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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
Chapter 237: A word of gratitude
The drive home was a blur of manicured suburbs and churning thoughts. Jennifer’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, her mind replaying the day’s horrors and oddities on a loop: Emma’s fragile pallor, the wrongness in "Ethan's" eyes, Rose's hissed conversation about "Frank" and "plans." By the time she pulled into the driveway of her mother’s cozy, sensible bungalow—the home she’d moved back into to save money—the anxiety had condensed into a hard, urgent knot in her chest.She found her mother, Helen, in the kitchen, the familiar, comforting scent of rosemary chicken in the oven doing little to soothe her.“Mom,” Jennifer said, her voice sounding strained even to her own ears.Helen turned, her warm, careworn face shifting from welcome to immediate concern. “Jenny? What’s wrong? How is Emma?”That was all it took. The dam broke. Jennifer slumped into a kitchen chair, the words tumbling out in a rushed, hushed torrent. She described seeing Emma—the relief, the worry. Then she
Chapter 236: Something's off
Jennifer stayed a while longer, making quiet, comforting small talk until she saw Emma’s eyelids grow heavy. She tucked the blanket around her, promised to check in tomorrow, and slipped out of the room, closing the door with a soft click.The relief of seeing Emma alive warred with a churning sense of dread in her stomach. The mansion’s usual comforting silence now felt oppressive, every shadow holding a secret. Distracted by her thoughts, she took a wrong turn at the end of the corridor, veering away from the grand staircase and into the less familiar west wing.She realized her mistake when the carpet pattern changed and the portraits on the walls became sterner, older Robbins ancestors. She was about to turn back when a sharp, tense voice sliced through the quiet from a half-open door down the hall.“…don’t care what you think, Frank. The timing is too convenient.”Jennifer froze. It was Rose Robbins’ voice, stripped of its usual theatrical warmth, sharp with frustration and somet
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