Too Late for Your Tears

Chapter 2

Outside the grand gates, a massive torrential downpour suddenly began to crash down from the dark sky. The freezing rain fell in heavy sheets, soaking the muddy road instantly as Ethan Vance prepared to take his very first step into the storm.

He walked blindly through the dark, cold night, his body shaking with a deep, hidden pain. Without even realizing it, his feet led him down the old roads until he stood right outside the wooden gate of the Bennett Orphanage.

Laughter and playful shouts drifted beautifully from inside the warm building, cutting through the heavy roar of the falling water. Ethan stopped his body and listened to the happy sounds, feeling a sharp, agonizing pang of loss deep inside his chest.

If his kind adoptive father had never taken him away ten years ago, would everything have been different for him? Would he have been just like those other orphans, growing up happy, safe, and completely carefree within these simple walls?

He looked down at his wet boots with a dejected smile, feeling too broken to face anyone. He turned his body around and was about to walk away into the darkness when a loud, shaking voice suddenly called out to him.

"Ethan? Ethan, stop right there!"

He looked up into the blurry gray sky, wiping the cold water away from his eyes. He saw a small, elderly woman running toward him under a tattered black umbrella, her old feet splashing hard through the deep puddles.

It was Mother Martha, the kind elderly headmistress of the small private orphanage where he had lived as a little child. Her face was covered in wet rain and deep wrinkles, and her old eyes were full of a very sudden, intense worry for him.

"Mother Martha?" Ethan asked, his voice shaking with a deep wave of total confusion as he looked at her. "Why are you out here in this terrible storm?"

She did not answer his question, her old eyes scanning his pale face and trembling hands. "What happened to you, Ethan? "Why are you out here alone in the freezing rain without a warm jacket or a car? Come inside with me right now."

Ethan nodded his head slowly, a very bitter emotion striking deep into his cold heart as he silently took the side of her tattered umbrella. He walked with her toward the building, his soul aching with a heavy mess of memories.

He had been brought to the grand Sterling manor at the tender age of three, and he had spent ten long years working hard for his six adoptive sisters. Yet, despite giving them his entire life, his health, and all his care, he meant absolutely less to them than a total stranger.

But this old headmistress, who had absolutely zero blood relation to him, had warmly welcomed him inside the exact millisecond she saw him cast out in the dark.

By the time they walked through the door, it was already formal dinnertime. The small courtyard was full of the quiet sounds of the evening, and the sweet smell of simple hot rice soup floated through the warm kitchen door.

Grandfather Joseph, the kind-hearted old man of the house, was standing on the porch calling the little children in the yard to come inside. "Hey! You kids get inside the dining hall right now before the rain gets into your food!" Joseph shouted happily.

Grandfather Joseph stopped speaking the exact millisecond his eyes landed on Ethan's wet, tattered clothes. "Ethan? My goodness, boy! Look at you! Are you okay? Do you want some nice, hot food to warm your body?"

"No, thank you, Grandfather Joseph," Ethan declined softly, looking down at the floor boards with a dejected smile. "I am not very hungry tonight. Please save the food for the little kids in the home."

"Don't be silly, Ethan!" Mother Martha insisted quickly, gently pulling him inside the warm room by his sleeve. "You are completely frozen from the storm, and you must eat a full bowl of hot food right now."

"Hmph! He is just trying to act tough as usual," a sharp, pretty voice suddenly said from the corner of the dining table.

It was Chloe Bennett, the headmistress's biological granddaughter, who had just recently graduated from the local imperial college. She was very young, completely innocent, and exceptionally beautiful, though she wrinkled her small nose in a classic tsundere distaste as she looked at him.

"You have to eat something right now, Ethan Vance," Chloe said in a haughty, defensive tone, turning her head away quickly. "Otherwise, it would be extremely rude to have a guest go hungry in our house. My grandparents worked very hard to cook this porridge."

Mother Martha scolded her granddaughter with deep, matching affection. "Chloe! Stop using that sharp tone with your brother right now! Go and fetch him a clean dry towel to wipe his face!"

This was a completely private orphanage, built and funded entirely by the grandparents’ own tiny savings over the years. They were so exceptionally kind-hearted that they took in any abandoned child that no one wanted in the city, and it had grown into a full-fledged sanctuary.

Unable to refuse their pure kindness and love, Ethan sat down at the long wooden table and agreed to take the bowl. Drinking the warm porridge slowly, he felt a comforting, healing warmth spreading beautifully through his empty, aching stomach.

The deep emotional contrast was an absolute nightmare inside his mind as he swallowed the hot food. In the multi-billion-stone Sterling family manor, Ethan had always done the absolute most work every single day and night.

Yet, he had always eaten the latest scraps alone in the dark kitchen sink, cursed at by the mean nanny and treated far worse than even the paid servants. He had been nothing but an unpaid, disposable worker to his six ungrateful sisters.

His emotions were a complete mess, his heart throbbing with a palpable sense of pent-up frustration as he held the wooden bowl. Grandfather Joseph sat down right next to him, his old face full of a deep, fatherly worry.

"Ethan, child, tell me what happened at the Sterling manor today," Grandfather Joseph asked gently, his rough hand resting on Ethan's arm. "Why did they let you leave their house in the middle of a winter storm?"

"It is nothing important, Grandfather," Ethan said quietly, shooting straight to hide his terminal cancer diagnosis and his deep heartbreak. "Our paths simply diverged today. I am no longer a part of the Sterling family."

"Even if the high-and-mighty Sterling family has rejected your value and thrown you away, you will always be our greatest treasure in this house," Grandfather Joseph comforted him deeply, his voice full of an unyielding strength. "You can come home permanently, boy. We can support you."

Chloe Bennett looked at Ethan’s pale face from across the table, her tsundere expression softening into a small, sweet look of pure care as she tried awkwardly to console him. "Grandfather is right, you fool," Chloe said in her usual haughty way. "Our orphanage is small, but we have plenty of food for you."

Ethan felt a little better inside his chest, the heavy darkness in his soul lifting just a tiny bit because of their words. He reached out his hand and gently patted Chloe's head, messing up her long, neat hair with a small smile.

"Hey! Stop that right now, you big dummy!" Chloe teased him with a haughty, flushed tone, her face turning a bright shade of pink as she stepped back. "I am a college graduate now, so you cannot just pat my head like a little baby!"

Just then, a violent chaos suddenly erupted right at the front door of the orphanage. The heavy wooden gate outside was kicked open with a thunderous, echoing crash that made all the little children shriek in pure terror.

Mother Martha's face turned completely white as she heard the loud shouts, her body shaking with an intense wave of panic. "Ethan! Take Chloe right now and hide inside the back room!" the headmistress screamed frantically.

"Mother, why should we hide? Who is outside the gate?" Ethan asked fast, his eyes turning into sharp, ice-cold slits as he stood up from the wooden bench, his terminal fatigue completely vanishing behind his protective instincts.

Before the headmistress could answer his question, a brutal gang of six heavily armed thugs kicked open the main dining hall door. The men stepped into the warm room, tracking thick, dark mud and old blood across the clean floorboards.

"Pay up, you old parasites!" The lead thug, a ruthless brute named Garrick Thorne, cursed loudly, swinging a jagged iron crowbar around his head as his men surrounded the old grandparents. "The deadline was noon today! If you cannot pay the interest tonight, this pretty girl is coming with us!"

Garrick Thorne pointed his dirty iron crowbar straight at Chloe, his eyes flashing with a disgusting, predatory greed. "She has just graduated from college—young, innocent, and exceptionally beautiful. She will fetch a high price in the city, at least six figures a year as collateral!"

"And if that is not enough to cover the debt, all these little orphan children in the yard can also be sold to the slave mines!" The surrounding thugs, led by a scarred man named Jaxen, roared with loud, mocking laughter, stepping closer to the crying kids.

Chloe Bennett hid tightly behind her grandfather's back in absolute, paralyzed fear, her body shaking violently as the mean thugs closed in on the table.

Grandfather Joseph was completely furious, his old chest heaving with a raw, calcified anger as he shielded his family. "This is a pure lie!" Joseph shouted fiercely. "The original ten thousand debt has already been completely repaid to your boss last month!"

"Repaid? Do you think we are a local charity house, old fool?" Garrick Thorne sneered loudly, letting out a sharp, cruel laugh as he stepped closer. "You borrowed ten thousand pieces from our loan sharks, but with the compound interest, you now owe exactly one million!"

"Either pay up the one million yuan right now, or hand over the beautiful girl to my men!" Garrick Thorne ranted fiercely, raising his heavy crowbar high over Grandfather Joseph's head with absolute, murderous intent.