Ch. Finished 7 Finished 7

Chapter 7 

ZAR Vouchers 

Kenneth hurried to take it, thanking him over and over. 

The moment he pressed play, all the strength drained from his body. 

It was his and Mom’s voices outside the operating room. 

And their conversation in front of the ward–plotting to drug me with psychiatric meds and ruin my dignity at Caroline’s celebration party. 

The last part was right before I died–Caroline in my room, setting the fire, taunting me, and slandering me. 

He gripped the recorder so hard his knuckles whitened, his heart twisting in agony. 

“So Linda had known all along. 

“While she was enduring the pain of fire searing her skin, I was still stabbing her heart again and again. 

“That quiet sadness and helplessness weren’t forgiveness–they were because she’d given up completely. 

“She is the girl I’ve loved for over ten years and promised to never leave. 

“Twice, I’d pushed her into the fire. How much pain and despair had she suffered? 

“What the hell had I done?” 

It was like someone had shattered his spine–he bent over, curling up in pain. 

09.175 

Chapter 7 

Night fell. The fire was finally out. 

The air was thick with the stench of burning. 

The firefighters searched the whole villa, only to hand him a single diamond ring. 

11 

288 Vourier 

His assistant rushed in, clutching a thick stack of investigation files. He hesitated. “Mr. Thornton, you’d better prepare yourself.” 

Before Kenneth could take them, Mom–no one knew when she’d arrived -snatched them away. 

All the truth about how Caroline had humiliated me for years, and the secrets she’d hidden, lay bare before their eyes. 

Caroline’s birth parents were human traffickers. They died in a car crash while trying to escape arrest. 

She recognized Dad as one of the arresting officers and staged a scene of being bullied, nearly getting dragged into an illegal brothel. Dad couldn’t bear it and ended up adopting her. 

But she was a venomous snake lying in wait. While Dad was undercover, she deliberately shouted in the street that he was a cop. He was gunned down by criminals. She teared up, playing the innocent, and even claimed it was my vanity–that I’d urged her to say it so I could brag about having a cop for a dad. 

Mom never said it out loud, but she’d blamed me ever since. 

When she had leukemia, I kept it from her and gave her blood and bone marrow. Meanwhile, Caroline ran off with Dad’s death benefit. 

Later, when Mom recovered and I was set to marry Kenneth, she claimed she had depression and didn’t want to drag us down, so she went back home. 

08.170 

Chapter 7 

When no one was around, I was pushed down the stairs. 

Had my wrists slashed open by scissors in the middle of the night. 

I dodged vases falling from above. 

288 Vouchers 

All these years, everyone believed her every word. I was branded vain and selfish. Any time I showed emotion, I was accused of being cruel and petty, subjected to endless cold violence. 

And her “depression” was fake. 

Behind closed doors, she bullied, slept around, and even trafficked more than a dozen children and girls. 

Everything I’d tried to explain, only to be met with cold stares, finally hit them like bullets after all these years. 

Mom sobbed until she nearly passed out, collapsing to her knees. “My dear… I was wrong. I’m so sorry…” 

Kenneth swayed to his feet, carefully wiped the ring with his sleeve, and slipped it into his pocket. Then, calmly, he told the assistant to take Mom home. He, meanwhile, made a call to Caroline.