret turned off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into soft darkness save for the city glow through the windows. The guilt remained, a permanent scar. But now, it had a purpose. It would fuel the fight to secure the future she had once so carelessly abandoned.Entering her own quiet guest room, the events of the night pressed down on her like a physical weight. She was about to slide into bed when her phone, charging on the nightstand, vibrated with a sharp, insistent ring.The screen glowed with the words UNKNOWN NUMBER. At this hour. Her senses, already on high alert, snapped to full attention. Skepticism warred with a cold prickle of intuition. She picked it up.“Hello?”A moment of silence, then a voice, smooth as aged whiskey and laced with a familiarity that sent a jolt of ice down her spine.“Hello, Margaret.”The voice was slightly altered, disguised by a poor digital filter or a bad connection, but the cadence, the particular way it wrapped around her name—it was unmis
Chapter 239: When monsters are free to roam
Chloe stood frozen for a second in the doorway, the dam of her own pride and anger finally shattered by the night's violence. She had thought she was strong enough to handle issues as an adult. But how wrong she was. If Ethan hadn't shown up, she wouldn't have known what her fate would be by now.A sob, harsh and involuntary, ripped from her throat. She didn't step forward; instead she fell forward, collapsing into her mother’s space.Margaret’s book thudded softly to the carpet. Her arms, which hadn't held her daughter in two decades, came up instinctively, catching her, wrapping around the trembling form.And then, it all poured out. The tears were not gentle; they were a storm, hot and desperate against Margaret’s silk robe. The words were muffled, broken by gasps. "I'm sorry, Mother," Chloe sobbed, her fingers clutching at the fabric. "I was so angry with you. For leaving me behind. For twenty years. I hated you for it."She shook her head violently, burrowing closer as if she c
Chapter 238: The Glided Cage
Later that night, in a part of the city untouched by Robbins family drama, Chloe was a whirlwind of desperate motion in the center of the dance floor in one of the popular night clubs in the city—'the glided cage' as it was called.She wasn’t dancing for joy; she was trying to outrun the ghosts in her head—the mother who’d returned a stranger, the suffocating mansion, the weight of a name that felt like a cage. Jazz and rock fought for dominance in the smoky air, a chaotic soundtrack to her internal storm. She moved like a wounded animal, all frantic energy and no grace, the sharp, sweet smell of expensive gin clinging to her like a second skin.She was barely conscious of the man who sidled up to her, his smile all practiced charm. He matched her movements, said something lost to the music. In her blurred, self-destructive state, he was just another blur, a warm body offering an escape from the thoughts. Numbly, she let him lead her off the floor, up a dimly lit staircase that prom
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